Marketing and Branding (Part 1)

Even the best ideas need help to reach a vast pool of customers. How will you give your company a marketing presence and reputable brand image? In this recurring blog series, we will dive into the ever-changing world of marketing and branding. Hustle Crew, in this first series of blogs, we will understand the basics of branding and marketing and how you can start your branding and marketing plan and execute it successfully.

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Branding is the process of building your business identity or character. It also indicates how your company is showcased to the audience. For example, branding includes your logo, slogan, values, packaging, and the customer experience you provide. Marketing indicates understanding your customers and creating strategies to attract, engage, and retain them. You will use several techniques, tools, and tactics to improve your brand identity and attract customers to make sales through marketing.

Both of these are absolutely essential in the business world. But what comes first - marketing or branding?

While they are equally as important, branding comes first when building a business; it helps create effective marketing strategies. After all, you can’t market without a brand to use! You must clearly define how to demonstrate your brand and formulate marketing strategies to reach the target audience.

Next, let's understand the basics of branding. You must consider a few essential things when building your business's branding, as discussed below.

• Business name: When someone asks about your business, you first say your business name. Your business name should convey at least a part of your overall business idea, and be creative and unique. 

• Slogan: Your slogan is the next thing people remember about your business. It should be short, catchy, and communicate your unique value. 

• Logo: Your business logo should visually represent your brand. Therefore, it should be simple, versatile, and reflect your business's core values.

Farmers Insurance is a household name largely due to its slogan - “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.” Oh yeah, and that iconic jingle - another part of branding!

Let's understand the basics of marketing, starting with the classic “4 Ps.” These concepts are a great way to understand how the marketing scheme works on a grand scale. They can even help you to outline your marketing strategies for your target audience. Here’s a quick overview of the 4 Ps (although you have likely heard of them before!)

• Product: What are you selling? It may include your product or service's features, quality, and branding.

• Price: How much do you charge? When determining the price of your product or service, you need to consider its production costs, competitive prices, and perceived values.

• Place: Where is your product or service available? Your products may be available in online stores, retail stores, or distributed through distribution channels, which will help determine your marketing strategy.

• Promotion: How do you communicate with your audience? To help reach the product or service, you can communicate with your target audience in different ways, such as advertising, social media, email, events, and more.

Now you need to define the above 4 Ps of marketing for your business. For

example, if you are selling something like, say aromatic candles, you need to specify the details and characteristics of your product that make it unique, set the pricing, determine how you will distribute the market, and choose the promotional techniques.

After you understand the 4 Ps of marketing, you need to learn the modern areas of marketing. The world, particularly the digital one, is moving at a faster-than-ever pace. Below are some digital forms of marketing:

• Content marketing: In content marketing, you create content that relates to the audience based on your product by solving their problems.

• Email marketing: Email marketing helps you reach a wide target audience through emails. Moreover, it's a process of driving conversions.

• Social media marketing: You build your brand awareness and reach a broad target audience through social media. According to the chart by Datareportal (shown below), approximately 94.3% of internet users use social media. Many brands reach their target audience and multiply their revenue quickly via social media - which will be discussed in detail in the next entry! 

• Advertising and Pay-Per-Click (PPC): You can run ads for your social media pages or websites to sell products directly to searchers.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing your site and social media pages for SEO helps drive more traffic to your website.

• Public relations: Here's where you build relationships with customers or people who think positively about your brand.

• Influencer marketing: Through influencer marketing, you can promote your products through a trusted influencer.

And if this all sounds quite complex to navigate - don't worry. More to come on all of these next entry - be sure to stay tuned!

Social media is the second most used function of the internet, with billions of users worldwide. 

Depending on the type of business, you need to pick the ideal marketing techniques from above to market your product/service. Before that, you need to understand your target audience and determine which of the above ways would work to reach that target audience. Also, identifying which of the two main marketing outlets (or combination of both) is better for your business. There can be two types of marketing outlets: print marketing and digital marketing. Let's have a quick look at these marketing outlet types:

• Print marketing: You maintain a traditional but effective marketing strategy using print materials about the business. Examples include flyers, brochures, and newspaper ads. This helps create a physical presence for the company, lacking in digital marketing. It also often appeals to an older demographic.

• Digital marketing: In digital marketing, you use digital platforms such as websites, email, and online ads to reach a broad audience. This process includes a measurable performance where you can optimize your content for SEO and SEM to target specific demographics across all kinds of people.

  
  

Digital marketing is especially complex (which, again, is why our next entry will be completely dedicated to it!). Since you know the basics of branding and marketing, you need an execution plan. While executing your branding and marketing plan is far from easy, there are other couple of things you need to consider. When you start a business, it can be seem overwhelming to start with branding and marketing. Here are some good places to start - remember, any progress is better than no progress!

• Define your brand identity: First, set your mission and vision and identify what sets you apart from other businesses and target audiences.

• Create a logo and name: Your logo and business name should convey what you do effectively to the target audience. You can make fantastic logo designs with free tools such as Canva. A catchy business name should be easy to spell, pronounce, and remember. Freelance designers on sites such as Fiverr or Upwork can also assist the logo-making process - a resource I utilized to get the ideal logo I wanted for my startup, Rentity. 

• Build an online presence: Every business needs an online presence. To accomplish this, you can make a basic website with essential pages such as home, about, services/products, and contact. Next, create your social media profiles, including Facebook and Instagram.

• Start with content marketing: Creating your website and social media profiles doesn't end there. You must share your expertise through blogs, short videos, social media posts, and even interact with the audience.

• Set a marketing budget (even if it's small!): You can start your marketing activities for your budget by using low-cost advertising platforms such as Facebook or Google Ads. Experiment and identify which ways help you reach your target audience and make your investment worthwhile.

Marketing and branding differs for each individual business, and there are no hard rules or "this is how you should do it". You are good to go if you have a plan for what to do and how to execute it. Remember, each business and its founding team are unique - and their branding should reflect that!

So, now you know how to build your business's brand and marketing plan at your fingertips. We hope this guide sets the basics of branding and marketing to build your business presence and skyrocket your marketing game. The next "Marketing & Branding" series will discuss mastering social media (from beginning to expert level). Stay tuned for our upcoming post. Happy branding and marketing, Hustle Crew!

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About the Author

Brandon Yeh is an entrepreneur and student who currently resides in the Bay Area. In addition to working on his latest business ventures, he enjoys playing golf competitively and is an avid Bay Area sports fan.