Branding takes a lot of time and it is difficult to measure? You often hear this reaction when you drop the term ‘branding’.
Fortunately, this is a thing of the past.
I can already hear you thinking, “How do I get people to recognize my brand? And what does it take to make them part of the buying process?”.
I’ll help you on your way!
By getting started with the principles below, you will grow faster than ever before.
The 3 principles for brand growth:
- The louder the better
- Mix it & fix it
- Stand out of the crowd
The louder the better
The more people who know your brand, the larger your market share is. That’s just the way it works.
According to research, there is a strong link between market share growth and investment.
In other words: SOV (share of voice) = SOM (share of market). That basically means that when you shout louder (spend more money), you end up taking a larger share of the pie.
In other words: you have a larger market share, your share of market.
Just an example. Think of a physical Friday afternoon market. The one man behind his vegetable stall who screams so loudly probably also has most people at his stall.
This is the same effect as online.
How do you know if you are using this tactic optimally?
The most reliable is calculating the excess share of voice where you compare your SUM to your competition.
For this it is important that you have the figures ready. But… it can be a big challenge to get this done yourself.
Looking for an alternative? Look at the share of search (SOS). This is the percentage of a brand’s total search volume relative to its competitors.
Studies show that SOS often equals SOM.
By looking at the search volume of a product category versus your brand name plus product category, you can find out how you stand.
Here’s a quick look:
SOV = Share of voice
SUM = Share of market
SOS = Share of search
But beware! It’s not a matter of ‘just increasing budgets’.
Increase your budgets and only start shouting louder after you have the following two principles in order: mix it and fix itandstand out of the crowd.
Mix it & Fix it
Performance and branding are two different things.
Performance teams focus on short-term results such as conversions, while brand managers think about the whole funnel and creating brand awareness.
You can imagine that this can cause quite a few discussions within a company when you split the two teams.
Why do we settle for impressions in a branding campaign and why is the emphasis on a higher CTR and a lower CPC for performance?
These two approaches reinforce each other when they are combined.
Take a look at your branding campaign with your performance glasses on. And vice versa.
For example, the performance team can learn from storytelling. The branding team in their time again of applying more analysis and data-driven decision making.
Ideally, you no longer want to look at performance or branding.
Instead, you look at brand growth. The growth of your brand.
That’s what you end up doing it for.
Mix your teams and make use of each other’s strengths. Only in this way can you really grow.
Mix it and fix it.
Make sure you have a healthy balance between your long-term and short-term campaigns.
The overall ratio between brand building and sales activity is 60:40. This of course depends on the industry and the maturity of the brand. This is based on official research by Les Binet & Peter Field.
This way you achieve results much faster. You can also determine your next steps more clearly on the basis of data.
Stand out of the crowd
Social media channels are designed to let you scroll.
We see 4,000 ads a day. Bizarre a lot!
Sometimes it feels like we stand out in the crowd, because our ad just scrolled by without being clicked on or even noticed!
Imagine what this means for your business…
How do you make sure you stand out?
It’s super important that you get people to stop scrolling.
You have to find something that sets you apart. You have to dare to jump out of the crowd.
By being creative you have a chance to be seen and remembered. According to Nielsen research, creativity even has a 49% impact on final sales.
What can you do to stand out?
Start working on your brand salience!
Brand salience is a similar metric to brand awareness. The difference is that brand salience is aimed at measuring awareness during the actual purchase decision rather than overall brand visibility.
If you have a high brand of salience, then you have a strong brand presence that consumers recognize and think of when they need a product.
An example: suppose you are in the mood for coffee and are on your way to a customer appointment.
Where would you stop to get a coffee? Which brands are you thinking of at the moment when you want to make a purchase?
Right, those are the brands that have a high brand of salience for you.
Ask yourself, “Which coffee brands do you know?”.
The answer you get to this is brand awareness.
It is therefore very important to map out where your customer may be thinking of you.
This way you can increase your brand salience and make a difference with your brand and if you want to know how to attract more customers to your brand, you may check the article “Create perfect lead magnets that customers can’t ignore.”
If you are looking for a good Digital Marketing Company in Kolkata that can handle your Social Media Marketing or Brand Promotion, then you may check our reviews on Google.
