Branding FAQs with Forthgear
Branding can be complicated. Learn the basics from one of the best.
What are common misconceptions about branding?
“Branding” is often ascribed to the visual manifestations of identity or marketing—or things that we can see, such as a logo. When in reality “brand,” in its modern context, is made up of the deeper elements of promise, performance, cultures, and experience.
Branding doesn’t matter anymore, or the benefits of branding have been diminished in the modern marketplace. However, when taken in proper context, a brand promise remains the rudder upon which the helm of organizations large and small should more often be guided. Given that customers and clients still base their more meaningful purchasing decisions on brands with which they identify, an outstanding brand promise is as relevant as ever.
What is branding and why is it important?
how does building a brand benefit a business? how do you get management’s buy-in
Brand, in essence, is relationship—our promise, our performance, and their loyalty. In other words, it is the promise we make to our customer or client, our ability to perform on that promise and the loyalty our customer gives back. Brands are active, not passive. A successful brand creates motion, attracting some while perhaps repelling others. What’s important is that we attract ideal customers, then engage and hold them through promise and performance. By knowing our brand, we will better understand our own “turf,” allowing us to promote our offering from a point of confidence, rather than uncertainty.
What are the top 3-4 things a company needs to consider when developing its brand standards?
Identify industry trends and competitive forces
Identify your ideal customer—who are they, specifically
Establish Your Offering: Why are you different from the competition and why does that resonate with your customers? What are we really selling? What is our core offering? What target need/want does it satisfy? Remember, customers tend to buy “benefits” rather than just “features.”
What is your value proposition: what do we do, whom do we serve, and why do they choose us?
Set Your Strategy: Customers and clients want to buy experiences rather than “just products or services.” Create a culture with definable experiences. Don’t be afraid to stimulate emotions and invoke responses—avoid the lukewarm. Affirm and reaffirm your value proposition. Be concise, consistent and compelling with marketing communications.
Create a brand image (look and feel) and messaging
Establish touchpoints (brand experiences)
Determine Marcom and advertising methods and tools
What’s a good starting point in the branding process?
Market research. To better define offering, start collecting perceptual information from company leadership, employees, clients/customers and even suppliers and vendors more purposefully. Ask questions that help to define your market and establish your offering. Document and organize the feedback and use this information to begin crafting brand positioning decisions and commitments.
What are common mistakes companies make in developing their brand?
Allowing a brand to develop itself. Whether an organization decides to deliberately establish its brand position, or allow the marketplace to define one for it, either way, a brand will take shape.
Allowing commitment and constancy to give way to time and market forces that chip away at a brand positioning—or allowing brand positioning to wither away due to lack of attention and process.
Rigidity or inability to adapt. Good brands allow for flexibility, agility, and change as market trends shift. However, beware of chasing fleeting fads.
Are there any new trends in branding?
Social responsibility—a commitment to something beyond business.
Authenticity—keeping it real and telling the truth with transparency.
Optimism—creating hope, meaning, and purpose.
What is Forthgears’s approach to branding?
We will generally start with a hunting and gathering effort (aka market research), as described. Then, with those findings organized and tabulated, we help guide the key stakeholders of an organization through a series of consultative steps to “establish its offering” and “set its strategy.”
Tell us about Forthgear
Profit-generating results that establish brand, capture market share, increase customer loyalty and support business objectives. In business since 1995, FORTHGEAR helps companies attract, excite, surprise, and delight customers in an increasingly complex and competitive business landscape. We first gain a thorough understanding of our clients’ business objectives and then develop strategies that convey and reinforce the promise of their brand.
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