What is Startup Branding

 

 

Marketing Strategy

 

Startup Branding Is Key to Success

For startups to grow with time and dominate respective markets, they will need to focus more on branding and marketing than investing in advertising.

“Brand is what people say about you behind your back,” “Startups should have a well-run website and a blog that not just talks about its success but also about its failures”.

 

“Those setting up startups should not sit and wait for a big idea. It is best to take a small buggy idea and create better versions of it,”

Branding is a common misunderstood aspect of running a business.

Most entrepreneurs believe that branding is simply creating a logo, or their company’s name. It’s true that your logo is a major part of your brand, but branding goes much deeper.

Your Brand Is Also Your Company’s Reputation and Tells Your Company’s Story.

That’s why startup branding is key to any company’s success.

·       Brands boost referrals

·       Branding reinforces marketing

·       Brands stick around

Keys to Successful Branding

Branding is a way to distinguish your product or service from the rest of market and create a perceived value in the mind of potential customers. However, branding is also important for small businesses that want to stand out in the market, and the keys to successful branding include knowing your target customers and making all your decisions with a focus on what's important to them.

Define Your Customers

Study Your Customers

Be Consistent with Your Brand Position

Create the Elements of Your Brand

Create a brand personality -- traits you want your business known for -- and, if you have an established business, a brand story that shows how your business' history adds value and credibility to the brand. Also, create the physical elements that make up the brand, including your logo, business tagline, colors, fonts, imagery and other physical elements used in marketing and presenting your brand. These physical brand associations should reflect your brand promise and all your brand traits, and also support your brand position.

Market Your Brand

Key Reasons Why Branding is Important

You know that branding is the key to any company, whether they sell coffee or industrial parts or clothing. But convincing your organization or clients that branding is necessary for all components of their business to succeed can be a bit more difficult than deciding exactly what colors best represent their brand mission.

Branding provides a competitive advantage

Brands provide a stable asset.

Brands provide economic value

Brands set expectations

At the heart of branding is the promise that is made by the organization to the audience. The brand promise tells the audiences who you are, what you believe in, and what unique value you provide. The ability to fulfill your promises at every stage of the relationship is the defining factor for most organizations success or failure. When promises are broken the reputation of the organization is called into question, and the brand suffers. When brand promises are kept, audiences respond with loyalty and affection.

Create the right tagline.

What is the emotional reaction you want your audience to have when engaging the brand and what do you want them to remember?

Stand out from the crowd. T

Think about who your audience is.

Develop your company culture.

And then do all your hiring and you’re on boarding with this culture in mind.

Be patient with your brand.

Take on every new outreach initiative with care.

Be consistent. Think of your outreach as being interconnected, like a body.

Get help. Branding isn’t easy.

Put people first. The brand is more than the company.

 

Premium Pricing Strategy

Pricing is a major element of marketing any product, and it is vitally important to set the right price. A price that is too high or too low for the target market can seriously affect sales. Premium pricing can use for several purposes. A premium pricing strategy involves setting the price of a product higher than similar products. This strategy is sometimes also called skim pricing because it is an attempt to “skim the cream” off the top of the market. It is used to maximize profit in areas where customers are happy to pay more, where there are no substitutes for the product, where there are barriers to entering the market or when the seller cannot save on costs by producing at a high volume.

Premium pricing can also be used to improve brand identity in a particular market. This is called price-quality signaling, because the high price signals to consumers that the product is high in quality. Competition

Brand awareness

Some brands can continue to charge a premium price because their entire brand image is based around premium. Unique products usually have the best chance of commanding premium prices.

The first step is to understand that in the so-called luxury market, there are three possible strategies, which I named in my book as luxury, fashion and premium. The difference between these three strategies is huge. It does not change much in the eyes of most basic consumers, at least in the short-term. But when one has to manage a brand, the difference is pivotal. In fact, if you decide to implement a fashion or a premium strategy, the classical marketing styles works pretty well. But if you decide to implement a luxury strategy, you need to reconsider all the aspects of your marketing management.

The luxury strategy aims at creating the highest brand value and pricing power by leveraging all intangible elements of singularity- i.e. time, heritage, country of origin, craftsmanship, manmade, small series, prestigious clients, etc. The premium strategy can be summarized as “pay more, get more.” Here the goal is to prove -through comparisons and benchmarking- that this is the best value within its category. Quality/price ratio is the motto. This strategy is, by essence, comparative.

Here are six factors that will influence your ability to establish and maintain premium price position and reap the rewards:

Become a Premium Provider. Identify the features that would be considered high-end on the value scale, and then highlight those crucial elements in your marketing. Resist the urge to offer a basic service level or baseline product. Stick with the premium level of service if you plan to maintain your premium pricing strategy.

Define Your Value. Help your customers understand why your prices are higher. If you know how competitors are undercutting your prices, and you feel the competitors' lower cost equates to poorer quality or service, explain this difference. In other words, don't hide your price; instead, explain your value to the customer, and be prepared to demonstrate the ROI associated with your service or product.

Go the Extra Mile. You'd be surprised how many business owners declare they offer superior service simply because their people are friendly. Successful companies have more than friendly employees.

Don't Sacrifice Price, Even When Times are Tough. Just explain why your product or service is worth the investment, but be a little flexible for long-time customers.

Don't Play the Lowest Price Game. Weaker competitors are quick to cut prices to earn business. Don't play their game.

Project Financial Stability. A colleague told me about his expensive dilemma. He needed to replace his entire home air conditioning system. He asked two local companies for estimates.