The modern world is brand-driven. Major companies, industries, organizations, startups, and individuals try to build a brand around them.
It is right to say in the present context that “brand makes money”.
It is impossible to run a successful and achieving business without an elaborate and effective brand strategy. It is the need of the hour.
It is easier to create a brand out of anything, but building a solid and popular brand with the right strategy is a difficult and complex process.
An efficient brand is one that builds trust between the product/ services and the customer base or the followers of the brand. It is important to develop a level of trust and emotional connection to your customers.
This guide on brand development covers the basics of brand development, the ideas to create an effective brand strategy, and some examples of effective brand strategy in contemporary times. Let’s move ahead.
What is Brand Development?
Brand development in literal terms is the development of your brand( business, industry, individual, or any other thing). It helps you to create an identity in the vast market and gives you a unique character.
Brand development is the key to increasing growth and tremendous outcomes in terms of capital generation and customer base.
The brand name is synonymous with various factors like consistent quality, adding value to people’s lives, making life easier, high quality, unique and unmatched value. Marketing solutions, consumer-producer trust, and many other tactics.
Brand Development vs Branding
There is a fine line between branding and brand development. Many do not understand the difference between the two and perceive both as a single thing.
Brand development is the skeleton whereas branding is the execution process that makes brand development a reality.
In simple terms, brand development is like an abstract idea and branding is the process that makes it a reality.
Importance of Brand development
The importance of brand development can not be ignored. It is like the pillar that keeps your business running and helps in generating revenue and a position in the market.
Branding is the power tool to reach out the crowd and generating awareness about your product and services.
Customer and business trust is the best bond you can have for any type of business. Branding helps in creating such bonds and increases the sale potential of your customers.
Brand Development with trust brings accountability and increases the loyalty of customers for future purchases of services or products.
Branding helps you by increasing your market value and creating an image of reliability in the minds of people. In the long run, brand development is one of the major keys to achieving high profits and running successful businesses.
Brand Development Process
The process of brand development is the most crucial in developing a solid brand profile. There are many steps required to develop a process for Brand Development.
Some of the crucial stages of developing a solid brand strategy are-
Step 1:
The first and primary step is planning. It is the basics that you need to cover to achieve excellence in any field.
A foolproof plan must include everything including what your brand stands for, provides, how it creates a difference in other people’s lives and what are your brand’s future ambitions.
The plan is like a soul to your company or business, it must speak in a true sense about your business.
Many business industries and startups create mistakes by targeting everyone initially without understanding their influence and target groups. This is very expensive and does not create any returns.
The process is extremely critical in developing a solid brand strategy. You must begin with a small number of targeted groups.
This saves you a lot of capital and provides massive returns required for stability to run a startup or business in the initial years.
Step 2:
The next step after coming out with a plan is to target your customers. It is of utmost importance for any business or individual to understand its customers.
You need to analyze the bracket of people that your business affects and then need to work over to make them aware of your product. This in time may result in converting them into your customers.
Various tools and data like statistical analysis, feedback, survey forms, logistic findings, data interpretation, the motive of the service/product offered, and many others can help you to identify your bracket of customers.
You need to deliver things that take care of your clients. A proper strategy revolving around the clients is required. This creates a sustainability model for the business allowing prospects of further growth.
Step 3:
Next, you need to focus on developing your brand and positioning it in the market, this process is termed Brand Positioning. It is an important factor in developing a brand in the market.
It involves giving a proper name and tag to your brand. You should be aware of your brand and how it helps others, this helps in creating Brand Positioning.
The crucial step in Brand Positioning is to write an alluring and catchy brand statement. The brand statement should not exceed more than 100 to 150 words.
A short and to-the-point brand statement catches many eyes and can turn more eyes towards your brand. Each and every word in the brand statement should be placed after critical and creative thinking reflecting the soul of the brand.
The Brand Statement is like a short introduction that allows customers to peep a little into the company’s ideas and works.
Step 4:
The next important thing is the visual appeal and persuasive power to impact people in the market and lead them into customer generation.
You can take the help of online posters, brand logos, taglines, eye-catching graphics, and hoardings to reach out to people and let them know how they benefit from your business. These visual representations should match with your companies services and products,
Step 5:
The ultimate step is to create a solid marketing strategy that involves promoting your brand on several platforms to reach a wider group of people.
Marketing helps you to reach out to the masses and in turn, increases the probability of better customer/ client generation.
Social media marketing is the new normal. Invest a significant amount of capital to generate marketing plans on social sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and other rising platforms.
Using personal marketing tactics through E-mails and text messages directly to your client builds a level of trust and increases authenticity.
Step 6:
The final step after creating a solid brand strategy using these basic skeletal steps is to adapt to the changing times and needs of the customer.
In the present day, success is directly proportional to the adaptation levels of businesses.
The world is changing rapidly and so are the demands and needs of people, one who quickly understands this and changes with time will have a higher rate of success as compared to others.
Examples of Brand Development
Zomato
Zomato is one of the finest examples of Brand development in recent times.
The company copies the idea of food delivery chain giants like Swiggy and Uber eats in India. The company is an Indian-based company and faced stiff competition in the initial years.
Zomato now stands at the top of the chain with its creative brand development. The company created a personalized and highly persuasive brand strategy and invested highly in promoting.
At present, Zomato sends its customers’ personalized messages in the local languages to increase engagement. This helps to create a trust bond between the company and the client.
Data analyst tries to understand the needs and wants of the customer and the app constantly suggests the customer order their favorite dishes.
The company comes with lucrative discounts and deals.
At present, a gripping Brand Strategy has worked wonders for Zomato.
Apple
Apple, the name only brings trust, accountability, and efficiency in the industry of mobiles, laptops, and other gadgets.
The giant company is the best example to see what the right brand strategy and quality products can do for you.
The company could have easily trusted their products and waited for them to create something big for them but the company planned superbly and came up with an out of box Brand Strategy.
Apple followed the creator mode and started building gadgets and mobiles like never before.
They were the first in the markets, created needs with the help of the right marketing strategies, and then served them with quality products.
At present, Apple is way ahead of the line and will dominate in the future because of its solid brand image.
Summing it up
Every small to big industry, business, or startup faces stiff competition in any domain.
The competitive nature of the market can lead to various startups and businesses to capital loss and slowly force them to close.
Brand Development is the key that can help you to rise and establish yourself in the highly competitive market.
Any company no matter how small or big should invest in developing a good brand strategy. This will ease out things for you and may help in getting higher returns and a solid customer base in very little time.
Reader’s Insight
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