While starting a new business, branding is probably one of the last things on your mind. Who has the time to think about fonts and colours when there are already so many important things clouding your mind? Whether you have chosen a random logo and went with the first name that comes to mind or you have hired a Branding to do proper branding for your company, you may need rebranding. Regardless of their status and position, brands often need to adopt rebranding to strengthen their position in the market.
Rebranding can be partial, like changing just a logo or a name. It can also be a complete change in a brand’s mission, visual identity, and marketing strategy. In either case, one needs to take careful steps, as rebranding can be a gamble. One needs to know the exact reason they need to redesign their brand and plan an effective strategy accordingly.
1. Keeping up with the changing world: In the rapidly changing world of design and technology, it's hard to always keep up with the latest trends in the industry. And if you have a long running brand, chances of you getting outdated are even higher. To keep up with time, brands need to modernise their designs and strategies from time-to-time. Getting help from a highly experienced Creative will help you stay up-to-date.
4. New or different audience: When a brand is targeting a larger or different audience, or a brand is going global, they need to start thinking about the demography of the new customers. What worked for one place might not work for people from a different place. Rethinking Braid creating. strategies is a must for gaining attention from new customers.
5. Recover from negative reputation: A lot of time brands face negative reputation, their place in market, and sales get hugely affected due to this image. In these cases, brands need to dive deep into the issues they are facing and rebrand their businesses to change audience perspectives in their favour
6. New mission or vision: Outdated philosophy can weigh a brand down. Whatever the reason behind the change in brand mission and vision, rebranding can convey the new message to customers successfully.
7. To stay relevant: Last but not the least; boredom is a buzzkill in the industry. Staying relevant is a must in the market. Any good Marketing Company will know when it is time to take a big step and bring changes to the brand to keep people intrigued
But first, an exercise - can you name a popular or preferred shoe, hygiene product, car, or mobile phone brand? A few names our team shared: Shoe – Nike, Hygiene – Colgate, Car – Toyota, Mobile Phone – iPhone.
After a quick deep dive into these choices, we discovered no one on the team was wearing Nike, drove a Toyota, and a handful used the iPhone and Colgate. However, these are the brands that they came up with almost instantly – THIS IS BRANDING. Each of these brands has created a unique place, a popular space for themselves in their respective categories.
On further prodding, we enquire how did they hear, know or experience these brands. This garnered several responses ranging from social media, TV, magazine, and newspaper, to supermarket shelves and discounts, celebrity endorsements, and sporting events. THIS IS MARKETING. Each of these brands is discoverable, create customer loyalty, and are able to sell in the marketplace because of a mix of marketing activities.
The Difference Between Branding And Marketing: Simplified
Simply put, branding is who you are, what you share, what you look like, and what you want the world to perceive. While marketing is where and how you are visible – in social networks, events, workplace, etc. Both elements are interconnected and interdependent.
Your company cannot undertake marketing activities without first determining a brand. And a brand cannot become the preferred choice or sell without marketing. Thus, all marketing stems from a clear Brand strategy.
The first thing every business (product or service) must establish once the business plan is in place is- What is the brand we are taking to the customer? This has several nuances, which we will get into ahead. With this brand proposition, a business begins marketing the offerings to various consumers to drive sales. Essentially, while marketing is about acquiring customers and generating sales, branding is about creating a place in the mind of customers and developing a relationship – so that the customer always chooses your brand among a plethora of similar products.
Fundamentally, this is the difference between branding and marketing. Let’s get a brief understanding of the elements of each and how our digital marketing agency in Pune can help your business develop a brand and marketing strategy.
What is branding?
Every business starts with an idea, product, or service and defines a business plan. Now it’s time to explain finer details on what the business means to the consumer. Branding is about building an emotional connection with the consumer – a relationship. It is a detailed topic to unpack in a blog. There are a few elements business owners can begin with.
Brand Differentiation Strategy
Every brand has specific Unique Selling Propositions (USPs), and this is what differentiates your brand from the rest of the products in the category. iPhone and Samsung are both phones – but the USP is the user experience and OS, uniquely defined. Some features may even seem similar, but their nuances are their USPs.
What happens when you compare the whole gamut of Android phones? Why does one choose Samsung, then? That is brand differentiation. Some attribute it to product differentiation. The key factor however, is that Samsung has built a unique personality through its personality, user experiences and continues to enjoy brand loyalty even today.
Brand Personality
Branding is an identity. So the first thing you notice is the brand name and logo – a key identifying factor. The golden arches of _____ and the tick of ____, to the tagline of “Dar ke aage jeet hai” or even the simple sing-song manner of saying ‘Paytm Karo’. Okay, we gave that last one out. But only a few clues, and you can almost instantly identify a brand.
Personality goes beyond the brand imagery and visual appeal. It’s the brand’s values, ethos, culture, and perceptions that embody the brand. Does your brand resonate and evoke the feelings you want to communicate to the consumer? These build the relationship with a consumer, attracts and holds their attention, and keeps customers coming back.
There is a reason brands such as McDonalds, Nike, Mountain Dew, and Paytm have a strong brand recall. They’ve created strong individual brand personalities, consistently speak their brand language, and – here’s the best part – their brand marketing is equally strong.
Brand’s Final Consumer
Often the target consumer or audience is discussed in the context of marketing and advertising. However, this target audience stems from the brand’s definition of who its consumers are.
Brand strategy crafted keeping the consumer in mind. The purpose the brand will serve for them, their perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, lifestyles, and more. Branding then designs communications to create a particular brand perception in the mind of the audience to build long-term brand relationships.
Let’s give you some food for thought. Take a family of 6 persons – grandparents, middle-aged parents, and young adult children. Which stores do you think each of them would shop from?
What is Marketing?
Now that the business has defined the brand, it is time to start marketing. Marketing is a set of activities that takes your brand to a defined set of audiences across multiple platforms to achieve sales. This is not relationship-building – it is transactional and focuses on driving sales above building loyalty. What we see today, however, is that several businesses skip the branding stage and directly shift into the marketing stage with a logo, product offering, and advertising ideas.
Now that the business has defined the brand, it is time to start marketing. Marketing is a set of activities that takes your brand to a defined set of audiences across multiple platforms to achieve sales. This is not relationship-building – it is transactional and focuses on driving sales above building loyalty. What we see today, however, is that several businesses skip the branding stage and directly shift into the marketing stage with a logo, product offering, and advertising ideas.
This means you’re looking at the 4 Ps of marketing – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. In most cases the business plan defines the product and its offering and sets competitive prices. Place aka distribution, is a crucial strategy, especially for physical products and services.
A classic case of excellent distribution is the rise of the EdTech industry and online learning. A product and service previously delivered physically are both accessible globally and digitally. The industry is now a mix of innovative tech products, platforms, apps, and more.
What most business owners call marketing is promotions and advertising – a part of marketing. Brands can choose to market traditionally and digitally. Businesses create a mix of marketing tactics ranging from TV ads and flyers to social media ads, content marketing, SEO, and more. These marketing activities take the brand across multiple channels to generate leads and drive sales.
What is the difference between branding and marketing?
The difference is that – NOT all branding is marketing. But all marketing IS branding. A customer’s experience with the support team is part of how a brand communicates, expresses, and offers an experience. This is NOT marketing. But every ad campaign, SEO exercise, and social media content- tweet, story, or email is branding – because the brand expresses itself through a marketing tactic.
Branding and marketing goals often overlap, but the fulfilment of each aims to bring a different result. They also work in tandem with each other, are responsible, and are interdependent in the long run to drive the business and create customer loyalty.
Are you saying branding and marketing to your agency, vendors, teams, and prospective employees in the same breath? Maybe it is time to define expectations from both branding and marketing. The team at Mindstorm enables businesses, start-ups, and large enterprises to set brand and marketing goals and help them achieve them. We’re hoping our blog has helped decode the difference between branding and marketing fundamentally, and we’d love to discuss it more.
Social media advertising has become inevitable for any size of business to reach and engage with relevant target audiences. And your brand does too. Have you evaluated the impact of social media marketing and the ROI? We’re confident the social media advertising does generate ROI -can we improve it – this is the question. Billions of people use social media platforms every day. However, social media is highly competitive, making it challenging to stand out and generate desired return on investment (ROI) from social media. Is there a way to boost your social media ROI? Yes!
There are social media marketing strategies to boost ROI, once implemented can increase brand visibility, attract more followers, and ultimately drive more conversions and revenue from social media campaigns. Our Silver Logic Design covers everything ahead – from researching your target audience, and creating engaging content to paid advertising tips and strategies to increase social media ROI. But first, what constitutes social media ROI, and why measure it?
Importance of Measuring Social Media ROI
Businesses invest a considerable amount in social media advertising. Some businesses operate entirely on social media – selling and marketing to customers. Thus, to truly understand the effectiveness of social media campaigns, it’s crucial to measure social media ROI.
Measuring social media ROI is essential to:
1. Help determine the effectiveness of your social media campaigns – what’s generating the most revenue? What can change or needs to be optimized to improve the overall effectiveness of social media advertising?
2. Allocate the marketing budget wisely, thus, enabling you to prioritize advertising campaigns, and platforms that perform better for your brand, and invest more in them.
3. Justify your marketing spend and provide tangible evidence of the return on investment from social media budgets.
4. Help make data-driven decisions for social media marketing and the business. Social media analytics data offers patterns, trends, and areas for improvement not just for campaigns, but also communications and business strategy.
Common Metrics for Measuring Social Media ROI
To increase your social media ROI you also need to track the right metrics. Managers must set benchmarks and parameters to evaluate. Here are some common metrics to track:
• Engagement metrics: likes, comments, shares, clicks
• Conversion metrics: sales, leads, sign-ups, downloads
• Reach and impressions: how many people saw your post, and how many times it was seen
• Cost per acquisition: how much it costs to acquire a customer through social media
• Customer lifetime value: how much revenue you can expect to earn from a customer over time
Let’s explore some social media marketing strategies to boost ROI and maximize the effectiveness of social media advertising.
Research your audience and then research some more
Before you start creating content or launching campaigns, it’s crucial to understand your target audience. Crafting social media campaigns for a random audience is like aiming in the dark. You’re not reaching the right people or saying the right things, leaving your campaigns to fail. A well-researched target audience includes understanding their behaviours, habits, lifestyles, what products they buy, and when and how they use. That way the campaign can be customized to reach a relevant audience, the content resonates with the audience, drives engagement, and offers a good experience.
Choose the right social media platforms
Not all social media platforms are created equal and not all demand that you invest money and resources. Each platform offers a unique set of tools, formats, and audiences for each business. On some platforms, you can drive engaging content, and sell products, while on others you could simply have a presence for the brand. It’s important to choose the platforms where your target audience is most active and aligns with your overall business goals.
Optimize social media handles
Your social media handles talk about your brand and is the first impression! Consumers use your business name to search and unless your brand is as distinct as Coke, Nike, or Netflix, there are several repeated handles on social media. Having a clear social media handle with the right descriptions and details about the business is essential. This becomes crucial for businesses with multiple brand categories or types of services. Constantly check on the handles, upgrade the services offered, or add information that adds authenticity.
Create engaging content
The content the brand offers is the engagement-driving factor on social media! Relevant, relatable content that appeals to the target audience drives engagement and conversions on social media. Maybe it is time to evaluate the content strategy for the brand. Is there a business offering that is shared uniquely and engagingly that increases your social media ROI? As top advertising Agency in Pune, our teams regularly evaluate the content pieces that perform well or don’t revise strategy. The team listens to conversations to understand the content audiences want more of.
Use video content to get more engagement
Video content is widely popular. The online consumer needs videos for reviews, consideration, attention, and interest – the whole buying process. Businesses must invest in quality video content creation to drive engagement and increase ROI. From showcasing the products or services to customer testimonials, or educational content, videos are one of the best ways to boost your social media ROI.
Paid advertising is a powerful tool to boost social media ROI
It’s common knowledge that ads on social media work. If your business has not had conversions, it’s time to talk to our team. Paid advertising needs a carefully thought-out strategy with clearly defined goals and measuring metrics. Want to drive real ROI from social media advertising campaigns? Try selling on the social media platform itself too! Create targeted ads to reach the right audience and drive more conversions with social commerce. More customers today prefer buying on the platform itself than heading to another website.
More conversations mean more conversions
Social media is a two-way street. This means the brand needs to speak or share interesting content that generates discussions, interest, and conversations. In return, the brand must engage by participating in conversations – responding to comments and messages, and sharing user-generated content. One way to ensure the communication is open is implementing the messenger bot to help drive conversions. Messenger bots can help automate customer service enquiries, offer personalized recommendations, and drive conversions through targeted messaging.
Include influencer marketing in the strategy
Influencer marketing has grown by leaps and bounds since the basic product showcase. Influencers boost brand reputation, amplify content, add credibility to the brand, and often drive sales. The right influencer marketing strategy boosts social media efforts to drive conversions and get ROI.
Monitor social media analytics like a hawk!
It’s common knowledge that ads on social media work. If your business has not had conversions, it’s time to talk to our team. Paid advertising needs a carefully thought-out strategy with clearly defined goals and measuring metrics. Want to drive real ROI from social media advertising campaigns? Try selling on the social media platform itself too! Create targeted ads to reach the right audience and drive more conversions with social commerce. More customers today prefer buying on the platform itself than heading to another website.
We live in a social and digital age where social media advertising is an indispensable tool for business. However, social media marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and it’s important to find the strategies that work for your business. Increasing social media ROI is not a one-time activity, it requires continuous improvement to drive success and growth.
