Effective Branding: The Kick-Start for your Startup
- Branding is the process of creating, shaping, and marketing your brand. Without branding, companies will fail to survive in the aggressive modern market.
- An average of 45% of customers of any business is attracted due to their branding than their product or service.
- Branding is essential for startups to establish their company name and expand their customer base.
- A well-developed branding strategy can improve customer loyalty by boosting consumer confidence levels and creating a relatable identity.
In 2016, our honorable prime minister had launched the Startup India initiative. Since then, India has risen to the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world.
More than four startups are added every hour in India. With a well-established and continually growing economy, new and upcoming startups are facing heated competition in the commercial market.
Indian market runs strictly on a motto, which is the “survival of the fittest.” Right from a startup’s funding requirements to its growth opportunities, the branding of the company determines its financial status.
Branding is necessary for consumer attraction and retention. An effective branding strategy will attract investors, customers, and profits.
What Does Startup Branding Mean?
For a startup, branding creates an engaging company image in the eyes of the target audience. Branding is not just a marketing activity for a startup; it is its personality. Hence, it is essential to build a reputed personality to gain the confidence of the customers.
Successful branding has helped companies like Nike and Mercedes to charge luxurious prices and still have the largest market share.
Every company is incomplete without its customers. Brand-building strategies are an essential factor that determines the series of funding a startup can attract.
Branding must not be seen as an optional activity by a startup. The success of any startup is directly proportional to the quality of branding strategies that it implements.
Fundamental Branding Strategy Rules
Branding your startup is the first step towards building a reputed and distinguished company. There are six essential rules that every startup founder must follow. These rules are called the 6 Cs of branding:
- Centered: Branding strategies must always be centered around the target audience. Your brand, product, and service must always positively appeal to your potential customers.
- Contribute: An effective branding strategy must always aim at contributing to the public. This contribution must always provide consumers with a high value for their money.
- Community: Build a community filled with satisfied customers. The members of this community must always be treated as the highest priority by the startup.
- Consistency: An effective way of branding a company is by providing consistently high-quality services and products. Staying consistent is not an excuse for companies which do not aim at regular improvement in quality.
- Connect: The most de-emphasized rule is to connect with the end-users. The primary factor that attracts any customer is based on the connection a company establishes with them. Connecting with existing and potential customers is extremely critical to increasing your market share.
- Clarify: Every branding strategy must clarify the unique value provisions it offers. Each step of the brand-building process must make your startup stand out from your competitors.
Branding Process
Branding is always directly related to the customers of an organization. The branding process of every startup must be dedicated to creating a stellar reputation in the industry.
Every startup must follow the following steps to build a sharp brand image in the market:
- Identify your potential customers: The first and primary step is to determine your target audience. Target audiences are the ultimate end-users who will use your product or service.
- Brand Mission and Vision: The next step is to create a mission and vision statement. These statements are vital to clearly understand where the startup currently is and where it wants to be.
- Research: After creating the mission statement, every startup must conduct comprehensive market research. Market factors such as trends, demands, prices, and competitors must be thoroughly studied to understand the market environment’s structure.
- Create Value: Creating value for the public is a pre-requisite for thriving in the market. The value you provide must be unique and lucrative to the customers and your startup.
- Marketing: The last step is to market your brand. Advertise your brand wherever relevant to make sure it catches the eye of the public.
Examples of Excellent Branding
Apple, launched in 1976, is the world’s leading technology company. Since its inception, this company has focused on its branding strategies and customer satisfaction.
Over the years, it gained a massive market share and soon established a monopoly in the American technological market by the late 2000s. Apple had successfully gained the trust of millions of people across the world.
Today, new iPhones and Mac devices are launched at lavish prices by the company. Despite skyrocketing prices, Apple continues to dominate the market and earn billions of dollars in revenue.
This is only possible due to the brand image created by Apple. Customers do not mind paying a high amount of money to use Apple’s products or services. Apple has successfully built an exceptional market reputation by compellingly implementing their branding strategies.
Conclusion
In a progressively growing market, even the best quality products and services may sometimes fail to fetch profits. Branding is the ultimate tool that separates good startups from successful and profitable ones.
A brilliant and unique idea exists in vain unless it is branded appropriately. For every startup, consistent branding is the ladder to their milk and honey.
Building your brand is the only way you can continuously satisfy your customers’ needs while also successfully achieving your organizational targets.
