Know-How Exchange : Branding

Obviously you want to undertake a marketing campaign targeted at the companies who use your products. Unless you want to do what companies like Intel do, target the end user, which causes consumer demand and persuades manufacturers to use your products.

The latter option seems like it would be rather costly.

But before you set out building brand awareness, first you need to tell yourself how you want to be perceived. What is your positioning? What is the most important thing you want to communicate?

Get it all down on paper, then distill it into a positioning statement.

Next you can figure out what the best media is to deliver that message. And what the creative execution might be.

You'll probably want to come up with a themeline first like
"We make food fun" or, if you decide to focus on profit, "all the colors of money." (Don't take these themelines seriously, they're off the top of my head.)

Then you can worry about creative executions. What's the best way to get noticed? Should you advertise on food? (Again, off the top of my head.)

So there's lots to think about. You can't just flip a switch to create brand awareness. That's why there are all these high-priced marketing agencies out there!

Good luck, and if you need professional (not necessarily high-priced) help, feel free to look me up.

Paul Tedeschi

Sashi,

Promotions is just one of the activities regarding Marketing - the big "M", the noun. In fact, to promote is the same as "to market" - the small "m" and verb. I recommend you back up a bit and take at look at the Marketing you have done to date and fill in the gaps for things you haven't done because they are very important to good results in establishing brand awareness. They help you establish what it is your brand is and how to get the message across to the correct people in a language and with images that affect them. Done consistently and correctly, you drive the brand image into their minds.

So the activities are as follows:

Marketing Strategy

Analysis The analysis consists of looking at your customers first: Who are they, what are their needs, how do you segment these customers by needs, what are their influencers (images and words that affect them emotionally), and in what specific media (trade mags, conferences, etc) do they look for information about food dyes?

Then, you look at your competition: What are their strengths and weaknesses do they have and how well do they meet (and where do they miss meeting) the customers' needs and in which segments?

Finally, you take a look at your company: What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? What are your core competencies? How can you leverage these core competencies to meet the needs of the customers better than the competition? What are your unique selling points (USP's)?

Direction Setting
The next phase of strategy is direction setting. First, you define your position: In the market place with respect to customer segments - in which ones do you play best? What is your position versus the competition? What is your position versus other products and services sold to your customers (how do you fit into the overall food chain)?

Now, you define your product and service set - using your core competencies to meet needs better and building the USP's.

Finally, we get to branding. The key aspect for branding is CONSISTENCY. Whether you PROMOTE a brand or not, a brand establishes itself in the mind of the customer. If you don't manage it, you leave it to chance as to what that brand is. So you standardize elements of your brand and emphatically enforce those standards to drive the desired image into the mind of the customer. You employ the words and images that affect your customers emotionally. Through consistent repetition, the brand is established.

• Name


• Logo


• Dress (yes, clothes make a company)

Collateral materials (brochures, website, letter head, envelops, business cards, packaging materials, etc) - colors, features colors, font styling, logo placement

• tag lines


• How customers are greeted by everyone in the company


• Quality of service and products

Marketing Plan

The marketing plan consists of those actions that you use to get your message out to the customer. First, you establish your objectives - revenue and profit goals, brand awareness goals, etc. Then you establish a metric tied into the goals for each activity so you can measure your progress versus your goal. And for each activity, you establish an action plan with the 3 W's for each action (Who is doing what by when).
An example of the mix is as follows:

• Direct sales


• Networking


• Trade shows and conferences


• Seminars targeted to the customers’ industry


• Press releases


• Trade magazine articles


• Advertising (aligned with what media the customers subscribe to)


• Brochures


• White papers


• Web pages


• eMail/eZines


• Direct mail

Through consistency in your message, in the use of images and words, and adhering to your brand strategy, you use the right mix of media and marketing activities to establish who you are and what you are - your brand - in the minds of the customers.

Execution

Finally, once you have all this in place, you need to establish reviews for each activity to see how you are doing versus the plan, reviews of the metrics to see how effective the activities are, and period reviews of your strategy to make sure you take into account changes in the market place. If any deviations from plan or changes occur, you take the appropriate corrective action to reestablish your strategy and plan.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

garfield writes:

"By positioning, do you mean the company punch line or our message how we are positioning ourselves into the market."

It's kind of one in the same. The ideal tagline (or "punch line" as you call it) takes your positioning statement (i.e. how you want to be perceived in the market) and distills it down to a memorable sentence or so.

Wayde's given you some excellent guidance. Also, do not forget your internal audience. You need to turn your employees into enthusuastic "Brand Ambassadors" who spread the word and company culture.

You might even consider doing a "Brandscape" video that takes the essence of your positioning and presents it in way that makes your employees understand -- and above all be proud to be part of the company. Works for customers, too!