A brand is an image that appears in the minds of customers at the mention of goods, services or, for example, the name of a company. A brand demonstrates the uniqueness of a business or product, distinguishes it from its competitors. For this purpose, it must be recognized by as many people as possible.
If a person thinks of coffee, they have associations with Nescafe, Jardin or Tchibo. If they think of sports sneakers, Nike, Adidas, or Puma come to mind. If they are searching for casino games, it’s TonyBet. These brands are fixed in the consciousness of the audience. Others need to promote their brands to be the first ones that come to mind.
Promotion is everything that forms the image and recognizability, brings the benefits of the brand to the target audience. Let’s tell you more about what is included in it.
Goals and Types of Brand Promotion
The goals of brand promotion are related to the goals of the business. To understand and analyze them, the brand manager must work in conjunction with the head of the company.
The main goals of brand promotion are two: to increase profits and to increase consumer awareness of products or services. Other goals depend on the stage of the brand’s life cycle. There are four stages of this cycle: birth, growth or market entry, maturity, and decline.
Each stage of the life cycle has its promotion goals:
- When the brand has just emerged, the goal of brand promotion is to build awareness and demand.
- In the growth stage, the goal is to build memorability. The brand has characteristics (color, symbol, phrase, music) and the audience needs to know them.
- At the maturity stage, the goals may be to increase market share, attract new customers, build awareness – when people remember not only the name, but also the visual style, specific products.
- At the saturation or decline stage, it’s important to maintain the brand image and build customer loyalty to keep them coming back for repeat purchases.
The task of brand managers is to prolong the “maturity” stage. To do everything to ensure that the company doesn’t lose its customers. There are various strategies for this: entering new markets, launching new product lines or modifying products, introducing innovations. If the brand quickly adapts to the changing needs of the market, it can last a long time at this stage and bring good profits to the company.
Preparation for Promotion
Promotion begins with the analysis of the market, key trends, consumer behavior and competitors. It’s also necessary to assess the resources of the brand, its place in the minds of the target audience, strengths and weaknesses. This can be done in several ways:
- Studying search queries.
- Track brand mentions in the media.
- Conduct surveys of the target audience.
Once analyzed, you need to develop a brand platform: it’s a document that describes the brand’s essence, positioning, character, mission and values, visual style and Tone of voice and how the brand differs from competitors.
How to Develop a Brand Strategy
Developing a brand promotion strategy consists of four elements:
- Product: what products and services the company will market under the brand.
- Pricing: range of prices and discounts, loyalty system.
- Communicative: how the brand communicates with consumers, with what ToV. How it motivates the audience to buy.
- Development of sales channels: where to sell the brand, what tools to use and how to expand geography.
The most flexible and modified strategy is at the communication stage. Its goals: to change the audience’s attitude to the brand, to form an image with the help of key messages and a unique tone, and to motivate customers to buy goods, attend events or join a loyalty program.
Once all four elements of the strategy have been worked out, the brand manager draws up a calendar of events, defends the budget, implements the strategy, and then evaluates its effectiveness.
Promotion Channels
Promotion channels are those places, services, and platforms through which the company delivers information about the brand to the consumer. The choice of channels depends on the target audience and budget. Here are the options available:
- TV and radio.
- Print media.
- Outdoor advertising.
- Social media.
- Exhibitions and other offline events.
Promotion Tools and Methods
Promotion channels can tell about the brand with the help of different tools, use them individually or in combination. Here are some popular methods:
- PR at events and in the media.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
- SMM (social media marketing).
- Contextual and targeted ads.
- Content marketing.
- Chatbots, messengers, email newsletters.
- Collaborations with bloggers and stars
After choosing the tools and channels, you need to break the strategy into different advertising campaigns and change creatives so that the audience doesn’t get bored with them. Or make several campaigns for different target audiences.
