By John Gumas

Brand marketing is complicated—not only because it has many moving parts but also because most marketing professionals continue to confuse it with other marketing activities.

Brand marketing is not the same as advertising. It’s also not the same as direct marketing. Brand marketing encompasses something bigger and more nebulous. One way to approach brand marketing in such a way that you have focus is to think about the three audiences for any brand:

1. New potential customers (acquisition).

2. Existing customers (retention).

3. Internal team members and stakeholders (inspiration).

As you develop your marketing program, keeping these three target audiences in mind will help you define a brand marketing campaign.

What We Mean By Brand Marketing

When we talk about brand marketing, we are talking about building your brand by exposing it to as many people in your target audience as possible. Brand marketing builds your reputation and recognition, and it helps establish relationships with your target audiences.

Branding relates to how you talk about yourself and your image as well as how you drive value for customers and stakeholders. In many ways, brand marketing is about storytelling—explaining your brand story, what makes you different and how your brand makes people feel.

Your brand sets you apart from your competition—expressing your company’s personality, identity, values and value promise to your stakeholders. Your brand is an abstract that exacts an emotional response and a tangible response. For example, your brand could be a sense of refreshment that comes with the red label (Coca-Cola).

Once you have a brand story, you can use different marketing strategies to deliver the message. For example, brand marketing for Coca-Cola projects an emotional brand promise of joy, happiness and a consistently refreshing experience. In fact, in Mandarin, Coca-Cola can be translated as “Tasty Fun” or “Delicious Happiness.”

The brand message is delivered using other marketing strategies. The Coca-Cola advertising campaign, “The Pause That Refreshes,” exacts the emotional brand response of refreshment and associates it with the more tangible Coke logo and packaging.

Once you have defined your brand message, your brand marketing strategy needs to translate that brand promise for each of your three target audiences.

Matching The Brand To The Target

Matching your brand message to your target audiences can be one of the most challenging aspects of brand marketing. As you develop your brand, you should keep your target audiences in mind. The deeper you understand your audiences’ informational needs and emotional responses, the more you can focus your marketing programs and the more efficiently you can allocate your marketing budget.

1. New Potential Customers

Marketing programs are primarily designed to drive sales, and the number of new leads measures the success of most marketing campaigns. In fact, marketing professionals often use the number of qualified sales leads as the key performance indicators (KPIs) that dictate promotions and bonuses.

At the same time, customer acquisition costs (CAC) rose 60% between 2013 and 2019. Much of that increase can be attributed to the rising cost of content marketing. Online content through blogs, videos, social media posts, downloadable guides and other sources is expensive but highly effective. Content is proving to be the best way to deliver the brand message to prospects, enabling companies to help prospects make the connection between the brand promise and the value they get from the brand.

Using content to package your brand’s value proposition enables you to present your brand message where your target audience is most likely to see it, thus raising awareness. Once you have awareness, you can focus on moving prospects to consideration by showing them how your brand benefits them, ultimately allowing you to land them as customers.

2. Customer Retention

Too few organizations dedicate sufficient resources to customer retention. Customer retention costs five times less than customer acquisition, and increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. The average customer retention rate for the top five companies in most industries is 94%, and the probability of upselling an existing customer is between 60% and 70%. That’s why reaching out to existing customers is more important than finding new customers.

Your current customers need to be reminded why they love your brand and are important to you. Use your brand message to forge an emotional connection with customers through e-newsletters, social media campaigns, promotions, contests, special offers only for customers and other means. Promote brand recognition by keeping current customers informed and entertained.

3. Internal Stakeholders

Don’t neglect your internal team members. They need to be kept informed and inspired as well. As J. Willard Marriott once said: “Take care of associates, and they’ll take care of your customers.” Keep your team updated on customer promotions and company news through internal newsletters, emails, posts in the lunchroom, etc. Remember that your team members are the bearers of the brand message, so they are vitally important.

Your internal team extends beyond the staff. Develop communications strategies for partners, board members, suppliers, friends and family. They are all part of the organization and carry the brand message in their own way.

Brand marketing is a collaborative effort—not only with your internal team but also with customers and prospects. Everyone who receives your brand message can become an evangelist in one way or another. That’s why it’s essential to be clear about your brand identity and the value it presents to each of your audience targets.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By John Gumas

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John Gumas is CEO of Gumas Advertising based in San Francisco and co-author of Challenger Brand Marketing. Read John Gumas’ full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes