Why branding is important to your marketing and growth
Branding is everything to your marketing. But branding plays a really important role in many other areas of a company or organisation and like many parts of marketing, they play right into the human psyche.
Much of what a good brand will do to your end user is unseen and almost subliminal and is more powerful than you might, at first, consider it to be.
A brand is far more than a logo, it’s more than some colours and typefaces thrown together, and it’s something that runs deeper than a JPEG. It just is.
There are some very important and key areas that a brand plays into that we wanted to highlight in this blog and those are:
- Brands gain loyalty
- Branding builds sales
- A brand can build a team
- Marketing is easier with a brand
- Awareness is driven with your branding
- You’ll gain more value from a good, well-known brand
- And your brand and the guidelines that accompany it will keep you consistent.
Let’s take a look…
Branding builds loyalty
Brand loyalty is a huge area of discussion for branding. One bad headline can wipe £1,000,000s off the stock of a brand and therefore the protection of a brand and how it’s involved in the media, marketing, and advertising world is a big deal.
A brand needs to be the core of a business and the centre from which all is created, and it also needs to be protected. You don’t want your brand associated with the wrong topics, the wrong events, the wrong stories, and certainly not the wrong headlines. Carefully placed PR and social media stories are the lifeblood of some and the downfall of others.
Loyalty is powerful. Apple is surely one of the best examples here. They don’t even produce the best phones technically speaking, but their brand following and fanbase carry the products through to the till.
Branding is as much about them, as it is you
A brand can say as much about a person as the brand itself. Using the Apple example above, just think about the simple, “Are you an Android or Apple user?”, conversation you’ll often see online. There’s a ‘tribe’ element to this choice. You’re either/or. You’re supporting City or United.
A brand needs to align with the ideal end user’s beliefs and values. What does your brand stand for? Does it match your ideal customer? Think about the movement right now (Oct 2019) for the environment.
Imagine if your eco-friendly product was found to be aligned with the wrong co-sponsor or was associated with an influencer who didn’t match your ideal client’s views. It all needs considering in this fast-paced world.
It’s a strong team building block
If you’re building a company or organisation, then the brand will be something that your team will wear and become a part of. That’s when you create something very special. We suspect that being an ‘Apple Genius’ or a shareholder for Waitrose because you work there, will say something about that person, and it will be something they’ll be proud of.
The result (when you do it well) is an engaged and brand advocate-led workforce and team that become an extension of everything you believe in and want to change in the world.
That’s a mission. That’s so much more than a palette of colours and some thrown together assets.
Building assets and marketing is easier
One area that really benefits from a solid brand identity is your marketing. How often have you had a new marketing campaign and needed digital or printed content, webpages or emails, adverts or videos and had to start from scratch with the creative?
With a good brand that comes complete with guidelines and the important elements and details of the brand, you’ll find when you’re creating marketing material you’re already halfway there and then some.
A simple landing page builds itself as you’ll have:
- The fonts to use
- The colour palette
- Design assets and icons
- Tone of voice
- Brand theme and style
With all this in place already, you’ll be able to create content from social media to large campaigns so much faster.
The awareness factor
Clearly, branding builds awareness. The continual and consistent theme, style, colours, message and all that is encompassed in a good brand builds that important “I’ve heard of them” thought and that’s when brand awareness starts to work really well.
Being aware of a brand and then engaging with it is the journey to sales, subscriptions, downloads, event sales or whatever your brand is aiming to do. Each time your message is seen and it’s on brand you’ll build on the awareness.
Given then most people now need to see a message from a brand anywhere from 5-25 times it’s important that the way a message looksis on point, on message, on brand, and consistent.
Added zeros to your business value
A good brand will add value in the bank to your business and not just in sales from awareness and marketing. A brand has a value and when a company floats and goes public, the brand is a big area taken into account.
One bad headline, a poorly launched product, or a bad PR or marketing campaign can affect the value of a brand and literally change its share price overnight.
A brand is the DNA and the lifeblood of a business and the confidence in a brand can make or break a company almost immediately. Although it’s unlikely to have harmed Nike for long, the recent #JustBurnIt social media trend certainly ‘caught fire’ online.
The sports brand used an NFL player who protested against a strong issue in the US by kneeling (not standing) during the national anthem. Nike support the underdog and the grassroots in many cases, but many Nike owners chose to burn their apparel in protest back to the brand.
Keeps your content consistent
We saved the best until last…
Consistency is everything in marketing and as your brand goes hand-in-hand with your marketing messages, this will drive that consistency when you use it everywhere.
No marketing from your corporation, company or organisation should go out ‘off-brand’ and every element you have for your brand from style, colour, setting, fonts and all should drive the creative for any visual marketing.
Just look at any Nike adverts and you’ll see the common theme of dark and dirty, grassroots, street sport, underdogs and that “Me v Me” attitude. Nike stands for something and all their ads aim to follow that.
Of course, they’ll use the same font, colours, direction and design creative, but it goes far deeper into what Nike stands for, this is what a true brand is all about.
Need help? Be Smart
We’d love to chat about creating a brand identity that does all of the above for you. There’s so much that goes into a brand, but you’ll gain so much from a well thought out and executed one.
Contact us now or get a quote here.
