Saturday, August 9, 2008

Branding Basics

Branding is no longer for Fortune 500 companies. Branding is required by every organization,once you developed a great product or service, let’s start building brand over it. Initial branding requires investment, but once done successfully you will reap the benefits for life long. It’s a two way process, first your Brand is recognized by your products & services, then it’s the products & services that are recognized by your Brand.
Every product has its own life cycle & ultimately it dies off, but Brand is forever.
Branding of any product and service should follow some constants that help in establishing a brand in the long run. The internet branding strategies should have the following constants in your branding formula:
Follow the Brain way:
Everyone remembers A for Apple. Why? We tend to remember and associate ourselves with simple things and choose to ignore or forget complex ideas. The most popular brands in the world have very simple, easy to remember logos.
Unique & Recognizable:
Your brand should have individuality, should be different. The brand should stand out from other similar product or service; otherwise the whole idea of branding is lost. Branding is all about to create your unique identity.
The three most important branding features that every brand should posses are brand promise, brand attributes and brand personality.
A brand promise is a promise or commitment the company makes to its customers. Brand is all about the trust that you build with your customer. The promise should be clearly stated and tells about the most important benefit of the product or customer.
Brand attributes are the features that describe the customer’s experience & should expect from your brand, like quality, innovation or customer service. The attributes help the company to deliver the brand promise.
Brand personality is the characteristic the customer experiences when they experience the brand. This is like a feedback for your Brand & helps to strength your Brand Promise.

Once a Brand incorporate all these features, then success is for sure.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Branding & Marketing in digital world

All Companies involved in media and communications are being buffeted by the continuing growth of the internet.
Times are changing, most new era marketers understand the power of promotion and branding as well as the benefits of low costs real-time connectivity offered by the Web.
Traditional media — broadcast and cable TV, print, radio and outdoor — will not be as profitable in the future as it has been in the past. Digital media, already the fastest-growing sector of all media channels, will continue to take more share. Currently it comprises only 7% of global advertising spending, but change has started & it won't be a surprise that within few years’ digital marketing & promotion will surpass combined spending in traditional media.
We see lots of web marketing tools. We talk about Google, Yahoo & MSN for whatever big or small, be it buying a house to watching a movie. Lots of decisions are being taken with the help of Internet.
So now it’s a challenge for organizations to survive in this digital age. We are in the middle of digital age & it has brought the competition to the next level. Now you are not just competing with your neighbor, whole globe is your play ground.
Now the game is at different level, so companies need special tactics to survive in this digital world. Old techniques can no longer be applied as the playing field has changed altogether.
Organizations need to establish themselves as brands, only then they can survive in this digital world, as loyal customer will decide the future of any company. Better Services & products only can no longer keep you in the market, as someone else will replace you with better service & products pricing. So the key deciding factor will be to establish oneself as a Brand in this true digital market place.
Organizations need to learn that it’s not easy to establish itself as Brand in this digital age. Though it is universal that you need to provide world class services & product but these products & services need to be aligned to your brand image.
Brand is just a customer perception of your service & product & it requires investment & strategy to stay in the customer mind & once it’s established you need to spend to keep it there. Once that is done your products & services could be distinguished among the crowd.