Let’s start with a simple scenario.
You’re at the supermarket picking up some groceries. Despite the array of choices, there are particular brands you always pick.
That’s because interacting with these products gives us specific brand experiences.
The corporations that design and advertise them understand exactly what kind of experience they want you to have when you buy their products.
What’s the end result?
These brands are well-known, well-liked, and have people loyally picking them time and time again.
Is that the dream for your company in Singapore?
We know how hard it is to build up your brand, especially if you are a small business.
But your branding woes may be a thing of the past soon.
Stick with us as we explore branding as a marketing strategy and help you find a branding agency in Singapore that suits your company.
Branding Terminologies
What is in a brand?
A brand is a group of traits or features that sets one company apart from another.
Brand Elements
Brand elements define how your brand looks., This covers the brand name, slogan, logo or symbol, and other assorted designs.
You probably already knew this. But what you might not know is that a brand is also made up of more abstract elements, which we will explore below.
Brand Identity
A brand identity is made up of your company’s personality and the promise you’ve conveyed to your clients.
It’s the impression you want your customers to have after interacting with your brand.
Your beliefs, how you explain your product or service, and how you want people to feel when they connect with it make up your brand identity.
In a brand strategy, this covers brand voice, brand purpose, brand pillars and brand personality – all of which will form the foundation of your company. This forms a total brand strategy with the physical brand elements.
Branding
Branding is the act of identifying, developing, and implementing a distinguishing feature or collection of features for your company so that clients can associate it with your products or services.
Branding is an iterative process that necessitates connecting with the heart of both your customers and your company. It’s a complex process that requires market research to get the best branding results.
Luckily, you don’t have to worry about the branding process!
ReferReach is designed so you can seek to give recommendations for the best brand consultants for your company from your trusted network.
Brand Experience
Beyond the brand elements, what’s increasingly more important is the brand experience – both virtual and physical, depending on the nature of your business.
The brand experience refers to the customer experiences when dealing with a business, whether as a shopper, a customer, a social media follower, or just a passerby!
Marketing agencies and branding agencies can develop this for your business. ReferReach gives you a network of agencies at your fingertips to help you develop this strategy.
Brand Awareness
This refers to the people’s consciousness of your brand.
Keep in mind that clients can’t contemplate buying from your brand if they don’t even know about it!
Brands that have a high level of brand awareness are described as “trending,” “buzzworthy,” or “popular.”
This is a crucial business objective that you need to put dollars to To achieve this with maximum impact, you’ll need the consultation of a good advertising agency or marketing agency (which ReferReach can link you with!).
Brand Extension
When firms “stretch” their brand to generate new products in new industries and markets, they are referred to as “brand extensions.”
Companies (or individuals) can use brand extensions to increase revenue streams and diversify product lines by leveraging brand awareness and equity.
Take Michelin for example.
This may come as a surprise to some, but did you know that Michelin tires and the Michelin food rating system are under the same brand?
The French tyre company, led by brothers Édouard and André Michelin, was actually rather small. There were less than 3,000 cars on the roads of France in 1900, and those who did have them used them sparingly.
Rather than trying to sell tyres to individuals who didn’t need them, Michelin decided to create a hotel and restaurant rating system that would increase the number of drivers, and have existing drivers use up their tyres and buy new ones.
A skilled business development manager or brand consultant will know how to extend your brand and business accordingly, with marketing solutions that fit you specifically.
Brand Management
The process of building and sustaining your brand is referred to as brand management.
It entails overseeing both the tangible and intangible aspects of your brand:
- Tangible: Product design, packaging design, colour palette
- Intangible: Brand personality, tone of voice
Business leaders or product managers act as brand custodians to ensure that the brand strategy is adhered to when developing new products or marketing campaigns.
Brand Recognition
Brand recognition refers to how well a consumer (preferably in your target audience) can recognise and identify your brand based on its logo, tagline, jingle, packaging, or advertising without seeing your company name.
This idea is related to brand recall, which is the ability to recall a brand without any visual or audible cues. This is different from brand awareness as the criteria for awareness is people knowing about the existence of your brand.
Branding agencies can help your company greatly with their industry-specific expertise and methodologies.
Brand Trust
The level of trust that clients have in your brand is referred to as brand trust.
Are you able to follow through on your marketing promises? Do your salespeople and customer service representatives go above and beyond the call of duty?
These factors can help you build customer trust, which is critical in a world with countless brands. It distinguishes you from the sea of other businesses.
Branding does not end with marketing.
Skilled business leaders will know how important it is to ensure all parts of the business work cohesively to grow brand trust.
Brand Value
Consumer perception, recognition, and trust are used to determine the commercial value of your brand. This idea goes hand in hand with the concept of brand equity.
Investors, stockholders, and future buyers will value your company if it has a strong brand value.
Creating Your Brand
1. Determine your target audience
Awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue are all aided by branding.
But who determines that? Your users, clients and prospects!
Your brand will not achieve exposure, recognition or trust if it does not resonate with your target demographic. This will have implications on the revenue that your products can generate.
It is foundational to think about who you want your brand to resonate with before any branding project. From a business perspective, you will need to consider the total addressable market size of this target audience and if the potential revenue is valuable for your business.
This should be your top priority since everything you learn about your customer personas at this stage will affect your decisions in the brand development process.
2. Create a mission & vision statement
Why did you start your company? Where do you see your company growing?
Answering this question will assist you in developing your mission & vision statements, which explains your brand purpose.
You must be able to articulate the goal of your business before you can create a brand that your audience recognises, values, and trusts. Bonus points if you can wrap it in a neat and concise brand story!
People don’t care about what you do, they care about what you can do for them. Your mission statement is an important part of your brand building because it explains why your business exists and why people should care about it.
3. Identify your distinct values, qualities, and advantages.
Your brand attributes should be unique to your business and aligned to your target audiences’.
As a result, you need to ensure that your brand consists of components that are completely yours: the values and pillars are the foundations that distinguish your firm.
How will your business align with and appeal to the audience’s value system at the same time?
4. Produce visual assets
At this stage, you should have a holistic brand strategy that sets the foundation for your business.
It’s time to bring your brand to life with visual and graphic design!
We’re talking about your logo, colour scheme, typefaces, iconography, and other elements!
Build a set of brand rules (or even better – a brand style guide) to regulate the composition and use of visual elements. This will ensure that your new branding is applied consistently and accurately.
Social Media
Your brand elements should be reflected consistently in all profile images, cover art, and branded imagery.
Develop a unique tone of voice for your captions and interactions with customers on social media.
6. Put your branding to work!
After you’ve finished developing and creating your branding strategy, make sure to incorporate it into every aspect of your business. Pay special attention to making sure it’s visible whenever your company interacts with clients.
Here are a few pointers for implementing your brand throughout your company:
Website
Your logo, colour palette, and font should be used throughout your web design.
Your website is an important component of your brand identity; if it doesn’t reflect your brand, customers will be confused.
Also, make sure that your brand voice is reflected in all site copy, calls to action, and product descriptions.
Social Media
Your brand elements should be reflected consistently in all profile images, cover art, and branded imagery.
Develop a unique tone of voice for your captions and interactions with customers on social media.
Packaging
If you sell physical goods, your product is most often the most visible way for customers to interact with your brand.
As a result, the packaging design, colours and even, the size of your package to the visual merchandising should all represent your new branding.
Customer service and sales
A brand is only as strong as the people who put it together, and if your employees aren’t putting it to use, it won’t work for you!
Inform your sales and customer support representatives of your brand principles and tell them to follow them, especially when dealing with clients directly.
Encourage them to incorporate your logo, tagline, graphics, and brand voice while delivering a branded product demo or addressing customer support questions.
Best Branding Agencies in Singapore
Overwhelmed on how to get started? We get you.
We’ve compiled a list of our personal best branding agencies in Singapore.
ReferReach is a platform that allows you to connect with and seek recommendations from trustworthy and vetted service providers in Singapore. To get connected with these top-notch businesses, you can create an ‘Ask’ with the details of what you’re looking for. Then, simply sit back and wait to get connected!
These expert branding consultants will be able to supercharge your business growth to new heights.