Branding on a Budget

Here are a few helpful tips to brand on a budget

Branding is one of the most crucial steps when it comes to marketing or rebranding your business. Marketing is what spreads the word and gets the masses moving. A powerful brand campaign conveys the right message to the target audience, creates awareness about your product, and compels people to consider purchasing your product.

Branding is a complex process that involves several stages, creativity, and plenty of innovation. The sole aim is to create an impression. A very specific one. This impression decides whether your target audience will want to know more about you or not.

Branding is essentially nothing but giving a clear picture of who you are and what your business does to the masses.

With this, I hope I have been able to bring home the importance of branding to any business. Branding is literally the proverbial bread and butter of any business, big or small. Despite this, many businesses continue to ignore the importance of brand campaigns and fail to integrate it into their marketing strategies. When asked why, the most common answer from these business owners were that branding is expensive.

So, is branding expensive?

No, not really. The expenses in branding campaigns largely depend on the way you have chalked it out. You can do it the expensive way, or you can do it the cheap way.

Here are a few tips for branding within a budget.

The brands logo says everything

Imagine that you are out buying shoes. In the store, most people are likely to reach out and take hold of the ones that have the logos of popular brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Reebok, and so on. Although these are brands that have established their presence long back, their logos are what attract attention. The logos of these brands have become a household name across the world.

A logo is very important for branding. It is a unique representation of your company, of the product you are selling. Logos appear on everything, right from business cards to the shopping bags available in your stores.

There are a number of inexpensive ways to develop a creative, yet meaningful logo. You can use logo making websites like AI logo designer or you can hire freelancers from platforms like Fiverr

Customer service can make or break you

A good customer service will bring back existing customers and help rope in new ones. Customers are the top priority in any business. A business that caters to the needs of their customers and offers an out-of-the-world customer experience is likely to remain etched in the minds of customers. Treat them bad and you will regret it for the rest of your business.

Customers are one of your greatest brand advocates. The way a customer feels will determine whether they will come back to your business or never step in again.

A satisfied customer is a loyal customer. He or she is likely to spread the word to friends and family, thereby increasing the likelihood of new customers for your business. Indeed, when it comes to certain things, I’d rather trust a friend or family member over an advertising campaign. Wouldn’t you?

Make your brand a part of their life

Nike continues to be one of the most popular brands when it comes to sports shoes. Today, Nike is more than just shoes, they offer their customers the opportunity to connect with athletes like Michael Jordan and Steve Prefontaine. Customers feel that somehow, albeit in a very small way, they are part of the lives of these great athletes.

Nike’s strong brand strategy transformed them from a brand selling shoes to a lifestyle brand. They are the trusted name in households when it comes to sports apparel. Their tagline, “Just do it” is capable of making a normal person feel like an elite athlete.

Drawing from this example, it is clear how it is important to become part of a customer’s lifestyle. The more a customer is able to incorporate and identify your brand with their everyday life, the better are your chances at reaching out to them and influencing them to keep coming back to you.

Social media is your best friend

There is absolutely no need to spend wads of cash on expensive branding campaigns when you have the greatest and most effective tool at your disposal. Social media.

Social media platform keeps people across the world connected and in the game. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, are platforms where people gather as a community and it is the best way to reach out to people.

Yes, certain social media campaigns do cost money, but you don’t need to get started with such campaigns right away.

The best you can do is to create a social media voice that interacts with individuals and communities. You need to create a persona for social media platforms. Your persona should be honest, inspiring, authoritative but still warm and friendly. Your aim should be to effectively engage the audience using simple but effective language.

In addition, it is extremely helpful to have a blog of your own. You want users to know what’s happening and a blog is one of the best ways to catch their attention. The key to branding using blogs lies in creating effective content. Effective content can include anything from infographics, images, articles, videos, and so on. The sky is the limit and creativity is your tool.

You need to engage customers by regularly posting on social media platforms. There are several social media scheduling apps available in the market. These apps can automatically update content in your social media platforms as and when required.

The key to establishing your brand lies in consistency. You need to be consistent in your activities and interact with the audience through comments, discussions, likes, and so on. You need to be constantly out there and always active to help people understand you and your brand.

If dealt with strategically, social media can become one of your best tools for branding.