Despite what many people think, branding is more than just your business name or your logo. It ties in with your marketing strategy, advertising, business ethics and customer recognition, but ultimately, good branding creates results. Your Branding will not only define who you are as a company but help you to stand out from your competition. 

Despite this, branding often gets overlooked. Maybe it gets put aside so you can prioritise other areas of your business, or as mentioned, perhaps a lot of people assume that branding is defined by a logo. Unfortunately, there lies the problem for many businesses. After-all, your branding will tie into every aspect of your business, and therefore, to have a successful business you need to both understand and utilise your brand.

This article looks at the different aspects within branding, why they’re so important and how you can utilise branding to its full potential. 

Recognition

If I were to say the word ‘Apple’ do you think of the fruit or the company? Regardless of your answer, I don’t doubt that you’ve heard of the ‘Trillion dollar’ tech company. Even if you don’t own any of their products, if you saw the logo with the bitten apple it’s likely you would at least recognise the company straight away. 

Recognition is one of the biggest parts of your branding just the same as it’s a big part of the human brain. This is why having effective branding is so important. If you can get people to recognise your company you are already on the road to success. Naturally, a great logo and business name will help towards this goal, but there is a lot more to it than the points mentioned.

So what does recognition do for your business? 

Recognition will help you attract and keep customers, a customer that recognises your business is more likely to purchase your product or service. This is due to a familiarity that it creates, just like in everyday life, if you know somebody you will be more likely to trust them, the same will go for your business. 

A customer that trusts you is more likely to talk about your company, a study found that ‘9 out of 10 people say they trust what a customer says about a business more than what that business says about itself’ this means that a good brand, and a positive customer experience will create more business. This will lead to loyal customers. 

Going back to Apple, there are many people that will keep buying Apple products purely out of loyalty to the brand. As an example, Apple has seen loyalty rates exceed 90% for the past three years. This study found that individuals who owned iPhones were more likely to buy another iPhone due to brand loyalty.

This is why your branding is so important. Being able to obtain new customers is a success, but gaining loyal customers can be a necessity to your business.  

Marketing and Advertising

Marketing is the method behind the why and how you share your products, services, brand and more to customers. This is why good branding will create strong foundations for your marketing and advertising, once you have a brand to base your marketing on everything else should fall into place.

When creating your marketing strategy, the stronger your brand the easier it will be. For example, through your strategy you now know where and how to attract customers, but with your branding alongside that there are benefits such as knowing what they want from your brand.

In other words, if you are a sustainable brand and promote having plastic in your products, it’s likely your customers won’t buy into the marketing. This will link back to your brand identity. Customers with similar ethics and morals will identify with your business and therefore feel more inclined to purchase from your business. 

Creating a strong brand identity makes advertising more fluid. For example, you might have slogans, a nice logo, which will help to push your products further, but your brand identity will set you apart from competitors and as mentioned previously, allow customers to recognise and feel as though your company represents them. 

Additionally, good branding means that customers will be aware and educated about your business, at which point, advertising and marketing your products or services will already be easier. 

Ethics 

Branding will impact a range of areas, some of which include, your emotional connections, your business identity, and how customers perceive your company. One big example of this would be LUSH, who specialise in vegan and cruelty free cosmetics. From this their marketing is focused on pushing for a greener environment and promoting the importance of biodegradable products (See study). Through these ideologies, people now don’t only buy their products because they look nice, or smell nice, but also because of the message behind the brand. 

Creating this state of identity is a great way to build connections and retain loyal customers, but it can also work hand in hand in hiring employees. ‘A strong employer brand helps businesses compete for the best talent and establish credibility.’, With a strong brand, talented employees are more likely to join your team, this is why your branding is so important, not only is it externally beneficial with your customers but also internally.

In addition to this, if you feel passionately about your company’s ethos, having similar ideologies with your employees is a great thing to have. The only downfall to this might be that you lose a few customers who don’t agree with your ‘business identity’ but ultimately, as long as your branding is inclusive this shouldn’t be a problem. 

Results 

So what are the results of good branding? There’s a few to note… 

A study found that good branding will lead to an increase in revenue. As an example, brands with strong reputations and brands are 3x more likely to profit over their competitors. From this alone, it’s clear how much of an impact this can have on your business. You could be selling a similar product to your competitors, but if you are able to market and brand yourself correctly, you will already have more of an edge over competitors, and people will be more likely to buy from you.   

As has been mentioned previously, by having a brand you are building an identity, this leads to loyal customers, new customers and happy employees, all of which are key in building a successful business. All of the above works towards how people will perceive your company, including your competition, which is why building your brand successfully is so important. If people perceive your business in a positive light, you will be more successful, and vice versa if you are perceived negatively. 

A few tips to successful Branding 

To help with your branding we put together a list of tips to help you make the most out of your branding and, in turn, your business. 

1. Make sure to protect your branding, apply trademarking, patents and copyrights to your brand assets. 
2. Do your research. Who are you trying to target? What message are you trying to get across? What are your unique selling points?
3. Consistency. Build your brand assets, such as, your logo, taglines and branding efforts etc, make sure to use these throughout and not throw in something random with a means to ‘spice things up’ consistency is always key. 
4. Speak with a consistent voice. This ties in with ensuring you are consistent as this is how your customers will perceive you.
5. Build an online presence. One of the best ways you can do this is through getting a website. This is the staple in creating credibility for your brand