What is brand management and how can you do it effectively?
If you have a brand, brand management is crucial part of its success.
Think about walking through a department store. You are surrounded by different brands, products and sales. Inevitably, your senses are overwhelmed. The first place you go is to the brands you already know and trust.
You might not know it, but you end up at the Apple counter instead of another because your brain instantly recognized and trusted their design. Or you reach for the Coca-Cola at the till instead of the sugary new brand next to it because you know what to expect. As you step out, you choose a quick Starbucks instead of trying the greasy spoon next door. You can guess why.
What do all these brands have in common?
It’s a well-known fact that building a brand is only the first step in the long staircase to success. Brand management is the rest of it. It comprises marketing strategies dedicated to maintain, grow and create awareness around the brand and products it offers.
Good brand management results in close relationships with its audience, increasing its brand equity.
What is brand equity?
Brand equity is the broad value of a brand. Not just in financial and liquidity terms, but in its perception. It includes:
- Brand awareness
- Recognition
- Brand loyalty
- Customer experience
- Customer perception
It may seem subjective. But effectively, brand equity is the value a company has from its name. If a brand becomes the first choice among consumers (even when it’s next to generic, lower priced brands), it enables the company to increase price points and therefore, increase their revenue.
Brand equity is as tangible as financial returns. Management allows you to build and protect your brand equity.
Brand management strategies
Before the internet, brand management used to be easier to control. The outputs of a brand could be ordered, monitored and approved centrally.
However, the increased demand for content in a digital world has left marketing teams struggling to meet demand. If you have other teams constantly requesting designs for content and collateral, which you can’t meet, you risk them creating their own. The risk is that these won’t be on-brand, which could damage your brand equity.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to ensure brand management is done effectively, allowing you to best possible protection from the negative consequences.
1. Go over the basics
Make sure you have the basic branding principles nailed:
- Visual identity (logo, colours, visual elements)
- Tone of voice
- Mission and vision
- Target audience
2. Create brand guidelines
Once the basic elements are set, they will enable you to create online brand guidelines that are easily accessible for the main people in your teams. Need help with your brand guidelines? Contact us.
3. Understand your story and value
Personal connection comes from the way you communicate your story and your value. Understanding what makes your target audience tick is essential to building lasting connections with your customers.
4. Use a brand management system
The previous steps will help you understand the delivery of your brand, but the problem with demand remains. A brand management system, such as RightMarket, solves it for you. Your Online Brand Centre within our product will allow you to have an online, centralised space for all your teams to access brand management activities, content, and messaging. Communicating your branding, guidelines and values is the responsibility of everyone in your organisation. And while Marketing teams are the glue that holds it together, their time is better spent thinking about the broader aspects of brand management and growth.
RightMarket takes care of the nagging, moving parts of brand management: making sure everyone within your organisation is staying on brand, all the time.