Branding?

Branding is a vital component of your marketing – whether you are a business, individual, or organization. The world's most successful companies all have strong brands – formulated over years and with a lot of money. Technically, branding is just the mix of symbols, names, terms and designs that companies use to differentiate its products from others.

Effective branding takes a copious amount of research, some money and a lot of brainstorming to do right. Why bother with branding? Here are some reasons why we know branding is so important.

• 1. Branding helps distinguish you from your competitors. What sets you apart from generic Joe Schmoe down the street is your BRAND. A hotdog is not just any hotdog but an Oscar Mayer. It basically helps you fence off your customers from competition.
• 2. Branding means communication. Done right, your brand can easily communicate your company's values, principles, message, and even characteristics. What do you think about when you see a Nike swoosh or the GE lightbulb? With a strong brand you can help potential clients focus on what YOU are all about.
• 3. Branding helps you establish a reputation. As your brand becomes more visible people will begin to associate your outstanding service, benefits, or products with your branding symbol. The good feelings they get when they work with you will come up when they see your logo and branding elements.
• 4. Brands promote customer loyalty. When a consumer has a good experience with your product, he or she will probably remember your brand, not your customer service representative's name or the specific product they purchased. People would learn to trust your brand, so the next time they have the need for certain products and services, they will look you up. This loyalty would help you create an attachment among your customers and influence their emotional decisions.
• 5. Strong brands pave the way for your business growth. Once people trust your brands, you can easily add another product to your product line or another service to your line-up. Dove may have started off selling soap, but because consumers trust the Dove brand, they snatched up Dove body washes, lotions and deodorants when these new products were introduced.

What are you doing to brand YOU? Do you know how important it is? Spore Creative would love to help you rethink your brand, strategies and ideas to implement to help grow your brand and identity!