Due to the widespread growth of technological and social marketing platforms, brand building has become more important than ever. To be successful, business owners must pay close attention to how their brand represents their organisation in the marketplace. Customers will place value in their perception of your brand image when making their purchase decision.

What is a Brand?

Your brand is what makes your business stand out among the competition. It will usually focus on the trade name of your firm and incorporate a creative logo to help customers remember you. Your brand should focus on increasing the value that customers associate with your products. It should follow a well-devised strategy for reaching this goal.

Brand Building

The beginning of the building process for your brand should depend on the core competencies of your organisation and the market environment in your industry. What advantages do you have over your competition? Do these advantages apply to the customer’s perception of value? For example, if you have a large well-trained sales staff, you may want to focus your brand around your relationship and interaction with your customers.

After deciding on a good branding strategy, you can reinforce your brand image through promotion and advertising. Most business owners focus on clever wording and a clear simple message during marketing campaigns. Customers are also much more likely to be loyal to a brand when their past experiences are positive.

Importance

Building a great brand pays huge dividends in many different ways. Financially, one of the best results of good branding comes from overall business value. Many large companies put the value of their brand on their balance sheet. When acquisitions and mergers occur, the value of a firm’s brand can drive the purchase or partnering price. For example, when Tata Motors bought the Jaguar and Ranger Rover brands from Ford, they didn’t pay 2.56 billion U.S. dollars for factories and raw materials. They paid that huge price for the brand image.

With the growth of the online marketplace and increased competition across almost all industries, consumers are placing more and more value on premium brands. The most effective brands reach the customer through amazing creativity in advertising and by creating brand awareness. When given the choice between a product with a premium brand and a product with an unrecognised brand, almost all consumers will buy the premium brand, even if it is slightly more expensive.

It also important to note that branded products perform better during economic downfalls than unbranded products. Brands can outlive product cycles and help companies fight through recession. During down times, brand owners capitalise on the limited number of opportunities and experience faster re-growth when the economic climate changes.

Whether your business thrives on providing the lowest cost solution or the most reliable product to your customers, building your brand is extremely important. There are many platforms available for building your brand from social media to outstanding customer service. The key is to find out which strategy and platform will be most efficient for your business model, make a plan, and then run with it.