The Importance Of Branding Your Business
So what is branding? Branding is the process of building a positive collection of perceptions about your business or service in your consumer’s minds.
Consumer of your business may buy your product or avoid it; it all depends on how they feel about your brand.
When a person came across your business’s name, they automatically conjure up impressions and memories that determine what they believe about your business.
Your brand image builds up in your customers’ minds, whether you intentionally put it there or not.
Branding is the way of making sure that the brand image you have is the brand image you want. So how to brand your business and influence your market?
If you are all prepared to brand your business, the very first thing, you need to have is a clear understanding of how developing a brand actually involves before you really get started.
Business brand process must always follow these major and crucial steps:
Deciding What to Brand: This is the initial move, and you have to decide are you branding a product, a service, a company, or an individual?
Market Research: Like product marketing, you have to find out everything there is to know about your niche market. Then, find out everything there is to know about your competitor’s product or service.
Build Credibility for Your Product: You have to win a place for your offering in the marketplace and in consumer’s minds by providing unique solutions to problems or needs that aren’t already being addressed by your competitor’s products.
Develop Your Name, Logo, and Tagline: Brand name is very crucial as it will unlock your brand image in your consumer’s mind.
The logo is the symbol that serves as the face of your brand and the tagline is the memorable phrase that provides consumers with a quick indication of your product, brand, and market position.
All three things is very important in business branding.
Brand Name Launching: Make your brand-name public so that it unveils your name, logo, and slogan. This will tell your target market the story of how your brand reflects what you stand for.
Stay in Market: Occasionally, you need to update your brand presentation in order to keep it relevant to the market in which it lives and people never forget your brand.
Good branding management can be summed up in a single word that is consistency.
Naming Your Business – Add value and Create a Brand
Once you have decided to start your own business the next logical step is to come up with the right name. A right name can add value to your product especially if it reflects the nature of the product or if the name is easy to remember.
There are many ways to come up with the right name. You can choose a name that provides information about your product to your customer like head and shoulders.
The name clearly specifies that it is an anti-dandruff shampoo. Names that are formed from made up words like Google can work in your favor.
If they are marketed well they become memorable and synonymous with the services that you provide. You need to be cautious so as the word doesn’t become a brandnomer.
Keep in mind your customers before you come up with a name. A good name appeals to your customer base, it should also create a positive vibe in your potential customers.
Long and confusing names have to be avoided at any cost.
If you are looking to market your products/services around the world care should be taken to choose a name which doesn’t have any alternate offensive meaning in another language. This will alienate an entire segment of potential customers.
The other option is to hire a naming firm. This is an expensive process as they will charge anywhere near 3000$ to 4ooo$ as this involves identity design and graphic design for the packaging. The downside for this service is the cost.
You know your company better than anyone else so come up with a name, speak to your confidants about it and choose a name that fits your company’s personality.
Learn About Brandnomer – Avoid Death By Generic Trademarking
Generic Trademark is a brand name that becomes a part of the colloquial. The brand name becomes a generic name for the product or service that the company offers.
These brand names start off as distinctive names and by dominating the market space end up being a Brandnomer.
Lot of products such as Xerox and Band-Aid are considered by the general public to be the terms for Photocopy and Adhesive bandages.
Once the Brand name becomes a Generic Trademark the companies that have trademarked these brand names run a risk of their intellectual property being used by their competitors.
Beware of advertising your product heavily without providing an alternate generic name; this is one of the main reasons for Brandnomer. Also, avoid using the brand name in a verb or plural form as this leads to Brandnomer as well.
Once a name becomes generic, corrective campaigns need to be launched in order to protect the brand name which can get tedious.
Only in certain countries trademark protection is applied on products that have been declared as generic.
For instance “Aspirin” is declared as generic in the US while in 80 other countries it is still under the trademark of Bayer. For any startup it is essential to retain the identity without the brand name becoming a Generic trademark.
If you are an inventor and have created a new product it is always better to create a generic descriptor which acts as a description of your product.
In the documentation of the product clear distinctions need to be made between the Brand name and the generic descriptor.
Google is another brand which is fighting hard to avoid genericide by discouraging people to use the term “Googling” for search.