Brand, Positioning & Promotion - A Discussion

Is Branding the Same as Advertising and Promotion?


No, branding is not the same as advertising and promotion.
Promotional messages contained in advertising are critical components to getting out the word about your company and its products and services. But advertising campaigns come and go, shifting according to the specific needs of your company over time.
Your brand is permanent. It consistently reinforces the appropriate messages to your key audiences. A brand is the core identity of your company. It is what appears on the bottom of your ad and represents the personality that goes to the heart of your positioning. Your brand is bigger than any advertising, public relations or direct mail campaign you will ever do. It is the one thing that doesn't change.


Differentiation through Branding


There are a growing number of products and services introduced to the market every month, and your company may not stand the test of time if it lacks a well-defined brand. Differentiation is key for any product or service. In the information age, impressions come to people so fast it's virtually impossible to retain all the messages with which we're bombarded. In order to make people stop, look, and listen, it is imperative that the brand you create cuts through the clutter. The name and logo — the "look and feel" of your communications — is the starting point for how people perceive you.
In order to lead in your category, you want your target audience to notice and to remember you. Because the core of your brand is your name and how that name is visually expressed, there is a terrific opportunity to make these elements work for you. Take your brand development seriously, and invest what is necessary achieve your goals. This may mean hiring an outside help.

Equally important, make sure that you think through and are able to communicate your company's position and core values. If you can't articulate what differentiates you to your branding consultant, chances are they won't be able to communicate it visually. They need clear direction in order to craft a memorable, differentiated brand.


source: allbusiness.com

How many customers will recommend your product?

Can you tell how many customers will promote your product or your company? Has that ever occurred to you that if you ask this question to your customer, “How likely is it that you would recommend (my company / my product) to a friend or colleague?”, what would be their answer?


Research shows that asking this simple question will help you understand your customers and their feedback better, than from those million dollar feedback processes, simply because it gives you their perspective in very clear and explicit way – and what better way to design your product or yr services but from such feedback.


There is a psychological reason as well. When you ask this question to a customer, you are actually involving her personally into yr product or your organization. What better way to create ownership among them?


So, next time when you are visiting your customers / clients, don’t forget to ask this question to them, and see the difference.



By: Susmita Das Gupta

Understanding your Customers and be their Buddy!

It is possible to build a long lasting relation with your customers. Whether you are in a B2B or B2C market, your customers will always behave in some similar pattern. After all, you will always be dealing with human beings!


1. Understand the Pain Area of your Customers and Give them a Solution, not just a Product:

The key to marketing & selling success is based on how well one understands her customers and foresees their requirements. To do that one has to think like her customers and understand the “pains” they are suffering from.

To do that, each marketing & sales person should become the best “buddy” for each of her customers – she simply can’t afford to be just a vendor/supplier/marketer. She needs to build up a relation of trust so that her customers can believe that she is the best person who can provide them with the best solution, and not just push some products.

2. Understanding the customer’s Psychology - there are basically two types customers –

a. the “Visionaries” – want to be the first to use a product and build their vision around them for their companies, mainly the senior / top management, or for themselves
b. the “Pragmatics” – who want to make sure he has the best solution for their current problems, the ones who runs the show on the daily basis.

It is rather easy to build the dreams for the visionaries, but it is a real hard work to convert a pragmatic to a customer. And if the product is highly technical and requires product trials before an order is received, it is even more difficult with a pragmatic customer.

Therefore, understanding each segments and building the solution around them is the key.

To sum up:

To foresee the customers’ future requirement, keeping a hand on the pulse of the market and constantly innovating on the existing offering is the only way.

And, understanding the customers and building lasting relationship based on trust is the most effective way to success.


By – Susmita Das Gupta