Branding

Your brand, your story

Branding in Marketing

Branding is the marketing practice of actively shaping your brand. It’s what your business needs to break through the clutter and grab your ideal customer’s attention. It’s what transforms first-time buyers into lifetime customers and turns an indifferent audience into brand evangelists. It’s what you need to stand out, make an impact and take your business to the next level. Your brand is the set of perceptions people have about your company. But branding is the set of actions you take to cultivate that brand.

Branding is the process of creating a strong, positive image of a company or its products in the minds of consumers. Adequate branding can ensure that your company is positioned for growth and profitability, as well as reposition your business to meet the current challenges it faces. Branding works best when you have a clear idea of your target audience and how you intend to reach them. With branding, instead of “attacking” your would-be clients with one ad after another, you can develop one message and then use it in a variety of ways throughout different parts of your campaign. By building a consistent message into all marketing campaigns from radio to print ads, direct mail pieces and even business cards, you surround yourself with a “brand bubble.” In this special zone, you can promote one consistent message everywhere your customers go — both on-line and off.

Importance of Branding

Branding is a crucial part of business because it allows your customers and clients to know what to expect from your company. It is a way of distinguishing yourself from the competitors and clarifying what it is you offer that makes you the better choice.

Branding is how customers recognize your business and develop a relationship with it. It stimulates memories, identities, relationships and emotions. Your brand should reflect what kind of company you strive to be and help to differentiate yourself from other companies. A company with a clear, defined brand generally ends up being the best choice for consumers due to how easy it is to identify that brand.

Branding is extremely important to creating a good relationship with consumers, but how is it done? With social media, anyone can create a brand overnight. A business creating a brand must focus on what it wants the world to know about the company. If your company values quality above all else, then that should be reflected in your branding. It is also important to understand that each new type of media or technology brings new challenges to branding. If your company is successful, you may have to change your logo and colors as media changes in order to attract more attention from customers.

Branding Techniques

Make good first impressions with your branding and put the cart before the horse when it comes to marketing. Also, focus on the customer experience and get them talking, because the least expensive way to generate brand buzz is by focusing on their experience.

You need to invest in your brand identity early on. A strong brand is often a competitive advantage in the marketplace and helps you establish a unique position for your company. Make sure everything you do reinforces your core value proposition.

In order to have a successful branding strategy, startups need to make sure they have good messaging and high-resolution imagery. For example, there are many companies that manage to stand out by spending more on their homepage images than other companies spend on their entire website. What is a company worth if it doesn’t understand its own value proposition? Whether you are creating a logo for a startup or redesigning your site, ensure you do it in steps with strategic thinking and planning.

Branding in the Digital Age

Your brand is much more than a logo or a slogan. It’s the experience that your customers have with you and your brand. Your business strategy begins with executing your brand promise. As such, your marketing strategy needs to revolve around consistently following through on this promise, across all of your digital channels.

Branding in the Digital Age provides a guide to building your brand online and promoting it without fail, day and night, everywhere. With the strategies provided, you’ll discover how to:
>> Apply branding strategies specifically formulated for the digital world
>> Foster awareness of your brand in users’ everyday lives
>> Provide direction and context for your business within their daily routines

Air BnB Brand Story

The inspiration for the homes on Airbnb come in the form of the people that stay and host guests on the site. Airbnb believes in belonging anywhere, and so hosts are encouraged to make their home a modern and special expression of who they are and what they love.

Today, Airbnb is among the biggest home-sharing companies in the world. And due to its ubiquitous growth, the company has renamed itself “Airbnb” and adopted a new brand identity: blue sky and sunbursts, playful music accents, and a bold logo that flatters with style.

Airbnb is the world’s leading marketplace for unique lodging, experiences, and places to belong. Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries. People use Airbnb to find unique accommodations including private rooms, apartments, castles, boats, tree houses, igloos, and even submarine hotels.