Defining your brand’s goals and a clear path to how you will achieve them, and where those achievements will lead is key to the success of your business. No matter how successful your business is, if it’s not utilising the best strategies in digital marketing then you’re missing out on revenue.
You’re about to start a new business and know you need a logo. You also have a reasonable understanding of how branding is important – so you go online and Google images. Job done, right? Wrong!
While a logo is important, it’s just a tiny part of the branding you need to get your business out there, especially if you want your business to stand out from the crowd. Starting a business isn’t easy! There’s a lot to think about, new things to learn, and loads of mistakes to be made. But getting your branding wrong is a mistake you should avoid at all costs! In its earliest form, farmers used branding to mark and identify their cattle. The word brand was first introduced to advertising in the late 1950s by David Ogilvy, who coined ‘brand-image’ advertising. Two very different concepts. But, in simple terms, your branding is the image (the mark on an animal’s skin); your brand is what this image represents (the quality of the product). While the image may change and develop over time, your reason for starting the business will generally stay the same.
So, What does it involve?
Branding is the process of giving meaning to your product or service that connects your customer not just practically but emotionally to your brand. It is what makes them choose you over your competition. So, to simplify, it’s the reaction someone has when your business is mentioned. Your brand is often formed from the reason you want to go into business in the first place. What change do you want to make? What is the purpose of your product or service – the reason you want to start your business? These form a crucial part of defining who and what your company is. Stories are powerful, and behind every robust and recognisable brand is a good story.
“Every great design begins with an even better story.” — Lorinda Mamo.
There is a tendency to jump into the branding stage before a straightforward brand story is established simply because a logo is the most exciting, most apparent bit. It’s crucial that business owners and marketers understand that you cannot start branding a product or service without having a clear, well-understood brand already in place. Throughout the first module in our Skills Bootcamps in Digital Marketing, we will look at “the brains behind the beauty”. We will help you define your brand’s goals, how you will achieve them, and where those achievements will lead. We will guide you towards creating a mission and vision statement and examing the values behind your business.
We’ll also give you the knowledge and tools you need to create customer personas and understand how these potential customers think and feel, providing them with a service that encourages them to buy and keeps them coming back for more!
How to get your all-important product or service off the shelf and into the hands of the customer… What steps do they need to go through, what influences their decisions, what can you learn from this process, what potential roadblocks were in their way and how can we entice them
back? By using and analysing marketing funnels, you will learn what actions you need to take to drive sales, build loyalty and strengthen brand awareness.
