It’s a debate as old as time: whether the best way to become widely known as a business is to be remembered for your brand or the products and services you sell. The reality is that both can be extremely effective for businesses. Look at the world-famous tech brand Apple, which is known for manufacturing iPhones, iPads, and laptops. Contrastingly, a brand that’s iconic for its unique and well-known branding is Smiley Company, which you may not recognise by its name, but will know it for its distinctive branding – the yellow smiley face – which has been used by brands and famous faces across the globe.
It’s true that whether you become famous for your branding or your offerings is entirely subjective from business to business and depends on the branding you choose and the type of products you sell. Typically, though, it’s more common for organisations to be known for what they sell; after all, it’s what customers buy and interact with. So, how is it possible that a brand can become more famous than its products? In this article, we will explore this question in detail, also covering how to market your brand and products successfully so that neither can be ignored or forgotten.
What Is Branding
Before we explore how branding can become more distinctive than the products or services a business offers, we must understand what branding is. We can define branding as the unique identity and perception surrounding a company. Many people would say that branding is the colours, fonts, and visual elements that a brand uses across its logo and visual identity, when in fact, these are just components of branding. For example, McDonald’s branding isn’t just the legendary yellow and red ‘M’ logo and its catchy slogan ‘I’m lovin’ It’. Instead, their branding encompasses everything their audiences perceive about them. For the international fast-food chain, these are their affordable prices, kid-friendly meals, and Happy Meal toys. Within branding, there are a few different elements that brands have to consider. They include the following:
- Visual Identity – covering everything from logos and colour palette to packaging
- Brand Voice – The tone, style, and language used in all brand communications
- Customer Experience – How customers view the brand from their previous experiences, as well as what they expect from the brand
Branding is important for several key reasons. It helps brands differentiate themselves from competitors as well as to always be remembered by their audiences, helping to encourage purchases and client onboarding.
How Branding Takes Over Products or Services
Ultimately, for a brand to be remembered for its products or services, it has to establish an emotional connection with its audience. This is because the quickest and most effective way that our brains can remember and recall information is if there is an emotion attached to it. This emotion may be positive, or it can be sad too. As well as this, businesses that are remembered for their brand will often serve a core purpose that goes beyond financial gain. They communicate this purpose throughout their marketing and branding so it’s clear to their audiences. One thing that no business can be remembered for its brand without is consistent and repetitive branding. Businesses must stick to the same logos, colours, and visual identity so that they can be instantly recognised by their audiences.
Best Practices for Successful Branding
- Pick a design personality that aligns with your products or services – for example, a children’s clothing brand would benefit from playful and bold colours.
- Define your business’s mission and use branding to communicate it – focus your business’s mission around solving a customer problem, and don’t let your branding be seen without this message.
- Find a unique style – make your branding different from everyone else by picking signature colours, shapes and illustrations that help set you apart from competitors.
Best Practices for Marketing Your Business’s Products and Services
To be iconically remembered for what your services sell or offer, there are a handful of non-negotiable rules to master. The first is understanding your audience as if they were someone you were close to. Beyond their demographics, like age and gender, explore what their buying motivations are and what problems they might face in everyday life. Once you understand this, you can then clearly define your niche.
Many businesses immediately fail in the early stages of starting out because they try to attract and market to everyone. Your products and services should be targeted to a specific niche of individuals, for example, university students or a male audience over the age of 50. With a solid understanding of your customers and a niche that you can tailor your marketing to, you can then pick the digital channels that are well-suited to your specific audience. This will give you a much better chance at converting interested buyers, and you will be placed in front of an audience that can relate to and care about what you’re offering.
The businesses that see the most success with their marketing will prioritise their branding just as much as they advertise their products and services. While strong branding improves brand awareness, tailored marketing of your products will help to turn brand awareness into real customer engagement and business sales.