Brand Marketing - Leapfrog your competition

Promoting your brand into a marketplace littered with competing messages and attempt to grab the attention of the consumer can be a daunting task for any business, small or large.

Given the fact that your brand could support a simple retail presence or a complex online and offline structure with multiple product lines, it is vital that you place as much effort into marketing your brand as you do into marketing your products and services. After all, it is almost certain that your competitors can provide the same products, compete aggressively on price and provide a compelling reason why the customer should chose them rather than you. Very often, it is the brand that does the closing, especially in a highly competitive marketplace. For example, the iPod has a wide range of competing products in the media playing world yet Apple, with its incredibly strong brand image and the company’s focus on promoting its brand heavily, ensures that its product outsells the competition even at a price premium over many of its competitors’ offerings.

Your brand marketing efforts should use every available channel and opportunity to promote the values and positive messages central to your company vision for the brand.

• PR - Great PR is very effective at communicating brand value and identity. Press releases and news items can be quickly distributed to the marketplace and can be used to heavily promote the key messages which underpin your brand as well as handling any negative elements or ‘bad press’
• Editorial and Advertorial - Articles in consumer or trade publications both online and offline are another great way to get your story out there
• Cause related marketing - supporting a worthy cause or event enhances both credibility and reputation
• Create Brand Champions - Building a network of brand ‘champions’ who are prepared to talk about your brand enthusiastically is very different from the ‘well known TV personality’ who endorses you for a fee
• Create a buzz - Using social media and sometimes even thinking outside of the box stimulates discussion both with and about your brand. Connecting with consumers and commentators alike, when properly managed and executed, can be an inexpensive way to market your brand as well as your products and services, by giving it a personality
• Learn from the competition - analysing how your competitors communicate their brand to the marketplace and improving or countering their approach should be part of your day to day brand marketing mix
• Learn from your customers - customer feedback, testimonials and even complaints are a valuable source of information which can be used to inform your brand marketing approach

Sitting as it does at the heart of your business, you need to ensure that your brand is constantly working hard to differentiate you from your competition, build your reputation and support your product and service marketing campaigns. Campaigns which concentrate on your brand are just as important as those which focus on products, especially in today’s dynamic marketplace.