Branding really is everywhere. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, and the products we buy and use.
In the current economic climate, many organisations, especially SMEs, are looking for ways to reduce costs without incurring any loss of sales or revenue. We understand that it could be tempting for a business to look at its marketing and advertising costs and consider if there is scope to scale back costs there. However, one important area that should never be scaled back is branding.
Branding is your most cost-effective form of advertising. Product branding reinforces your brand's identity and tells its story.
A lot of work and research go into forming a brand’s identity. You would be crazy not to consistently try to leverage your brand identity. It's also vital for your brand to stay consistent—from your logo to your website, right through to social media channels, so people know exactly what to expect when they see or hear about your brand.
Branding really is everywhere. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, and the products we buy and use. As we are constantly surrounded by branding in our daily lives, branding plays an extremely important role in business and in the choices that consumers make.
By branding your products, you give them an identity, and with a well-designed brand, they can be instantly recognisable. Branding helps consumers to identify who you are and what your products are, simply by seeing or hearing about your brand. Strong brand identity will help you engage with your target customers and build a loyal customer base without spending a cent on other, more expensive forms of advertising!
Example
An example of a highly recognisable brand with a strong brand identity is the fast-food chain KFC. The brand's physical attributes make it instantly recognisable to consumers (the red-and-white colours, the use of colonel imagery, and the consistent use of boxes and buckets). KFC has built a personality into the brand through its clever use of humour, which carries across all forms of advertising.
If KFC were to suddenly start providing its food without branding, it would instantly lose its brand identity and the customer engagement and loyalty that go with it. If times were tough, I am sure that would be likely one of the very last things that KFC would consider changing.
Having a strong, recognisable brand that is consistently visible on your products helps differentiate you and your products from competitors. This can be hugely helpful to help you to gain, maintain and increase your market share, especially in a market where there are multiple competing brands and options (which, let’s face it, is almost every market today – it’s virtually impossible to create something entirely new)!
In a booming market, branding is what helps your products stand out from the crowd. And if you help to create a story about your brand on your website and on social channels, then that brand can share its story with consumers.
There is much more to a brand than its physical attributes, such as logo, colours and emblems. Consumers are more savvy and like to buy into a brand’s lifestyle – they often don’t buy products based solely on the product itself. How you make a customer feel, and the story you tell behind your brand, can have a huge impact on your brand’s reputation and ability to generate loyal customers who want to continue purchasing from you – or who want to tell their friends about your product.
Consumers want products that they can rely on. With so many knock-offs and cheap imports, many consumers have become wary and more sceptical about where their products are coming from.
Your brand helps build trust, which is highly valued in marketing. Consumers seek brands they know deliver quality products.
Finally, product branding helps your business grow. Having a visible brand on your products helps tell its story, build trust, grow brand recognition, and encourage consumers to buy your products time and time again. Not only that, but a strong brand encourages people to share stories about their products and recommend your products to their friends. It is this word-of-mouth over the life of your product that helps increase your market share. And in the case of a product with a long life span, that can mean a huge number of recommendations and referrals over that period of time!
Example
Let’s say you are an outdoor umbrella manufacturer. You make high-quality, outdoor umbrellas with an expected lifespan of 10 years+. In the manufacturing process, you make allowance for a small domed badge or nameplate to be neatly placed into the pole of the umbrella, which is visible to the consumer each time they put up the umbrella, but does not detract from the umbrella’s aesthetics.
That summer, during a family barbecue, a family member admires the umbrella and asks where they got it, or what brand it is. They can’t remember, but they do recall seeing the logo on the pole when they put it up – so they go and check, and share the details with their family member.
Then a few weeks later in a local Facebook buy/swap/sell group, someone asks for a recommendation of where to get an outdoor umbrella. They remember the name from sharing it with a family member, so they comment to recommend your umbrella brand.
This then snowballs: they tell two people, who tell two people each, and so on. Before you know it, your brand has reached a large number of people.
Word of mouth advertising has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing - the method that consumers trust above all others and the one that is most likely to drive sales for your company. Without branding, you can’t possibly leverage word of mouth!
So the bottom line is – for a comparatively small cost, a badge or nameplate can help advertise your products for you via word of mouth, for the lifetime of your product. Driving sales to your business and building trust and recognition for your brand. And that is why, quite simply, if you don’t visibly brand your products, you are missing a huge opportunity.
LNI has been in business for more than 50 years and is Australia’s largest provider of industrial product branding solutions.
Talk to us today to discuss branding solutions for your products that will help sustain your word-of-mouth advertising, which is critical to growing your business in this current environment.