What is a brand? Sounds like a fairly basic question to ask, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t really know the answer.

A brand:
- Stands for something
- Has an emotional connection with it’s customers
- Has some need that it fulfils for it’s customer
- Is often hard to substitute
- Is unique
- Is associated with a logo and should have a tagline

How do you build a brand?

A brand is not something that naturally evolves; it is a based on a strategy to target it towards a specific group of people, and makes it relevant and appealing to them. A brand has a meaning, a benefit and an objective. The rule of thumb is to lead with an emotional benefit and support this with a rational benefit. An emotional benefit is what draws your customers to your brand and builds loyalty. For example, Nappies – the emotional benefit is that by using Brand X you will feel like you are the best mother that you can be. Whilst, the rational benefit is about performance and has to do with the practical functionality of the brand, for example, having side panels on the nappies to avoid leakage and the 100% hypoallergenic cotton fabric.

Why build a brand?

Brands are not easily substituted and this important is from a commercial perspective. If you have built a strong brand, your customers will feel loyal to your brand and this makes it difficult for competitors to take your market share. By raising the “barriers to entry” for new competitors, you are effectively making the market seem unattractive to new entrants – this keeps your customers coming back to you.

At The Marketing Network, a marketing agency an advertising agency, all in one, we help design, plan and execute branding strategies to ensure that your brand is as strong as it can be. Download Brand Design Questionaire

We also recommend brand health audits on existing brands to ensure that they are relevant and building the emotional connection that is needed to create loyal customers. Download Marketing Check Fax

Your product is only as good as the strength of your brand. Brands attract attention; brands get noticed and brands are memorable. Investing in building your brand protects you from other companies trying to take market share from you and raise the barriers to entry.

Let’s work through an example, imagine you developed the “intel chip” and were ready to take it to market. You had put an enormous amount of work into R&D, production, manufacturing, forecast, and financing – but it had no brand, no tagline, no logo. It has a value proposition; you know what it does well, what it does differently, who will benefit from it and how it will change people’s lives. However, these elements are not easily communicated without a brand, something to bring it all together and make it mean something to your target audience.

In B2B often people think that brands are a fluffy/nice to have, non-essential item. Without one though, if you were take the “intel chip” to PC manufacturers and tried to on-sell it, you are offering them just another component, and what is stopping another company with the same amount of resources and expertise from offering the same type of chip cheaper? Brands help you to charge a premium, brands help you to mean something to your customer and brands are not easily replaced by substitutes (when you invest in them).

At The Marketing Network (www.themarketingnetwork.com.au), a marketing agency an advertising agency, all in one, we come in at the early stages of product development or even when your product is just an idea. We help you to create a strong value proposition to build an emotional connection with your brand, so that when you are ready to launch, your brand is ready too. Read more about B2B Marketing at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B2B_Marketing#B2B_Branding.

You have a point of difference that would convert a prospective customer in seconds. But how?

Here’s a checklist to ensure that you convert your prospective customers:

1. Look reputable:

• Have you got a logo that looks substantial?
• Do you have a tagline/slogan/positioning statement under your logo that communicates your point of difference?
• Does your website wow your customer?
• Is the content on your website relevant and proof read?
• Is all your marketing material consistent and themed?
• Do you have an office address and customer service number?

2. Build confidence:

• Do you offer guarantees and or warranties?
• Do you have testimonials from existing customers?
• Can you use the logos of existing customers to create instant credibility?

3. Get noticed:

• Do you have and regularly update a blog, to exhibit thought leadership and improve your SEO?
• Do you update your customers through email and LinkedIn/twitter/facebook?
• Do you have listings and or advertisements in business directories?
• How is your Google ranking?
• Do you do sponsored(Pay Per Click)advertising on Google?
• Do you regularly communicate through email and direct mail with your customers and new leads?
• Is your point of difference obvious and consistent in all your forms of communication?

To find out how we help our clients to play with the big boys, contact us now. We are a marketing agency and advertising agency, all in one and our website is full of information on brand identity and styling, content development and campaign development. By working on looking reputable, building confidence and getting noticed, you’ll look just like a big player in your market, on a small budget. Remember ‘Perception is Reality’! We’ll help you to launch your brand successfully and maximise the return on your marketing investment.

Performance Marketing solutions can be in the form of an agreed, set “cost-per-click” (CPC) “cost per lead” (CPL) or “cost per acquisition” model (CPA).

Particular useful for high-involvement consumer purchases such as travel, health or personal finance products and services which require a stronger incentive to encourage transactions and brand-switching behaviour.

qubePinpoint offers limited opportunities for approved advertisers to deliver campaigns through performance marketing metrics.

With qubePinpoint, you can:

• Select exactly who you want to sell to from a database of over 500,000 regularly updated profiles. (make an enquiry)
• Be assured that everyone you contact has already said “Yes I want to hear about these offers” through double opt-in procedures.
• Talk directly to them through a professionally designed, fully branded electronic communication straight to their inboxes.
• Pay only for the positive results. You don’t get charged for a single name on the list if they choose not to click through, making qubePinpoint the risk-free way to run a targeted e-marketing campaign.
• Own all of the captured information for your future campaigns, including all conversions, lead generation and awareness raising activities, knowing that these people were interested enough to click through once already.

For more information on performance marketing options through qubePinpoint, contact us.