The Seven Part Plan to Building a Brand

The Seven Part Plan to Building a Brand
Building a brand is more than just fixing a catchy name on
a product. Brand is all about relationships—it is how
customers feel about your product. That feeling will either
incline them to use your product or pass it by for
something else. What control does a marketer have over the
minds and hearts of buyers? Marketing authority David
Jobber has identified seven factors in building a
successful brand.

While a seller cannot create the public's perception of
their product, the seller must influence opinion using
strategic suggestions. This is called positioning, and to
do it properly the seller must first identify the
advantages of using the product or service. These benefits
must align with the customer's needs, wants, and desires.

If you are lucky enough to be the first on the market to
offer a particular product or service you may have an
advantage—initially. If your product is successful
you can be sure competition will arrive shortly; however,
it is possible for the first successful brand to create a
clear position in the minds of customers before the
competition enters the market. Whether or not your product
is the first of its kind, your first challenge is to
establish credibility. Consumers must take your product
seriously if they are to develop trust and loyalty to your
brand.

Of course, before customers will buy a product, they must
know about it. Communications play a critical role in
building brand. Initial effort will focus on building brand
awareness. As awareness increases, brand personality will
be important to develop. Reinforcing position will be an
on-going challenge.

This is where the next factor of brand-building comes into
play. No amount of hustling can cover for quality.
Statistically, higher quality brands always outplay their
inferior counterparts in the marketing arena. Part of
building a brand is communicating to consumers the benefits
of using your brand—and consistently delivering on
that promise.

Brand values must be understood and accepted internally as
well as externally. This means that brand building involves
a certain amount of internal marketing and training, so
that any face-to-face contact customers have with the
product is consistent and positive.

Even with the best of marketing, brand loyalty takes time
to secure. Therefore, a long-term perspective is required
when investing in a brand. Initially building up the brand
will be an expense. Any business venture is a risk. If
there comes a time when a brand has become tired or its
market has gone into decline, the business may need to work
at repositioning the product to reflect the change in
consumers taste. Repositioning is an important, and none
too easy factor, in brand building.

These seven factors: positioning, credibility,
communications, quality, internal marketing, long-term
perspective, and repositioning, are critical to building
brand value. A proper marketing plan will address each
factor. In addition, the marketing strategy should be
evaluated and updated at regular intervals.

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Francesca Black is an artist and works on content and
designs for Logo Search http://www.logo-search.com and is a
photographer for Photo Wizard http://www.photo-wizard.net a
royalty free stock photo directory.