Branding 101: Everything You Need to Know

Branding is what makes a football player choose a club over other clubs. It’s the image of a product/company, how customers think and feels about a brand. Branding is a great marketing tool that turns customers into fans and loyalists.

It’s all about what the customer experiences whenever they interact with your brand. Branding is another word for ‘a pleasing personality.’ In this article, we take a look at the importance of branding, elements of branding and stages of branding.

Importance of Branding

The primary goal of branding is to create customer loyalty. According to a survey, Customers choose to be loyal to certain brands for these top 3 reasons:

Quality – 88% agree
Customer Service: 72% agree
Price: 50% agree

The research also revealed that when branding goes bad, it negatively affects customer behaviour and brand perception.

Bad Reviews – 63% agree that have seen bad reviews about a brand
Brand Avoidance – 50% agree that they will avoid the brand
Rejection – 23% agree they WILL NOT pay attention to the brand

Considering these statistics, it’s important to take branding very seriously.

Elements of Branding

These are the components that make an excellent brand. These include Purpose, Logo, Products, Copywriting, and Colours.

Purpose simply means the brand must have a mission statement that drives towards customer needs and satisfaction.

A memorable logo is very important in building a brand reputation. It’s the first thing a customer notices and remembers. The logo must align with the brand purpose and could either a logotype or an icon or both. Iconic logos are easily recognizable and can push the brand to greatness.

The Products of a brand also affect customer behaviour. It’s very important that the products of a brand resonate with its purpose/mission. These are what the customer enjoys and should be of the highest quality possible.

Copywriting is also very key in Branding. A brand can adopt a style, tone, either formal or casual, funny or inspirational, etc. The goal is to be consistent in your chosen style and be recognised for it

Colours
When picking colours for your brand, there are some guidelines you can to follow to make a better decision. Research in colour psychology tells us that some colours are better suited to some products. The following illustrations explain the emotional and psychological impact of colours as regards customer brand perception.

Stages of Branding

There are 5 stages of branding. Every brand is in one of these stages. It’s important to know what stage your brand is. This will help you plan your strategy and make better decisions.

1. Brand Rejection/Negative Association: avoidance of your product due to negative perception or experience
2. Brand Non-Recognition: Your brand does not enter people’s mind at decision time; lack of awareness or differentiation
3. Brand Recognition: Your brand is recognised and is considered at decision making time
4. Brand Preference: When given a choice in two brands, your brand is preferred by the customer because it satisfies needs and is well differentiated.
5. Brand Loyalty: The customer chooses your brand consistently, despite other viable alternatives and occasional encounters of bad customer service.

Conclusion

Branding is essential to business survival. This is because of its ability to shape perceptions in the mind of customers. Business is all about customers exchanging their money for your products. Hence, it’s very important that they see, feel and think about your product/service in the most positive way possible.

Branding, really, is great marketing tool that turns customers into fans and loyalists as well as delivers success and profits for your business venture.

Got questions about how to develop your brand? Kindly contact POCARTI via info@pocarti.com or call +2348175487536.