Is Branding Still Relevant?

Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail, or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does "branding" mean? How does it affect a small business like yours?

Is it still relevant?

Well, yes!

Branding helps you to leverage audience, company revenue — simply by putting a correct strategy into action. However, it's important to understand that Branding is a long-term action and you cannot achieve it within a short period. But in the race of achieving it in a shorter time, you're probably missing the right meaning of branding.

What is Branding?

Branding is one of the most misunderstood terms. You may often think that the terms brand and branding are similar.

But, No. These two are different.

Branding is what you do to establish your business reputation. It is your tone of voice, your messaging, and your visual identity while Brand is what you and your company do, what it represents. Business owners and marketers must understand that you cannot start branding a product or service without having a clear, well-understood brand already in place.

Once you complete your research of finding your Brand then only you can strategize branding — In branding, your main goal should not only to build an irresistible brand but also to grab your target audience (remember you cannot available for all). So work only to attract your target audience. However, it doesn't mean that your branding should design in only a customer-friendly way. At the same time, your branding should able to clear your brand story.

Here are a few points that relate your branding to the current scenario

Maintain a conversation with your customer:

Remember the days when consumers received branding and marketing messages, then made their purchasing decisions without ever interacting with brands? Those days are gone. Don't just sell; serve first. Don't just speak; listen, too. Don't just publish messages; receive them, as well.

Personalized with your audience

It's an era of social media. Those days of purchasing products by receiving messages are gone. Your customers buy your product after their interaction with your brand. So leverage your social media accounts to engage them.

Let them know your purpose

Your target customers don't want the best products and services. They don't believe your products or services as best until you prove it. You have to tell them why you are providing, what cause(s) you're supporting and how the funds they spend with you will be spent or invested. This trend is a hybrid, born of a genuine concern for the state of the world, as well as a need for new criteria in the decision-making process them these best services and products.

Don't sell them, help them

The world has become more complicated, not less. As customers navigate all the resources at their disposal, making it quick and easy for them to get the answers they need will help build affinity and repeat business.

Let them enjoy your products, don't just tell them

Mostly advertising companies tell you to show your brand as big, fancy, and relevant to your target audience. Make a fancy logo.

Increasingly a brand is defined by what a product delivers, not by how the marketers tell us how we should feel about it. Don’t tell me, show me. Spotify gives me easy access to a world of music. Do I care what it looks like? Probably not, once it has a great user experience. It would probably work equally as well as a white-label app. For the user, the brand is defined by what it does, not by its logo or color palette.

Branding through Word of Mouth

Branding through Word of Mouth always help you more than any other method. I worked with different brands and I've seen a massive increase in branding through back branding (word of mouth).

Conclusion:

Branding is always an inseparable part of the growth in the digital era. Even though you're a big player. However, branding is a boon for small and mid-sized entrepreneurs. Growth of your brand is not possible with branding.

The only thing you need to take care of is — you're in a digitized world, where things become online, marketing principles have been changed — so change your branding style. Give it a new look, new way, new approach.

Also, if you want DesignLab to help you in Branding, give us a call on +919822234768.