A step-by-step guide to sustaining your brand

Your brand is the pillar of your intellectual property. Brand equity is the value addition that your product or service gets from a well-thought-out strategy. The biggest companies in the world spend millions on maintaining the goodwill and public valuation their brands enjoy.

Equally important for new startups, brand equity can be the difference in a crowded, competitive field while adding value for future acquisition plans.

Know your market

Being in control of what your brand represents is crucial in maintaining your position in the market while aspiring for more. The first step of this process is to study the field and conduct professional market research on the competition and on the perception that the public has of your industry.

Identify the channels

What are the conduits that take your brand from the boardroom to the public? In today’s marketplace, your brand experience is delivered through multiple channels, and it is imperative that it is messaged and represented in a consistent manner across the board, be it your social media page, the retail centre, or customer care.

Keep an eye on negative brand experience. According to a Venture Beat report in 2015, there are 2.1 million negative social mentions of brands in the US every single day. Such trends are prevailing in the global marketplace, and you should protect your brand with a smart social strategy and customer care.

How does your brand resonate?

Does your brand stand out? After the steps of awareness are achieved, your marketing should spotlight the points of difference that your brand has with respect to its competitors.

Achieve brand salience in your marketplace by focusing on cues that are related to your product, a great example being Subway’s ‘fresh and healthy’ positioning being communicated through phrases like “for people on diets.” The usage of executional memory structures, for example a character or piece of music can also increase the degree to which customers think about your brand in a buying scenario.

The product factor

Your brand performance will ultimately depend on product quality, services, aesthetics, and pricing. These factors and the imagery you have designed around your brand will determine customers’ evaluation and opinion of your brand. Understanding these factors and maintaining clear communication with the product side of your organisation will help you stay on top of your branding campaign.

The personal connect

Your brand is the personal connection to the customer. What are the feelings that the brand invokes and are they in parity with the objective of your campaign? Getting your brand to be in sync with the customer is an important prerequisite for customer loyalty.

Loyalty programmes help retain customers and increase your brand value. These programmes contribute about 23 percent of overall brand loyalty growth. (CrowdTwist)

Monitor your trademark

It is important that you regularly monitor how your trademark is being used on public and social forums. Protect your brand with a monitoring strategy that identifies and discourages infringement.

A continuing effort

Loyalty, awareness, and familiarity are three terms that drive branding campaigns. Building a strong platform and strategy that monitors, protects, and defines your brand will arm you with a great marketing weapon that you can use in different phases of your company’s growth. It is your most precious asset — the face of your company — and these steps will ensure that it is sustained and carves its own unique spot in the marketplace.