Branding to a product/service is what air is to us.
It’s an absolute necessity, not for just a few months or years but an investment for eternity — or until you wish to keep your business.
So branding is all of these:
Brand logo: From the colours to the typography used, your logo will shape the way customers perceive your brand.
Product packaging: Today, it’s an experience to receive a product by mail and unbox it. Customers value this experience and brands know this. They’ve even gone as far as investing in fancy, non-sustainable packaging for people whose word of mouth is valued ie. influencers.
Product/Service: Your product or service has to solve a problem or benefit your target user. If it does either of the above, your product receives good rep. It’s very rare that the best branding efforts can save an inferior product or service.
Tone of voice: If your product or service were a human, how would you like it to sound? Whether you use a warm and personable TOV or a corporate finance formal TOV, it’ll shape your brand’s personality and create an image of who you are as a brand in the minds of your customers. And it’s important to stick to this and be consistent with it across all collaterals otherwise it’ll reflect very badly on your brand. It pays to be consistent.
Word of mouth: Apart from the traditional WOM, digital WOM is king today. Need I say more?
Customer experience: This drives word of mouth. Excel in this department and you reap its dividends.
Advertising: This is a hard cost to justify to the higher-ups because the effects are not immediately visible but again, it’s one of the elements that contributes to the lifeline of your product/service. At some point, you’re going to have to invest in some or all of the digital marketing tools to create a solid brand image and entrench brand loyalty which are going to contribute to your brand’s equity in the long run.
Thanks for reading!
