Crafting Your Brand’s Legacy- What Is Brand Marketing?

 If you ask me about the most essential part of any business, I would say it’s marketing the brand. I mean with so many companies launching their products and trying to establish as a brand, it seems the demand of time. If you are also looking forward to marking your step in today’s competitive world, you must know about brand marketing.

In simple words, it is basically the concept of marketing your brands via different mediums and channels. This helps create better awareness for the brand, attract more customers, and generate a viral strategy that helps in consumer conversion.

But it is not as simple as it sounds as there are many steps and factors that you need to consider to actually achieve your target audience.

I’ll Explain to You the Brand Marketing in Detail

Brand Marketing is a process that is done to build a relationship between a brand and its customers. It also ensures building brand value and eventually the entire company’s name and value. Basically, it’s not a process made for a specific product or service but the idea is to bring about the whole brand and promote all products and services in the line. The concept is to sell the brand which is done by using proof of the product/service quality along with what the brand ensures as a promise or certification.

There are broadly three channels available for brand marketing which are social, digital, and paid search advertising. All channels have their individual pros and cons and can be used for different purposes but ideally, you should use a mix of all to create a good mix of advertising that can reach your target audience more effectively.

It is no rocket science, but then have you ever thought that why do some brands market so well and capture the market while others can not get a similar share of the pie? So, let’s decode the process of brand marketing by breaking it down into steps.

1. Understand your Brand Purpose

Ask yourself these questions- What is the purpose of your brand? What will you provide and what are your services?

Although it is not limited to building your brand persona, for that you will need to get a clear idea about your target audience and your competitors.

To get closer to your brand’s purpose you have to get closer to your customers and reflect upon questions like why will they trust you, why will they choose you and how will you facilitate them in their lives.

The first step is to define the brand. Here you choose how the brand will appear to your customers, focusing on your logo, typography, and imagery. Your choice will speak about the brand and you as a person, and will be symbolic as well.

The Icy Whiz team talked to Gabriel Lukov, Head of Inbound Growth at Businessmap, about strategies that differentiate successful brand marketing campaigns. Here is what he said:

“In my experience, the success of a brand marketing campaign largely hinges on its ability to understand and connect with its target audience.

A crucial aspect of this is developing a brand narrative that resonates with consumers, backed by empathy and a genuine understanding of their needs and challenges.

For instance, while leading Inbound Growth at Businessmap, one of our most successful campaigns ignited a conversation around enterprise agility—an issue our target audience grappled with.

Understanding the power of data to make informed decisions is another standout strategy in successful campaigns. Analytics in digital marketing techniques, SEO, and SEM, underpin optimized lead generation and conversion.

Moreover, continuous improvement and open communication with customers create lasting relationships and can boost word-of-mouth promotion, turning your customers into brand advocates. These holistic strategies have been pivotal in driving the growth of Businessmap.”

2. Research Your Target Market

I would suggest you do a thorough study of your target audience and understand their personas clearly. Put yourself in their position to compare all factors that are relevant to your customers and your product. Create a strong emotional connection by considering all questions like what is their age, profession, and educational background.

Also, develop an understanding of what they do every day, why they use your product or service, and how the use will create a difference in what manner. Other things to keep in mind while building your customer persona are questions like where they live and what they care about, along with where they shop.

In an interview with the Icy Whiz team, Jason Hennessey, CEO of Hennessey Digital, discussed the approaches for successful brand marketing campaigns. Here is what he had to say:

“I’ve observed that the key to a successful brand marketing campaign is not just about being seen—it’s about being remembered and resonating with the audience.

Here is a strategic approach that I believe truly differentiates successful marketing campaigns from those that fail to make an impact.

The integration of feedback mechanisms into marketing campaigns is vital. Successful campaigns are those that listen as much as they speak.

Incorporating real-time feedback allows brands to tweak and tailor their messages based on actual audience response, turning a static campaign into a dynamic conversation. 

At our company, we implement robust feedback cycles that gather insights from various channels, enabling us to refine our strategies continuously.

This approach not only improves the campaign’s effectiveness but also deepens audience engagement by making them feel heard and valued.”

3. Define and Sell Your Story

Always remember that you are not selling a product or a brand, but primarily you are selling a story and this story is the connection between your product and your consumer.

The story has to be just a convincing plot that can be very simple without any major plot features. A descriptive tale about your brand helps to create a brand recall and a strong emotional connection. Keep my words, connection with the users should be your utmost priority.

Try bringing characters, a problem, and a solution which is your product/service. Try to create maximum engagement along this storyline and reach wider audiences. Let them also interact with your story and eventually, it will help you sell.

For building a story the only question you need to answer is why you started your brand, and what motivated you to start a particular service/production. I suggest you go through this blog to learn how popular and well-known brands sold their brand story for marketing.

Anna Learie, Outreach Specialist at Freya, talked to the Icy Whiz team about strategies for successful brand marketing campaigns. Here is what she had to say:

“Successful brand marketing campaigns are distinguished by several key strategies and approaches that effectively capture the audience’s attention and resonate with their needs and desires.

Firstly, understanding the target audience is paramount. Conducting thorough market research allows brands to identify their audience’s demographics, preferences, and behaviors, enabling them to tailor their messaging and positioning accordingly.

Second, successful campaigns often leverage emotional appeal, tapping into consumers’ feelings and aspirations to establish a deeper connection. Authenticity plays a crucial role as well; brands that communicate genuine values and beliefs tend to foster trust and loyalty among consumers.

Third, consistency across all marketing channels reinforces brand identity and recognition, ensuring a cohesive brand experience for consumers. Furthermore, staying innovative and adapting to evolving market trends is essential.

By embracing new technologies and platforms, brands can stay ahead of the curve and maintain relevance in an ever-changing landscape.

Fourth and finally, measuring and analyzing campaign performance allows brands to refine their strategies and optimize future efforts for greater impact and success.

Overall, it’s the combination of audience understanding, emotional resonance, authenticity, consistency, innovation, and data-driven optimization that sets successful brand marketing campaigns apart from their struggling counterparts.”

4. Get to Know Your Competitors

When you build a customer persona, do the same process but for competitors this time. When you put your competitors in perspective you will see what parts are you lacking as a brand. Build a clear idea of how are their products differentiating, what is their marketing style, and how are they pricing their product/service.

A complete analysis will help you fulfill all customer requirements and fulfill all the shortcomings of your competitors. You will also get a clear idea of pricing, production, and quality via this process.

We interviewed Gianluca Ferruggia, General Manager at DesignRush, on this. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

“In my experience, successful brand marketing campaigns all share a few key characteristics. They are perfectly attuned to their target audience’s needs, expectations, and behaviors. For instance, at DesignRush, we worked with a catering business to revamp its branding.

We conducted in-depth customer persona research and discovered that our client’s customers highly valued local, organic ingredients. This insight led to a campaign that strongly positioned the caterer as a local farm-to-table champion, boosting customer engagement significantly.

Standout campaigns often use storytelling to create emotional connections. On another occasion, we amplified a startup’s brand presence by weaving the founder’s personal story into the campaign.

This led to enhanced audience engagement, as they resonated with the struggles and triumphs of entrepreneurship. 

Successful campaigns adapt to changes. For example, when the pandemic hit, we swiftly adjusted a client’s campaign to emphasize empathy, solidarity, and digital solutions, thus maintaining their relevance during challenging times.

To sum up, understanding the audience, leveraging storytelling, and demonstrating agility differentiate high-impact brand campaigns.”

5. Create Brand Guidelines

Now that everything has been set up, your brand has a name, logo, and design. There is a selling story, advertisements, and marketing content. Your customer persona has been developed and a thorough competitor analysis has been done. You are right at the door of selling and converting more and more leads into customers.

This is the place where you actually build the guidelines for working on your brand’s marketing. After all the groundwork, you have the next steps in your head and now you make the move forward so that you don’t have to step in again. Consistency in the work and marketing can be taken forward by using these guidelines.

A last few things to remember for brand marketing is to make sure you separate your branding and marketing, it is the company and customer. Do not process anything without thorough research and considering all attributes of customers, the market, and the competitors. Market your attributes, specialties, and functions very clearly and boldly.

Guest Author: Saket Kumar

Last Updated on May 30, 2024 by Pragya