Commercial Ink - Five Tips for Better Branding

Five Tips for Better Branding

Branding is one of the most overlooked and undervalued practices of many growing businesses. Its indirect exposure can be tough to manage and even more difficult to measure. When done correctly, however, a powerful brand can increase marketing efficiency, decrease expenses, make sales easier, and potentially turn your business into an inbound calling center for the product or service you offer.

When we think of valuable brands, some names quickly come to mind: Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike. Although the company names once had nothing to do with soft drinks, hamburgers, and tennis shoes, respectively, they are now practically synonymous.

Creating your brand is a great way to make any business more efficient on every level. Imagine, no more explaining who you are and what you do – your customers (and potential customers) will already know and value your service.

The following 5 branding tips are a great way to analyze your business and begin making a few subtle changes in your marketing and day-to-day operations that can really pay off in the long run:

1. Analyze your competition

One of the first steps in differentiating yourself from competitors is to closely examine your competition. You should be able to answer the following about each:

What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What is their target market? (this should be as precise as possible – not “everyone ages 18-24”)
How is Competitor 1 different from Competitor 2?

2. Identify Your Strengths and Advantages

Now that you know your competition, you must find out how you are different. This may not be in product or service offered – competitive strengths may be internal processes, vendors, or just better resources (employees, for example). Once you find these advantages, exploit them!

3. Identify Target Market

Many great branding opportunities fade, not because of lack of effort or the quality of material, but in who is receiving it. Your target market is the group of people or demographic that will most greatly benefit from what you have to offer. It’s always easier to start off very precise and then broaden the range as marketing budgets increase. Here are a few examples of demographics to consider when pinpointing a target market:

Age group
Business type
Geographic (ZIP codes)
Home Value
Income Level

4. Brand Consistently

Probably the biggest key to branding is consistency. Customers like things simple and are easily confused by marketing material that lacks consistency. All material should include several key elements that will remain consistent:

Logo
Colors
Fonts
Certain Pictures or Images

Keep in mind that branding takes time. It’s the recurring look and feel that will eventually stand out when your customers need your product or service.

5. Brand Creatively

In addition to traditional branding, try thinking of unique way to create and manage your brand. Maybe a gym could place yard signs near fast food restaurants – you get the idea. Just be creative and don’t be afraid to try new alternative ways to market.

Remember, building a brand is an on-going process and not something that will happen overnight, but with the right foundation your business could be on it’s way to being a household name.

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