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These Are the Top Branding Strategies That Actually Work

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By Dirk Petzold

Stop Guessing, Start Growing: The Branding Strategies That Actually Deliver

Do you feel like your brand is just… drifting? Like a ship without a sail, tossed around by the winds of the market? You pour time, money, and energy into your business, but something’s missing. Visibility, recognition, and a loyal following seem just out of reach. Sound familiar? The truth is, in today’s crowded marketplace, a great product or service isn’t enough. You need a strong brand. You need branding strategies that connect with your audience. And frankly, not all branding strategies are created equal.

This article isn’t about fluffy theories or outdated tactics. It’s about actionable, proven branding strategies that can transform your business. We’re going to cut through the noise and focus on what actually works. Think of this as your guide to building a brand that resonates, attracts, and thrives.

So, are you ready to take control of your brand’s destiny? Let’s get started!

Why Do Branding Strategies Even Matter Anyway?

Before we jump into the specific branding strategies, let’s quickly address the elephant in the room: why bother? Isn’t branding just for big corporations with massive marketing budgets? Absolutely not! Branding is essential for businesses of all sizes. It’s the essence of your business and the way you create trust with your customers. Here’s why:

  • Differentiation: In a world of endless choices, branding helps you stand out. It communicates what makes you unique.
  • Trust and Loyalty: A strong brand builds trust. Customers are more likely to choose and stick with a brand they know and trust.
  • Price Premium: People are willing to pay more for brands they perceive as valuable.
  • Marketing Effectiveness: A well-defined brand makes your marketing efforts more focused and effective.

Basically, branding is the foundation upon which a successful business is built. It’s not an optional extra; it’s a core component of long-term growth.

Understanding Your Brand Identity

Okay, but how do you actually build a strong brand? It all starts with understanding your brand identity. This is your brand’s DNA – the core values, personality, and promise that define who you are.

Think about these questions:

  • What are your company’s core values? What do you truly believe in?
  • What’s your brand’s personality? Is it playful, sophisticated, reliable, or something else entirely?
  • What promise are you making to your customers? What can they expect from you?
  • Who are your target audience? What are their needs, desires, and pain points?

Answering these questions is crucial for any of the branding strategies you will be using. Once you have a clear picture of your brand identity, you can start to communicate it consistently across all your touchpoints.

Consistent Visuals: A Key Branding Element

One of the most important elements of your brand is your visual identity. This includes your logo, colour palette, typography, and imagery.

Consistency is key here. Use the same visual elements across your website, social media, marketing materials, and even your physical location (if you have one). This helps to create a cohesive and recognizable brand image.

Don’t underestimate the power of good design. A professionally designed logo and visual identity can make a huge difference in how your brand is perceived. Think of it as your brand’s first impression – you want to make it count.

Crafting Your Brand Story: Connect on a Deeper Level

People connect with stories. They remember stories. They share stories. That’s why crafting a compelling brand story is one of the most effective branding strategies you can use.

Your brand story is more than just the history of your company. It’s the narrative that explains why you exist, what you’re passionate about, and how you’re making a difference in the world.

Think about the origin stories of brands you admire. They’re often inspiring, relatable, and emotionally engaging. Aim to create a brand story that resonates with your audience on a deeper level.

Content Marketing: Share Your Expertise

Content marketing is a powerful way to build brand awareness, establish authority, and attract new customers. By creating valuable and informative content, you can position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.

This content can take many forms, including blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, and more. The key is to create content that is relevant to your target audience and provides them with real value.

Furthermore, make sure the content is aligned with your brand’s tone and voice. For example, a financial planning company that is trying to establish itself as an industry leader should use professional language and tone. A company that sells children’s toys should have a playful and energetic approach to content marketing.

Social Media Mastery: Engage and Connect

Social media is an essential tool for building brand awareness and engaging with your audience. Choose the platforms that are most relevant to your target audience and create content that is tailored to each platform.

Don’t just broadcast your message; engage in conversations, respond to comments, and participate in relevant communities. Social media is all about building relationships.

Customer Experience: Deliver on Your Promise

Your brand isn’t just what you say it is; it’s what your customers experience. Every interaction a customer has with your brand – from visiting your website to contacting customer support – shapes their perception of your brand.

Focus on delivering an exceptional customer experience at every touchpoint. This includes providing excellent products or services, offering outstanding customer support, and creating a seamless and enjoyable customer journey.

Positive customer experiences lead to repeat business, positive reviews, and word-of-mouth marketing.

Building a Strong Employer Brand

Your employer brand is how your company is perceived as an employer. Building a positive employer brand can help you attract and retain top talent. When your employees are happy, they become brand advocates and are more likely to provide excellent service to your customers.

To build a strong employer brand, invest in your company culture, offer competitive compensation and benefits, and create a positive and supportive work environment.

Measuring Your Success

You should have a way of knowing if you’re being successful with your branding strategies, therefore you should measure your branding efforts and track your progress. This will help you identify what’s working and what’s not, so you can make adjustments as needed.

Some key metrics to track include:

  • Brand awareness (website traffic, social media followers, mentions)
  • Brand sentiment (social media mentions, reviews, surveys)
  • Customer satisfaction (surveys, feedback)
  • Sales and revenue

By regularly monitoring these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your branding strategies.

Staying Consistent: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Building a strong brand takes time and effort. It’s not a one-time project; it’s an ongoing process. Be patient, stay consistent, and focus on building a brand that resonates with your audience.

The most successful brands are those that are authentic, transparent, and committed to delivering value to their customers. By focusing on these principles, you can build a brand that stands the test of time. Good luck!

By Dirk Petzold

Sourced from WATC

https://weandthecolor.com/
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Well Positioned Brands Have The Advantage

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By Robert Wheatley

Imagine for a minute the experience consumers encounter when grocery shopping. As they enter a store or navigate online, in any given category, people will contend with similar product stories and formulations or ingredient claims alongside similar product packaging. Given the continued proliferation of brands, flavours, and forms, it can be a bit of a blur, perhaps bordering on confusing.

Most of the brand messaging they see will be analytical and based on assertions of “better-ness” in the form of ingredient comparisons, quality assertions, or claims of formulation and taste superiority. What’s missing is the type of beneficial distinctiveness that sets a brand far enough apart that such comparisons become moot.

Moreover, we know that consumer actions and decisions to buy are governed by the brain’s Limbic System, a part of our physiology that is influenced through emotion and not rational messages. Humans are not hard-wired to function as fact-based decision-making machines. It’s always heart-over-head. Surprising to be sure because we all like to think of ourselves as rationally informed beings. In reality, preferences are influenced by how people feel in the presence of your brand.

  • The battle for market share, sales velocity, and sustainable business results resides in the six inches of grey matter between both ears of your brand’s core and prospective customer base. Your real marketplace challenge is how to secure and maintain mental real estate.

However, many brands are preoccupied with trumpeting their product features and benefits. Ultimately, your business success will be proportional to how greatly (or not) your brand matters to its intended audience. Mattering is an outcome of occupying a unique and positive frame inside your consumers’ minds. When your brand is distinctively positioned with users in a relevant way, you can secure a place in the brain that continuously emerges to reinforce brand preference and purchase.

Take the best-positioned brand in the beer industry. Much to the chagrin of all other large beer manufacturers, Corona is in a class by itself, having honed and invested in its association with beach, surf, sun, and vacation-in-a-bottle vibes. Even the lime ritual helps fortify the mental associations of wanting to relax in that sunny beach locale while enjoying a cold bottle of Corona. Notice the brand never talks about its liquid, brewing credentials, or quality of ingredients. It’s an emotional proposition and distinctively owned by Corona as a desirable lifestyle image association. This is positioning at its finest in a business where brands routinely fly over this important work by running a clever ad campaign featuring a catchy slogan.

Nike doesn’t sell running shoes. It’s an emotional and aspirational brand. One that inspires passion and commitment to athletic endeavour and achievement. ‘Just Do It’ is a more than memorable call to action. It’s a state of mind and purpose. It works to plant a positive association in the consumer’s mind by surfacing their quest for self-improvement. The predominant voice of Nike’s brand is decidedly not about running shoe design and engineering, advanced materials, or other product feature details. Nike owns the emotional context around a powerful desire for personal achievement.

  • Do you see where this is going when you rise above self-promoting product features and focus on the consumer and their lives and how you can operate as an enabler of their hopes and dreams. Suddenly, you find yourself in rarified territory, exploring a path to uniquely position your brand in a more powerful way – creating a meaningful correlation that can take root in the consumer’s brain.

Far too many brands don’t labour at this. Instead, they focus squarely on themselves — through a circular story about product bona fides and feature advantages. It’s important to consider that consumers no longer buy products. A purchase is now a flag and symbol of what they believe in, their values, and who they are. Want to have a deeper relationship with your core users? Then, imbue your brand with deeper meaning. Give them something larger than themselves to embrace and advocate for.

Just be careful not to conflate a strong brand position with an advertising campaign. Creating emotional context around your brand and its “why” is a more demanding exercise. We refer to it as curating your Brand Stand — a decisive view about why your brand exists and its human-relevant purpose. It will serve as an anchor for every business decision coming after it, the value you create and how you do what you do.

Accelerate Your Job Search With Marketing’s Most Advanced AI Career Coach

We won’t devote space here to examining all the prescriptive details around brand positioning discovery. Perhaps the most important guidance we can offer is embracing uniqueness and differentiation—especially important in business categories where sameness (most of them) is a systemic problem.

A Good Place To Start…

Positioning Is Most Effective When Trust Breaks Out

Trust is essential to unlocking the business value of a unique brand positioning. Trusted brands retain loyalty, motivate repeat purchases, and deliver a receptive audience for the trial of innovations. That said, trust can only be earned. Here’s a six-point checklist to help you think about trust:

  1. Values and beliefs – a higher purpose brand that has a belief system beyond transactional considerations is immediately trustworthy
  2. Consistency – when the experience with your brand across all points of contact is reinforced through repeat performances, you earn trust
  3. Keeping promises (walking the walk) – when earning trust, efforts to demonstrate dependability through actions and behaviours are more powerful than words
  4. Social proof – validation and verification of your competence through the testimonials of real people is powerful affirmation of trustworthiness
  5. Transparency – another form of validation is taking consumers behind the corporate curtain for an unfiltered look at what you do and how you do it. Showing extraordinary openness is  characteristic of a trusted brand
  6. Help rather than hype – If you truly care about your customer’s well-being and success, you will operate unselfishly as an enabler of their lifestyle goals and wishes, earning their trust along the way

A uniquely positioned and trusted brand is your organization’s most powerful business-building asset. Your devotion and energy to creating emotional connectivity and trustworthiness are the formula for rising above the competition and driving sustainable, profitable growth. Positioning creates a memorable place in the brain, while trust seals the deal. Together, they deliver a formidable and powerful business-building platform.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Robert Wheatley, CEO of Chicago-based Emergent, The Healthy Living Agency.

At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

By Robert Wheatley

Sourced from Branding Strategy Insider

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In a Noisy World, Embrace Quiet Branding

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By Sarah Sweeney

We live in an increasingly noisy world. Social media platforms are swelling exponentially. Advertising spending growth is the highest it’s ever been; same with entertainment, driven in part by the streaming wars and competition from UGC on social media. Meanwhile, design and branding is recovering from a recent Gen Z-fuelled maximalism trend that featured loud colours and complex visuals.

It’s enough to give anyone a headache, particularly online where everyone seems to be yelling for attention.

It’s also a no-win situation. For brands, this noise creates massive headwinds in competing for attention. Marketers can no longer stick to an annual strategy since plans need to be constantly rethought. Meanwhile, consumers may have more choices than ever before, but they also are so inundated that brand recall across all channels is plummeting—especially on social media, where less than 33% of people recall seeing an ad.

The good news is that a noisy world creates an opportunity for brands open to offering audiences a little peace and quiet. Websites, packaging, display, as well as product look, feel, taste and smell are all sensory experiences. Through design, brands can earn growth by offering some sensory relief through crafting an antidote to the loud chatter of everyday life.

The allure of quiet brands

In a crowded marketplace, design is the signal through the noise. Portraying a lifestyle and crafting a “brand world” is one way brands are bringing serenity to consumers, making sure every brand touchpoint is part of a cohesive system designed to fight the noise. When infused with moments of quiet, brands can reap the benefits in increased conversions.

It’s the reason why wellness, home and athletic brands have started attracting large, loyal followings. Personal care brand Aesop uses slow, melodic compositions that centre sensory, nature-filled experiences. Similarly, cosmetics brand First-hand Supply is approachable and casual, while holistic wellness studio Open stands out by using simple copy and verdant imagery with nature-filled videography designed to enchant social media users.

It’s not that maximalism doesn’t have value, especially to post-pandemic Gen Zers who might enjoy some noise after being distanced from peers. But brands must balance culturally relevant flourishes with ensuring that the elements of their brand-building aren’t trendy or fleeting, but timeless and reassuring.

Serenity now

Creating a quiet brand not only means cultivating a calm experience, but investing in long-term audience loyalty strategies that result in brands that last. Here’s how:

  • Create an inviting world: Make sure that every place where a person might discover your brand feels the same and welcoming. Houseware brand Holcomb’s materials and products are friendly and calming to experience on screen and in real life, with packaging that’s deeply considered and meant to ensure sustainability and a moment of quiet before the chaos of cooking. Even the wordmark, photography, and typography assure newcomers that Holcomb’s world is one you’ll want to stay in.
  • Make it human: Ffern is the epitome of a quiet brand, from the unboxing experience of its seasonal perfumes to creating slice-of-life documentaries that spotlight the people who make the scents. The thoughtful world and content they’ve crafted centres human experiences, depicting the lifestyle of Ffern’s community.
  • Make it sensory: Creating the feeling of relief is a full sensory challenge, so be sure your brand experience engages every sense. Lifestyle company Flamingo Estate is a master of this, often focusing on scenes and settings instead of their products—visuals of honey, close-ups of flowers, architecture and even oysters—to convey the brand’s inspirations in ways that engage sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch.

In building any brand, the goal is always to create a timeless narrative that resonates with diverse audiences far into the future, qualities inherent to quiet brands. Better still, if more brands commit to creating mindful spaces and moments to reflect and escape the bustle of modern life, they may help foster a world where brands can represent peace of mind instead of noisy distractions.

Feature Image Credit: Good Studio/Adobe Stock, Getty Images

By Sarah Sweeney

Sarah Sweeney is client and brand director at Parker Studio.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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On the Road to Effective Brand Building

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Sourced from ADWEEK

Branding is often misunderstood. Some believe it’s only for large companies with deep pockets. Others think it’s too expensive, irrelevant for performance-driven campaigns, or only applicable to B2C businesses.

But believing these branding misconceptions can put your company’s future growth at risk.

Here’s the reality: Branding is crucial for companies of all sizes, and it doesn’t have to break the bank. It’s also a powerful tool for performance campaigns and is equally as important for B2B brands as it is for B2C brands.

Brand building is an essential part of full-funnel marketing, driving growth with new and returning customers across their journeys. And because the customer journey is rarely linear, brand building is your secret tool for keeping your brand memorable at every twist and turn. The payoff? Your brand stays top of mind, whether it’s a customer’s first encounter or a repeat purchase.

Even when you’re laser-focused on metrics and performance, it’s crucial to pay attention to how new customers become aware of and remember your brand. Why? Because awareness is the foundation of trust and recall—key drivers in a crowded marketplace where customers encounter over 20 touchpoints on their path to purchase.

When it comes to considering a brand, the majority of consumers prioritize trust (88%) and convenience (84%), according to an Edelman report; meanwhile, purchase intent is most influenced by brand awareness and recall, at 88% above all other factors, per Nielsen’s 2023 Brand Lift report.

Making the right impression across touchpoints early and often sets the stage for long-term business growth. And this isn’t just theory: Amazon Ads’ performance insights—gathered across multiple channels like streaming video, audio, and display ads—show the real-world impact of brand exposure on awareness, recall, and conversion.

On the road ahead, three brand-building myths that may be holding you back will be debunked. With key milestones and checkpoints guiding the way, you’ll uncover the truths of effective brand building and be equipped with actionable insights that can elevate your strategy and set you on the path to unparalleled success. Get ready to transform your approach and watch your brand thrive like never before.

Branding isn’t just about capturing attention at the top of the funnel—it’s about driving action all the way through, from awareness to consideration and, ultimately, to conversion.

A strong brand does more than just make a first impression; it builds familiarity and trust, which can make your audience more open and responsive every time they encounter your brand.

When your brand identity and presence are strong, consumers are more likely to engage with your messages at every stage of their journey. In fact, advertisers who launched a Sponsored Brands ad campaign with Amazon Ads saw branded searches grow by more than 59% over just four weeks, according to 2022 worldwide internal Amazon data. This means your branding isn’t just creating awareness—it’s paving the way for meaningful interactions that lead to real results.

Consistent exposure across channels does a world of good. As a brand, you can get deeper interactions and influence purchase intent, driving both consideration and conversion.

Here’s the bottom line: Branding isn’t just about attention; it’s about building long-term relationships that help drive action and sales. For instance, 35% of surveyed shoppers discover new brands of all sizes on Amazon, and advertisers that used Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands saw a 16.7X increase in conversion rates compared to those that used only Sponsored Products per 2023 U.S. internal Amazon data. This shows the power of branding in turning first-time interactions into lasting customers.

Lean into branding as a core full-funnel strategy
Brand awareness isn’t just about expanding your reach—it’s the foundation for building meaningful connections that drive consideration, sales, and loyalty. Yes, investing in your upper funnel helps attract new customers and helps keep your brand top-of-mind across all interactions. But by applying brand building consistently across all channels and touchpoints, you create a unified customer journey built on trust. This is how simple interactions transform into deep engagements that foster lasting relationships.

Embrace all channels
Today’s consumers are constantly on the move, whether they’re shopping online, streaming their favourite music, catching up on the latest TV series, or engaging with top influencers on Twitch. To truly connect with them, your brand needs to be everywhere they are, and to do that, a multichannel approach is essential for capturing and holding their attention.

Effective branding means crafting a compelling message that can inspire discovery and connect with new-to-brand audiences throughout their daily lives—not just when they’re ready to buy.

For instance, audiences that see ads on connected or streaming devices (like connected TV) are 3X more likely to respond compared to those who see them on social media, according to Kantar and Amazon Ads’ 2022 Connected Consumers study.

Where your brand appears is as crucial as the creative itself; choosing relevant solutions enhances the visibility and relevance of your brand message. For example, ads on Amazon Music’s ad-supported tier attract 2.6X more attention than the industry benchmark, according to the 2022 Attention Economy research by dentsu, Lumen, and Amazon Freevee.

Context is key. Audiences are more receptive to ads placed on services where they are already engaged, which increases attention and effectiveness. For instance, ads on Twitch command twice the attention compared to study benchmarks, according to the 2022 Attention Economy research. This shows how placing ads in a relevant context (or where customers are) can significantly boost engagement and recall.

Finally, strategic ad placement drives both brand recognition and conversion. When video, audio, and display ads are well placed, they enhance recall and brand favourability, often exceeding industry benchmarks. For example, ads on Amazon Prime Video capture 10% more attention than the average CTV benchmarks, according to the 2024 TVision Amazon Prime Video viewership analysis. This highlights the importance of aligning your message with the relevant media for better results.

Choose solutions that let you use signals wisely
Consumers read, shop, play games, watch video, browse the web, and listen to music throughout their day. Partnering with a service that gets your message to relevant customers at relevant times can create meaningful connections and a seamless customer journey. This approach deepens your understanding of the audience, fine-tunes your media planning, and gives customers the opportunity to discover your brand.

The media is the message
Choose channels that expand your reach and connect with unique customers. For example, nearly half (47%) of Prime Video viewers aren’t on other streaming services, according to 2024 GWI data as cited in Amazon Ads’ report, and they spend an average of 11 hours a month watching, per 2023 U.S. Amazon internal data.

For marketers, being able to measure the impact of their campaigns from branding to performance is critical and possible. Existing tools and insights from a robust service that supports all ad-supported media—from shopping and CTV to audio and games—allow marketers to link their ad spend directly to specific KPIs.

For example, Amazon Ads offers tools like Channel Planner and Cross Channel Planner to measure brand awareness, including metrics like ad recall and brand favourability. Additionally, Amazon Marketing Cloud can provide a way to measure the total impact of your brand campaign, giving you a comprehensive view of your efforts.

Moreover, there are plenty of other tools that can help you gauge the effectiveness of your spending. Pre- and post-exposure surveys, brand lift studies, and third-party measurement tools are just a few ways you can assess the value gained from your branding investments. These tools offer insights into how well your brand is resonating with your audience, allowing you to understand what’s working and where you might need to adjust your strategy.

All marketers are focused on metrics, and the good news is that you don’t have to give them up when investing in brand building. Metrics such as ad recall, brand favourability, and purchase intent let you see exactly how well consumers remember your ad, how positively they view your brand, and how likely they are to make a purchase—all crucial insights for measuring the success of your branding efforts.

Measuring awareness isn’t just possible; it’s powerful. With relevant tools in hand, you can have clear insights into how well your brand-building efforts are working across different media formats. So, whether you’re leveraging video, display, or audio, you’ll know exactly how your brand resonates with audiences.

Don’t guess—measure
There are tools available that let you see exactly how your brand ad dollars improve your bottom line. For example, Amazon Brand Lift can measure the effect of ad campaigns on brand awareness and perception, while Amazon Shopper Panel surveys can gather insights from customers who have been exposed to ads and those who haven’t.

Track what truly matters
At the end of the day, it’s all about helping customers discover your products and nurturing their loyalty. Brand lift studies, third-party tools, and surveys let you monitor key metrics, such as brand recall, favourability, and purchase intent so that you can fine-tune your strategy and focus on what really counts: identifying and cultivating life-long relationships

Amazon Ads offers full-funnel advertising solutions to help businesses of all sizes achieve their marketing goals at scale. Amazon Ads connects advertisers to highly relevant audiences through first-party insights; extensive reach across premium content like Prime Video, Twitch, and third-party publishers; the ability to connect and directly measure campaign tactics across awareness, consideration, and conversion; and generative AI to deliver appropriate creative at each step. Amazon Ads reaches a monthly ad-supported audience of 275 million+ customers across owned and operated properties in the U.S. For more information, please visit ads.amazon.com.

Illustrations by Cari Vander Yacht

B

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6 ways AI can supercharge your small business branding

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By Dmytro Spilka

How to use AI alongside human creativity.

Branding goes beyond designing a simple logo and slapping your creation on all of your product packages or employee uniforms. It goes to the root of your business personality and how your business projects it to the public.

Every business values its brand, and building a reputable brand that people trust takes time. Thankfully, the rise of AI and its potential have made it an effective tool to help businesses supercharge their branding, alongside human creatives.

Many leading creatives are using AI already and it’s possible for you to use affordable tools to boost your startup or SME and supercharge your existing branding processes.
Feature Image credit: Getty Images

By Dmytro Spilka

Dmytro is the CEO at the SEO, copywriting and content marketing agency in Solvid and the founder of the web analytics startup Pridicto. His work has been published in Shopify, Zapier, Make Use Of, VentureBeat, Mention, WordStream, BuzzSumo, and Campaign Monitor.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ 

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Strategic Partnerships And Branding: Leveraging Brand Partnerships For Mutual Growth And Expansion

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By Tony Ambroza

Partnering with other brands is one of the best strategies for young businesses to gain exposure, reach new consumers and strengthen their base of brand enthusiasts.

Major companies, from Spotify and Uber to Nike and Apple, constantly use partnerships to grow via new consumer audiences, scale revenue, and propel their brands forward.

In my role as Chief Growth Officer, my teams have utilized several forms of partnerships—from partnering with media companies to collaborating with famous athletes and personalities to completely rebrand and scale our company.

In my experience, brand partnerships are a win-win strategy that, when well executed and integrated, can play a key role in growing a company even faster than traditional brand-building strategies.

Examples Of Brand Partnerships In Action

Branding partnerships can take on many roles, and identifying your needs as a company can point you toward your most profitable partnerships. Examples include:

• Industry/Affiliate Partnerships: Businesses serving different niches in the same industry often partner to acquire new customers and fulfil roles that others cannot. Examples may include event planners who partner with bakers or florists to help people plan for their events.

• Cross-Promotion Partnerships And Collaborations: Businesses with established customer bases often collaborate on a marketing push to gain short-term exposure. One example includes Burger King’s infamous Cheetos Chicken Fries.

• Creator Partnerships: Brands often partner with content creators, such as influencers, to promote their business to new audiences. At our company, we partnered with a core group of enthusiasts to fulfil content creation roles and also build authentic, real-world exposure for our products.

• Mergers And Acquisitions (M&As): While some may not consider this a partnership, we have used M&As to incorporate more businesses into our portfolio and reach a wider customer base.

Benefits Of Brand Partnerships

There are very few downsides to a successful brand partnership. In fact, some of the short and long-term benefits include:

• Increased Exposure: Partnering with other brands on collaborations extends your reach and access to established consumer audiences to accelerate growth.

• Resource Sharing: Partnerships enable you to fulfil different functions previously unavailable for your business and share internal resources, such as marketing materials and products.

• Improved Customer Experiences: Partnerships benefit your consumers most, whether via better fulfilment, access to more products or cost-saving promotion.

• Product Innovation: We’ve used partnerships to improve our product offerings and give truck owners access to the best aftermarket products on the market.

• Risk Management: Partnerships allow you to share the burden of losses, thereby cutting your risk in half.

Strategies To Team Up With Other Brands

When searching for brand partnerships, my team and I follow a few key strategies for evaluating the potential benefits of a partnership and determining who to approach. Here are some steps to help you get started.

• Audit Your Brand: First, you want to assess your brand’s strengths and weaknesses to search out growth opportunities. In our case, when rebranding our company, we focused heavily on partnerships in the creator/marketing space. This allowed us to spread our message to more people and fulfil more roles that were previously unavailable.

• Search For Brands With Shared Audiences: One of the clearest opportunities to partner with another brand is to find one that caters to the same audience as you but does not compete with you directly. For example, we chose The Drive as one of our partners in the publication space because their content focused so heavily on the car enthusiast—somebody who would be highly motivated to purchase our aftermarket products.

• Ensure Partner Brands Align With Core Values: This is truly an essential consideration. Only partner with brands that uphold the same ethical standards as you, or you may end up receiving more negative press than you bargained for.

• Work On Your Pitch: Why would another brand partner with you? Your pitch can sell them on your partnership and motivate both teams to move forward with an agreement.

• Set Terms For Your Arrangement: Before your partnership is finalized, you’ll need to work out the details of your arrangement. How often is your brand partner expected to promote your collaboration? How often are you?

• Track Metrics From Your Engagement: Evaluate the success of each brand partnership by tracking key metrics, such as revenue, conversions and total lead count. It might be time to cut the cord if a brand partnership or collaboration does not bring new revenue.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Buy Them

Another consideration for your company is whether it makes sense to merge or outright buy another brand rather than partner with them. Unlike partnerships, mergers and acquisitions are long-term investments that require significant due diligence, a deep understanding of the best ways to integrate both teams and, of course, capital investment.

For larger companies looking to compete in a competitive market, mergers and acquisitions are a great strategy for scaling their portfolio and acquiring new market share in a way that brand partnerships simply cannot.

Understanding when to execute one partnership strategy or the other requires due diligence, proper timing and often a little bit of good fortune.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Tony Ambroza

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Tony Ambroza is the Chief Growth Officer at RealTruck, an omni-channel industry leader in truck and off-road vehicle equipment. Read Tony Ambroza’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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Stop Storytelling and Start Having Brand Conversations That Convert — Here’s How

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By Kate DiLeo, Edited by Chelsea Brown

Discover how to move beyond traditional storytelling and embrace impactful brand conversations with the Brand Trifecta framework, designed to unify sales and marketing efforts, create trust with your audience and drive significant revenue growth.

Key Takeaways

Stories don’t compel people to buy. Conversations do. As an accidental brand strategist, I have learned that concise and compelling brand messaging is crucial to cutting through the noise, creating common ground with your target audiences and ultimately driving revenue. However, many of us get caught up in the trend that storytelling will enable us to deliver such a message and compel our prospects to take the next step and buy.

My journey into branding wasn’t planned — it was a twist of fate. I originally intended to pursue a PhD in linguistic anthropology. However, when the market crashed, a professor advised me to get a day job, pay off my undergrad debt and gain some world experience. So, I left academia and took my first sales job, where I was tasked with selling IT training services.

Starting my career in this challenging sales role, I quickly realized the importance of clear and impactful communication through trial and error. Cold-calling IT professionals to sell high-ticket $2,500 training classes taught me that within the first 15 to 30 seconds, you must convey what you do, how you solve someone’s problem and how you are different from the competition. This tough environment forced me to refine my communication skills and develop an effective brand pitch that enabled me to exceed my sales quotas and ultimately launch my career in brand strategy and development.

The Brand Trifecta

Your brand is your path of least resistance to revenue. In the first 15 to 30 seconds, you need to tell someone what you do, how you solve their problem and how you are different from the competition. Narratives alone won’t drive sales; engaging brand conversations will. When someone asks what you do, you shouldn’t lead with a story. Instead, you need a clear, compelling brand pitch that provokes curiosity and makes people want to know more.

The Brand Trifecta is the powerful and proven messaging framework I developed during my early sales career, and it has since helped thousands of organizations craft brands that bring more prospects to the table and generate more customers who buy. The Brand Trifecta is rooted in buyer psychology and enables businesses to create “you get me” moments that their target audiences need in order to build trust and ultimately purchase.

The Brand Trifecta methodology consists of three key pieces: a tagline, a value proposition statement and a set of differentiator statements. The formulaic combination of these three messaging components creates a brand conversation that converts.

Your tagline is the first impression of your brand. It should be short, clear and provoke interest. Think of your tagline as the headline of your brand’s message. It should immediately tell people what you do in a way that captures their attention and compels them to want to know more.

Next, you need a value proposition statement. This is where you expand on your tagline by explaining how you solve your customer’s problem. A value proposition statement is not just a list of features and benefits; it succinctly speaks to the value you provide to your prospects and customers by addressing their specific pain points. Your value proposition should resonate with your audience and make them see you as the solution they’ve been looking for. In other words, your value proposition statement should create the “You get me!” moment for your customers.

Matt McNeany, CTO of OPMG, highlights the importance of data when identifying your customers’ pain points: “Brands that do this most effectively are, of course, starting with data. They are using each customer interaction to learn more, capturing which content the customer is engaging with and adding that to their profile, building an experience that asks the customer their opinion and what they like.” This is where the magic happens — when you use these insights to tailor your messaging, you create a value proposition that truly resonates and compels your target audience to take the next step and buy.

Finally, your differentiator statements should clearly outline how you are different and better than your competition. What unique benefits do you offer? Why should someone choose you over others? Differentiator statements are crucial because they help you stand out in a crowded market and ultimately give your audience a reason to choose you over the rest.

“The best brands build differentiation through what they do as well as what they say. As the old saying goes, ‘Don’t tell me you’re funny; make me laugh.’ Or for brands, don’t say that you care about customers, demonstrate it to me — via imperceptibly personalized experiences that predict what I want and give me what I need, making my choices simpler and my life easier,” says McNeany. Bottom line: Your differentiator statements build trust and create a compelling case for your prospects to act.

Creating brand conversations that convert

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to create brand conversations that convert. Focus on provoking your audience to want to know more. Remember, you are not in the business of convincing everyone; you are in the business of converting the right people.

Therefore, make sure your brand messaging is consistent across all channels and touchpoints. This will align your sales and marketing teams and ultimately boost your revenue growth. McNeany emphasizes how automation can play a helpful role in consistent branding across channels: “Intelligent brands have realized that they need to deliver consistency while simultaneously managing an explosion of content across channels.”

So, they are rapidly adopting an automated content supply chain, which combines a brand design framework with algorithmic decisions based on customer behaviour to deliver relevant, on-brand communications in every channel. Whatever sales and marketing tactics you deploy, keep your brand message consistent so that customers have a clear understanding of who you are, what you do, how you solve their problems and how you differ from the competition.

Furthermore, don’t lose sight of the power of consistent branding to bridge the gap between sales and marketing teams. Misalignment between sales and marketing can be remedied by cross-functionally leveraging a singular brand pitch that addresses what customers need to know to buy. When sales and marketing consistently use and leverage the same brand language, they become an unstoppable and unified front. The outcome? Increased conversions, shortened sales cycles and improved revenue growth.

Get your brand out of the box and break free from the storytelling status quo by building your Brand Trifecta. Develop a clear tagline, value proposition and differentiator statements, and reap the benefits of a powerful brand pitch that unifies your sales and marketing teams, accelerates sales cycles and boosts growth. Remember, your brand is your path of least resistance to revenue. Create compelling brand conversations and watch your business take off.

By Kate DiLeo 

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

Edited by Chelsea Brown

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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The Future Of Marketing Is People

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By Rishad Tobaccowala

  1. It is about understanding people as people and not just as consumers, customers, members, and users.
  2. It is about getting people to advocate for a brand to other people.
  3. It is about upgrading the status of marketing people and upgrading marketing people.

Marketing is about understanding people.

For too long marketers have fixated on consumers, customers, members, and users.

While these are important what is critical is seeking to understand people as people.

When one looks at a person as a consumer one is liable to miss a lot for the following reasons.

1) Narrow lens:  When one looks at a person as a consumer it is looking to understand the person through brand usage which is by very definition one of hundreds of brands filling met and unmet needs of a person. People do not define themselves by brands and rarely want to have relationships with brands. Some marketers define themselves by brands and have the delusion that people want to have a relationship with Tylenol versus just wanting their headache to go away.

2) Failure to see competitive threats: Viewing people as consumers or users means evaluating and benchmarking one’s brands with their use of other brands in one’s category. However, the greatest threat and opportunity tends to come from outside one’s category today due to technological disruption and changing behavior. Newspapers were disrupted by Google. Magazines by Instagram and today Television by Netflix and TikTok for example. Focusing on consumers and users meant that none of the incumbents were monitoring these other players. A focus on one’s category may lead a brand to be less pathetic than others in their category but not great or relevant for the future.

3) Failure to understand needs: One of the reasons categories get disrupted from outside is because by seeking to understand a person through category dynamics one may miss understanding what they are truly seeking. Dollar Shave Club and Harry users were not just looking for the best shave but a decent shave at a great price and convenient purchase. Multiple blades, vibrating blades, heated blades were no longer the key.

Marketing is getting people to advocate for you to other people.

The most powerful form of marketing has always been word of mouth.

Word of mouth has become exponentially more powerful due to social media and new tools and technologies.

TikTok provides editing and other tools to let anyone create and mix videos. Substack enables reaching tens of thousands to millions of people. It is easy to create and distribute podcasts.

Social media channels enable distribution.

Influencers and creators become key to a brand.

Instead of marketing to people we should consider marketing through people by arming them with assets, information, tools, and incentives.

Also, every marketing company should fixate on their employees and suppliers.

Make employees advocates by treating them well and aligning them with the marketing program.

Inform, trust, and pay suppliers well. They can be a source of ideas, marketing, and competitive intelligence.

Emerging AI tools such as ChatGPT will further empower the individual and the underlying trends of Web3 will now give them not just a voice but ownership.

Every company’s marketing and media programs should be grounded in marketing through people with significant investment and emphasis on generating and building advocacy among one’s external and internal audiences and partners.

One should fixate as much if not more on people than fixating on first party data, AI and the Metaverse.

Marketing is about upgrading the status and skills of marketing people.

Forty years ago, in my first marketing class at the University of Chicago we read Philip Kotler (a renowned marketing guru operating a few miles away at Northwestern University) who defined marketing as “understanding and meeting people’s requirements.”

For the next four decades I got to work with some of the best marketing companies in the world and looking back two things stood out which taken together raises concerns:

1) Marketing has become more critical: People became more empowered as technology enabled them to have “God Like” power particularly in the past two decades since the scaling of Search, Social, E-Commerce and Mobile. These new technologies also have merged offline/online, above the line/below the line and fused marketing and experience into one. Therefore, understanding and meeting the requirements of people/gods became more important. So marketing was growing more and more critical.

2) Marketers power has diminished in most companies: The first two decades of my career it was not just Agencies that got to present to the Board room, but marketers did. Today look at the Board of Directors of companies including marketing firms, and few have CMO’s on the Board. There is the voice of money in the CFO, the voice of technology in the CTO/CIO, the voice of talent in the Chief Human Resources/Talent officer but where is the voice of the people/customer/consumer just when they are growing more and more powerful?

Companies will find it very difficult to succeed in a world of empowered people unless they have empowered marketers, marketing fuses into every part of the company and every individual upgrades their skills. Marketers need to be in the room where decisions are made rather than implementing or informing decisions.

But the wheel may be turning…

Recently there are signs that marketing is getting a voice by transforming the CMO role to one of a Chief Growth Officer, Chief Experience Officer, or Chief Transformation Officer or combining a CMO role with a Chief Data Officer role and no longer separating CMO from Chief Digital Officer.

Companies are beginning to look for “full-stack” marketers who can drive performance leveraging data and technology and platforms in the short run while building brand and reputation with storytelling, design, cultural relevance and more.

Marketing people need to have a greater voice and to have a greater voice marketing people need to upgrade our skills and capabilities for a world where marketing is not a side car attached to a motorcycle but the engine that makes the motorcycle and its engine throb.

The future of marketing is people.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Rishad Tobaccowala, Author of Restoring The Soul Of Business: Staying Human In The Age Of Data

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our purpose, mission, vision and values and brand culture workshops.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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By Rishad Tobaccowala

Sourced from Branding Strategy Insider

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Typography in Branding: The Art of Typefaces in Corporate Identities

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By Dirk Petzold

Undoubtedly, the right typeface can convey a brand’s personality, evoke emotions, and influence consumer behaviour.

This article explores the art and science behind choosing the perfect typography for your brand, highlighting its importance and providing actionable insights to help you make informed decisions.

The Power of Typography in Branding

Typography is more than just selecting a font; it’s about creating a visual voice for your brand. When done right, typography becomes a powerful tool that enhances brand recognition and strengthens brand identity. Here’s how typography impacts branding:

  1. Conveys Brand Personality: Typography can communicate the essence of your brand. For instance, a luxury brand might use elegant, serif fonts to exude sophistication, while a tech startup might opt for sleek, sans-serif fonts to convey modernity and innovation.
  2. Creates Emotional Connection: The style of your typography can evoke specific emotions in your audience. Rounded, soft fonts might create a sense of warmth and friendliness, while bold, angular fonts might evoke a sense of strength and confidence.
  3. Enhances Readability and User Experience: Good typography is not just about aesthetics; it’s also about function. The right typeface ensures that your content is easily readable across different devices, enhancing the overall user experience.
  4. Differentiates Your Brand: In a crowded market, unique typography can set your brand apart. Custom fonts or carefully chosen typefaces can make your brand instantly recognizable, even without a logo or other visual elements.

Key Elements of Typography in Branding

When selecting typography for branding, several key elements must be considered to ensure that the typeface aligns with your brand’s identity and goals.

  1. Font Family: The font family you choose—whether serif, sans-serif, script, or decorative—should align with your brand’s personality. Serif fonts, with their traditional and formal appearance, might be suitable for legal firms or luxury brands, while sans-serif fonts, known for their clean and modern look, might be ideal for tech companies or startups.
  2. Font Weight and Style: Different weights (light, regular, bold) and styles (italic, condensed) can add versatility to your typography. Using a combination of weights and styles within the same font family can create a visual hierarchy, guiding the reader’s attention to the most important information.
  3. Kerning and Tracking: Kerning (the space between individual letters) and tracking (the overall spacing between characters in a block of text) play a crucial role in typography. Adjusting these elements can improve readability and ensure that your text looks well-balanced and cohesive.
  4. Line Height and Line Length: Line height (the vertical space between lines of text) and line length (the horizontal width of a block of text) are essential for readability. Proper adjustments to these can make your text more accessible and easier to read, especially on digital platforms.
  5. Colour and Contrast: The colour of your typography should complement your brand’s colour scheme while ensuring readability. High contrast between text and background is essential for accessibility, making sure that your message is clear and easy to read for all users.

Examples of Effective Typography in Branding

Let’s take a look at some brands that have mastered the art of typography:

  1. Coca-Cola: The Coca-Cola logo is one of the most recognizable in the world, thanks in part to its custom script font. The flowing, cursive typeface exudes a sense of tradition and nostalgia, perfectly aligning with the brand’s identity.
  2. Apple: Apple uses the San Francisco typeface, a sleek, sans-serif font that reflects the brand’s minimalist and innovative ethos. The clean lines and modern look of the typography complement Apple’s products and overall design philosophy.
  3. New York Times: The New York Times uses a classic serif font that conveys authority and tradition. This choice of typography reinforces the brand’s identity as a reliable and established source of news.
  4. Netflix: Netflix uses a custom sans-serif font called Netflix Sans. The bold, modern typeface reflects the brand’s innovative approach to entertainment and is easily readable across various devices and screen sizes.
Vary font family by Monotype
Choose a versatile typeface like the Vary font family by Monotype.
You can download the typeface on MyFonts

Best Practices for Choosing Typography in Branding

Here are some best practices to consider when selecting typography for your brand:

  1. Understand Your Brand’s Personality: Clearly define your brand’s personality before choosing a typeface. Is your brand playful or serious? Modern or traditional? Your typography should reflect these characteristics.
  2. Prioritize Readability: While it’s tempting to choose a unique or elaborate font, readability should always come first. Your audience needs to easily read and understand your message, regardless of the device they are using.
  3. Be Consistent: Consistency is key in branding. Use the same typefaces across all your brand’s touchpoints—website, social media, packaging, etc.—to create a cohesive and recognizable brand identity.
  4. Consider Scalability: Your typography should look good at all sizes, whether it’s on a business card or a billboard. Choose a typeface that scales well and remains legible across different applications.
  5. Test Before Finalizing: Always test your typography choices in various contexts and on different devices before finalizing them. This ensures that your typeface works well in all scenarios and maintains the desired impact.

Typography is a fundamental part of branding that goes beyond mere aesthetics. It’s a powerful tool that shapes how your brand is perceived, helps convey your brand’s personality, and enhances user experience. By carefully selecting and implementing typography, you can create a strong, memorable brand identity that resonates with your audience. Use the insights and best practices outlined in this article to make better decisions and create a visual identity that truly represents your or your client’s brand.

Don’t hesitate to find fitting typefaces for your next design and branding projects on WE AND THE COLOR. The section includes a wide range of styles.

By Dirk Petzold

Sourced from WATC

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Your Sonic Branding May Be Doomed to Fail

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By Lucas Murray

4 tips for crafting and committing to your new brand identity

Over the past few years, sonic branding has evolved from a niche, nice-to-have marketing asset to a must-have for any complete brand ecosystem.

Forward-thinking companies realise they must use sound and music to stand out both in traditional media and on audio-first platforms like TikTok, Spotify and other social media and streamers.

However, knowing your company needs sonic branding and learning how to create an effective sonic identity are very different things. In my time as a producer, I’ve seen brands achieve varying levels of success—and there are four main reasons a sonic identity might be doomed to fail. These are obstacles that will never go away, but fortunately, by knowing where the dangers are, you can aim to avoid them while becoming one of the select few brands with a truly iconic sound strategy.

Music is subjective

Music is extremely abstract and difficult to talk about. I sometimes witness teams trying to make it more tangible by pushing for specific musical elements: “We need an ascending melody because that feels happy and positive.”

Maybe, but there are just as many successful examples of “happy” descending melodies in music. By only pushing for ascending melodies, your sonic identity may risk sounding like the rest—not providing the differentiation you desire.

Instead of relying on what we think is appealing, seek more objective measures that tell us what is effective. For example, we know through research that the most subconsciously appealing sound is baby laughter.

While not every sonic logo needs to hit the same mark, it’s helpful to get real data around where your sonic assets are landing on KPIs like recall and emotional appeal. Not only will this confirm whether you’re truly appealing to your audience, but it will also help get buy-in from stakeholders involved in the process.

Commitment is hard

Creating a sonic identity is like getting married—ideally, you are signing up to be with your identity for life. The best predictor of sonic success is sustained, frequent use. You must commit to using it across touchpoints as often as you can.

Though, as Chris Rock once put it, “commitment will give you a headache.” It’s difficult to find “the one” sonic identity and stick with it; newer, shinier sounds will always beckon you away from your brand. However, you must resist your wandering ears by understanding that the benefits of commitment far outweigh the difficulties.

For example, the psychological phenomenon known as the mere-exposure effect teaches us that people like things merely because they are familiar with them. This is doubly true for music, like when a once-annoying earworm creeps into your head enough times to become your favourite song. Commit to your sonic identity, and your audience will learn to love it too.

The landscape is changing

Gone are the days in which you could rely on a sonic logo at the end of a commercial to fully reach your audience. Linear television is evolving, and culture is being shaped by social media. In 5-10 years, we’ll be adapting to yet another iteration of the media landscape.

Yet some brands are still falling into the trap of creating sonic identities with only broadcast TV and terrestrial radio in mind. These may currently be important touch points for your brand, but they may not be soon. The important thing is to design your sonic identity with enough flexibility in mind that it can expand around, adapt to and perpetuate on new and evolving platforms.

Brands contain multitudes

It is difficult enough to translate your brand purpose and personality into music that perfectly represents your brand. It is even more difficult to get buy-in from various departments that need to approve or implement your sonic identity. C-suite execs, brand managers and partner agencies will likely all have different needs for it. You might hear: “It needs to be flexible like McDonald’s,” “It needs to be instantly familiar like Intel” and of course, “It needs to have fewer notes to fit into video.”

There’s nothing wrong with any of these notes individually, but there is no way to satisfy all of these disparate desires in one sound without creating something that sounds indistinct and unmemorable.

Instead of trying to hang your hat on a single sound that does everything, you must create a sonic identity system—one that encompasses a creative concept, long- and short-form sound, music curation guidelines and a strategy for rollout and use. You can then address your team’s many needs without having to water down the work.

Creating a sonic identity is hard work, but when done correctly, it’s an incredibly effective tool for attaining brand recognition, brand love and higher KPIs. If you rely on objective measures, commit to your new identity, plan for flexibility and create an entire system, you are well on your way to creating an enduring sonic identity.

Feature Image Credit: Sandipkumar Patel/Getty Images

By Lucas Murray

Lucas Murray is vp, supervising music producer at Made Music Studio.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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