5 Things You Need to Know About Marketing Your Brand

In last week’s post, we reviewed whether you need to create a marketing plan for your brand. Your marketing plan is truly an important time investment as this will serve as your roadmap to future success, and will chart the course for how to take your brand from where you are now to where you want to be.  It is the strategic foundation upon which you will build your entire brand.

Before we delve into How to Create Your Marketing Plan in 10 Easy Steps, you may be asking yourself this basic question: Do I even have a brand?  

What is a brand?

• A brand is being known for something by someone. 
• A reputation or promise.  A user’s/consumer’s perceptions and experience with a service or product.

5 Tips for Marketing Your Brand:

Your goal in marketing your brand is to create Brand Equity-which is basically, creating value for the attributes implied by your brand name.  Brand equity is the result of upholding your brand’s promise.  (Some brands, like Kleenex and Band Aid have done such a good job of creating equity, that we universally refer to all like- products using these brand names.)

Tip #1) Create Emotional Resonance.  What you are aiming to do with your brand is to give customers what they want, not what they need, which means fostering emotional resonance for your brand.   This is something that often gets overlooked as most businesses focus on their product’s benefits, and not on the end-user’s emotional experience which is the impetus to driving sales.

Tip #2) Timing is everything.  You want to be sure you are offering the right product or service at the right price at the right time.

Tip #3) Be Consumer-centric.  Your business should always be consumer-facing.  Be sure that everything that drives your decision-making is based on your audience, not your internal company needs.

Tip #4) Retention is Key.  Because it is more cost effective to keep a customer than to acquire a new one -you want to build strong relationships with your consumers and foster loyalty. When you build your brand, you want your user to really engage with it and have a great experience.  Then, they will keep coming back to do business with you and drive repeat sales.

Tip # 5) Beyond Retention-Aim for Recommendation.  Ultimately, the icing on the cake is for these loyal customers to become your “evangelists” and spread the word about your brand.  The importance of this cannot be underestimated as there is nothing like a personal testimonial.  No advertising or PR can do as much for your brand as a personal testimonial from a trusted source.  Just think of the power of customer reviews on Facebook or Trip Advisor.

In next week’s post, we will embark on How to Create Your Marketing Plan in 10 Easy Steps.