Brand marketing is one of the most important elements of any business. However, not many companies have got it entirely right. Quite a number of companies consider the primary marketing activity only as bearing the flag of your company as high as possible. Clearly, the founder of an established software company, Hubspot, disagrees with this.
“Just because you are the loudest, doesn’t make you right.”
Brian Halligan (CEO and Co-founder, Hubspot)
In the simplest terms, brand marketing is a set of activities carried out to enhance the brand by the means of step-by-step marketing: market research, market segmentation, advertising, and lastly, showcasing ways (products and services) through which you plan to offer value to your target customers.
Thus, any activity through which you attract your customers – mostly and preferably through high-quality messaging – comes under the umbrella term: brand marketing.
Related: Psychology of Marketing: How You Can Make It Work
The Essence of Brand Marketing in Today’s World
Brand marketing used to be something similar to a by-product or even a side effect to having a business. Company owners would give a budget to the marketing team and ask them to invite customers, which mostly happened in an unstructured manner.
Now, it does not hold true.
Today, brand marketing is the center of the universe of a brand. As Seth Godin, the marketing expert of updated sense of marketing says “marketing is the story you tell, who you are telling to, why people are going to want to buy your product or service.” This is done in the tiniest ways possible, and across departments: from your packaging design to sales operations.
Read more: Dress to Kill | Apple Packaging Design Gets as Pretty as a Picture
He highlights that the more digitized we get with our businesses, the more we hold the power – and responsibility – regarding what you make (the brand), how you make it (branding), and how you bring it to the world (brand marketing).
Brand Marketing Strategies That Work
Before understanding what brand marketing strategies work for you, here are some things which definitely does not work in long run for any brand that is headed towards effective brand marketing: sending spam emails, tricking people through ‘buy now’ or ‘offer ends in X hours,’ or manipulating people to do something they do not want to do.
Brand marketers shine a light on how the specific brand can make a difference and impact the lives of the people who engage with it.
Furthermore, it is crucial to understand your target audience and your brand before you step into brand marketing activities. For instance, a B2C brand such as Nike is likely to find fruition through marketing strategies such as expressing brand value through remarkable logo design, storytelling, social media campaigns, and cause marketing.
On the other hand, a B2B brand such as WeWork would benefit largely from inbound marketing, account-based marketing, and industry events.
Closing note: A lot of people have trouble understanding the controversial idea to focus on smaller groups, and they tend to conduct marketing activities that serve everyone. As proven time after time, this will affect your brand only short-term and possibly negatively. Thus, as a brand marketer, you target a specific group, provide them the sense of belonging within your brand, and cater to their needs through your solutions (products and services).
