Did you know your brand strategy is the nucleus of all your marketing strategies? The actionable plan you define to present your company to the customers is essential. A wholesome strategy lets you communicate your mission, vision, and values to the target audience. Branding strategies are about using different ways to promote a business and its products or services. We’ve created a list of ten branding strategies to implement in 2024.
But before we explore the strategies, let’s first know about branding and its importance.
What is a brand?
You cannot touch or see a brand since it is an intelligible concept. It is a concept dealing with a company’s values and ideas.
Businesses create multiple visuals to convey their values, ideas, messages, and personalities. These visuals include logos, catchy slogans, products, services, and relevant domain names.
That means when you see an iconic logo, you remember those products or services the company offers or the experience you enjoyed. So, for example, when you see the Starbucks logo, you visualize its high-quality coffee. You also remember the in-store experience of the coffee brand.
Why build a strong brand?
Businesses must build a strong brand identity before focusing on selling their products or services. They can then stand out in their niche market from similar other brands and competitors. That is the only way they can drive customer attention and win their trust.
Customers who see a business as a strong brand return to buy more. Such loyal customers are the base for steady and consistent growth. So, a strong brand is essential in winning customer loyalty. This is also effective in consistently generating word-of-mouth publicity.
What is brand strategy?
Now comes the questions — what is brand strategy? It is about adopting a holistic approach to make your business values and ideas visualize for target customers.
So, the strategy is a plan to meet a company’s specific goals. It is also about shaping a certain perception in customers’ minds about the company. With the strategies in place, a company can hope to increase conversations to dominate its niche. The strategy helps generate brand awareness, brand sentiment, and brand equity.
So, adopt these time-tested strategies to enhance your brand’s reach in the target market.
Top 10 Branding Strategies to Succeed in 2024
There is not one brand strategy enough to catapult your new business into a market leader. Instead, you must focus on several strategies and wait patiently for the results.
Here are the top branding strategies you should pay heed to meet your business goals:
01. Know your business goals
Knowing your business goals is the first thing to ensure for turning your business into a trustworthy brand. If you have not set them already, think over and develop some achievable goals.
You should have your vision statement ready. The statement will remind you of your company’s purpose and short-term goals. Have a mission statement explaining how your products or services will improve customers’ lives. Mention the steps you will take to realize your vision. Make a value statement also to set your employees’ code of ethics and principles.
These statements will help determine your branding strategies in marketing your business.
You can take example from Apple’s branding. The company has built its reputation and unparalleled trust among customers for excellent quality products backed by innovation. Their tagline “Think Different” is a testament of their unparalleled products and services.
02. Research your target customers
Who is the typical customer looking for your products or services? That is the question you must answer precisely as part of your branding strategy. The intention here is that you have some insight into your potential customers.
Analyze your customers’ demographics, such as age range, gender, and location. Start with a small group of customers in your niche market. You can also find out who the target customers of similar brands are.
Consider conducting user studies and surveys to determine your target customers’ needs. Know what are their behavior patterns and pain points.
Based on the information you gather, create a buyer persona of your target customers. Find out their different financial, cultural, educational, and other backgrounds.
McDonald’s is one of the many brand strategies examples. The typical customer of this fast food company is a 41-56 white woman from a suburban area enjoying breakfast items such as sandwiches. To appeal to this demographic, they started breakfast discounts. They even created a special menu to attract their children. They researched their target audience and subsequently developed something that would please them.
03. Find out your competitors’ strategies
Another branding strategy to follow is to know what your competitors are working on to target and appease their customers. Since many competitors are active in your market niche, you must look different to show your usefulness to customers.
To research your competitors’ strategies, you can use competitor analysis tools. Find the right pricing structure and promotional strategies for their products or services. Then, analyze the competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
You should then visit different review sites, forums, and social media platforms to know what the customers think of the competitors’ offerings.
Then, based on your competitors’ strategies, you should develop unique products or services that solve customers’ problems.
04. Differentiate your brand from competitors
Once you know how your competitors promote their business and its offerings, you can strategize how to look different. That is essential to drive customers to your business. Think of brand positioning, which is about establishing your unique value proposition.
Things to consider:
- Set your prices lower than the competitors’ and provide innovative products.
- Ensure your customer support service is excellent to solve customers’ problems.
- Offer them a reliable after-sale service to maintain long-lasting relations with buyers so that they become loyal customers.
Also, give your potential customers a seamless user experience in their user journey. For instance, if you are a software company, its interface should be user-friendly. Its information architecture should be clean for easy access to what customers are looking for.
Another strategy to look different is offering premium goods with high value and quality. Such goods may not be affordable, but customers will buy them for their high quality.
05. Set a clear communication strategy
A clear communication strategy must be in place when you take your offerings to the customers in the market. So, start with picking a name relevant to your business and industry. If your company sells pizza, include the word pizza in your name. For example, the company name Netflix has ‘internet’ and ‘flicks,’ which means ‘movie’ in its name. You can also shorten your company name so that people can remember it.
You should also explore folklore, culture, literature, and mythology people follow in different locations or countries. It will help in connecting your brand with customers.
When creating your website, use domain names that tell customers about your business and its offerings. Also, choose a brand slogan communicating your values and personality to the target audience.
Each branding element must ooze a cohesive vibe to render an excellent user experience.
06. Create your brand’s visual identity
Another branding strategy that yields results is about creating a compelling visual identity. People and target customers frequently come across visuals of a brand. These visuals carry your brand message that you want to convey to your audience.
So, develop a memorable logo design that conveys your core message and personality. A logo is a core visual identity of any new or established company. Then, choose your website color scheme carefully to help spread brand awareness. For example, Apple uses white for its products, website, and packaging to represent the elegance and simplicity of the brand. Fonts, too, are visual elements that give the brand its personality.
Most importantly, create guidelines to consistently incorporate brand colors, fonts, and
other elements across all online and offline platforms.
07. Brand your company’s website
Your company’s website is where people will frequently learn more about your business and its offerings. You can make the website to communicate your brand identity. While building your website, make sure that it is user-friendly.
While designing your website for branding purposes, ensure it has all the relevant pages. The site should have a homepage, an about us page, a product or services page, a landing page, and a testimonial page. All such pages should be consistent in their color scheme and font styles. It should be a clutter-free design with a simple layout. Consider user experience as well by building a clear navigation system.
Optimize your website pages by implementing search engine optimization best practices. For inspiration, visit the home pages of PayPal, Nike, Adidas, Levi’s, etc. These global brands have a simple interface with focused messaging.
08.Build authority with content marketing
Once you have established a website, you should build plans to nurture visitor relationships. So, provide them with informative blog posts regularly on your website. These blogs showcase your brand as an authority and expert in your business and industry.
But write keyword-rich content when posting blogs on your website. Create evergreen content so that it is always relevant to the readers. You can also create guides or tutorials on your readers’ interests. Write articles based on industry reports and case studies.
09. Explore all marketing channels
When planning to brand your business on a larger scale, take your brand to all the online and offline platforms. Multiple marketing channels exist, such as social media, email, and search engine marketing. Promote your brand on all of these channels aggressively.
Create a dedicated marketing and branding strategy for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. These platforms are effective for customer interaction and building brand awareness. Write entertaining and engaging posts that are educative as well.
Email marketing is another way to engage potential customers and clients with your brand. These email messages help in building potential leads. Explore advertising models such as pay-per-click [PPC], where advertisers pay only when someone clicks on the online ads.
10. Maintain your brand reputation
The success of your brand depends on its reputation amongst customers. They will spread the word around if they perceive it as helpful and useful. According to a study, about 86% of customers who are loyal to a brand will recommend it to others. This helps in word-of-mouth publicity and brand strategy.
So, an effective branding strategy is to deliver your customers excellent service to ensure a positive user experience. Make sure that you monitor what people are writing about your brand on social media. If there are some adverse comments, address them quickly with fact-based answers.
Also, gather social proof on review sites. Pick some exciting testimonials about your products or services on review sites and put them on your website. Visitors seeing those comments from satisfied customers will decide to buy your products.
So, these are the key branding strategies you should consider when promoting your products or services. Make sure that you focus on the tips mentioned above. You should devote time and effort before expecting the desired results.
But first, have a unique and impressive logo for your brand as its core visual identity. Find out how to design a logo if you want to do it on your own. Consider the right color palette and fonts that express your brand personality and values.
Alternatively, you should scan some logo design services, which let a professional designer handle your logo design project. That is the best way to get a logo that helps brand your business in your niche market.
Wrapping Up
Businesses must compete hard in 2024 to make their presence felt in markets. They need to develop effective branding strategies, such as setting the right business goals, knowing competitors, building authority, social media promotion, creating visual identities, etc., and focusing on these strategies dedicatedly to meet the desired brand goals.
