How to do branding – 7 Important Steps to do for branding of your business

Many new businesses, small businesses, or newbies in the market approach agencies or specialists with a pain point that is How to do branding of my business. This blog on How to do branding aims to equip you with all the information that is required to select the branding activity that is the best fit for your business. So let’s start with basics

What is branding?

Branding in simple words is making your brand recognisable. People in the market are not aware about the existence of your brand. They make a decision of buying your competitors product/services instead of yours because they have no idea you also produce or sell same services or products. In such a case, any brand or business would require to do branding so the people can know about the brand and its offering.

History of branding!

The most conventional part of branding has been radio ads, television ads, newspaper ads, and hoarding that you see while traveling on roads, by metro, airports, etc. Obviously, the impact of such advertisements is amazing and so is the cost involve in branding. Hence, these options are mostly limited to big brands that have lots of money dedicated to marketing. Here, digital is a game-changer in so many ways

• The money spent on digital can suit every brand’s budget. There is no rigidity in terms of spends, One can select according to pocket
• You cannot just target people who watch TV, listen to the radio, or travel the road but people who are actually interested in your products based on many targeting options that digital platforms offer
• Here as per the budget, you can broaden your reach as below
  Local/radius(any) level > City level > State level> Multiple states>National
• Basis the budget one can prioritize her/his target audience

Since most of the people are online and using digital, digital has become a very important part of marketing or you can say branding. Read more about branding here in the earlier blog post how to do online marketing of my business

Define the stage of your business before thinking how to make brand popular

This question can be tricky for people who are not aware of the objective of their marketing activities. Before realising the objective it is important to realise the stage at which you business is

Note: the branding strategy will be different with respect to the stage in which your business is. The major change will be in communication and material that we share with our audience

• Just started – You have just launched your business or it has been a few weeks or months. Here, we can talk about brand launch, brand USPs, how the brand stands among competitors. Since we have no case studies, reviews to share with our audience so our long term approach should be to gain reviews, testimonial from audience and then promote them to the new audience
• Planning to launch – You have a business plan ready, now you look forward to launching. Here, you can spend a minimal budget targeting local people or a small audience. Communication can focus around launch date, launch offers, visit us on this date etc.
• It has been years – This is a stage when it has been years being in your business but the major challenge you face here how to out-stand your competition. This is a common stage and many businesses choose digital marketing to combat this issue. Here all the testimonials, case studies or current alliances need to be shared with the audience for trust building.

7 steps to do branding for your business

Now let’s move to a very important part of How to do branding. Here, we will talk about all options we have for doing branding and what kind of people we can target on particular channel.

1. Instagram for branding

Target Audience: Recommended age group for Instagram branding is 14-35. Although Instagram allows you to target any age group but above is the recommended one. If your product/service caters to such age group then choose branding on Instagram otherwise choose another digital platform.

Types of targeting: All the digital channels offer us the various option of targeting so is Instagram. Here, for branding we can target people basis

• Location-based targeting -As I mentioned above that basis our budget we can decide which particular area we need to target. For example, you want to target a particular area in west Delhi. You can select the radius of the particular location and can specifically target people residing in that area. Not only once but re-targeting can be done to make sure the audience remember your brand

• Interest-based targeting – This is the very key aspect for someone who is looking for how to build a brand. You can only build a brand when you are targeting the right people. This interest-based targeting helps you target people who can be actually interested in your product/service and can become your customers. If you want to know what all interest options can be there, check this blog on How to promote a post on Instagram

• Age & Gender Selection – Basis your brand’s offering, Instagram allows you to target specifically women, specifically men, or even both. Similarly, the age of people who you think can be interested in your brand

Communication & Materials for branding on Instagram: While communicating to the audience we need to ensure that we tell them about our brand and offering. Also, include the next step which you want them to take, for example, it can say visit our website, visit our store, check our reviews, read our case studies, read the testimonial, check our customer story, etc.
If you are looking for an Instagram marketing guide, read this blog

2. Facebook for branding

Target Audience: Similar to Instagram, we can select any target age on Facebook. But recommended target age for branding on Facebook is 30-55

Types of targeting: Types of targeting options are similar to what we have on Instagram. So only difference that is here is we need to select Facebook when we have above age group as a target audience

Communication & Materials for branding on Facebook Everything we do here needs to be in sync with our target audience. People in the above age group won’t consider clicking on links and going to other platforms so one needs to provide all the relevant information on the same platform. If customer testimonial you are promoting, make it part of your ad or some awards you are promoting, make it part of your ad. If asking people to visit the store, make sure address and phone details are mentioned very clearly

3. Google Search for branding

Target Audience: Any age group as everyone uses Google. Campaigns or marketing on Google is the most intent based marketing. The conversion happens mostly on Google so this is very apt for people who are looking for conversion, leads, orders, enquires. But branding too can be done, which I will suggest in below section

Types of targeting: Keyword based, competitor targeting. Here we can target people who are looking for something directly, They are searching on Google and we can show them our ad. Hence this is the most accurate one

Communication & Materials for branding on Google Search:
For a search campaign, I would suggest to run ads on competitor keywords, So, when somebody searches for a competitor brand they will see your ad and will come to know about your brand. Besides this, you can also run an ad on keywords related to product/service offering

4. Google Display for Branding

Target Audience: Any age group can be targeted.

Types of targeting: This is a very ideal platform for branding from Google. Here, we can promote our brand on third party websites. The most related website can be targeted through the platform. If you have visited sites like TOI and others, you must have observed lot of ads that run on the website. These are part of the display network

Communication & Materials for branding on Google Display: Here, we need to add banner sizes as per the sizes suggested by AdWords platform. We can add text separately to make our ad look complete

5. Youtube for Branding

Target Audience: Any age group as all people every now and then visit Youtube

Types of targeting: Nobody is saved from the Youtube ads that we see while watching anything on youtube. All skippable & non-skippable ads are part of youtube marketing. And you see them because youtube knows what kind of content you like so all the ads are suggested based on your interests

Communication & Materials for branding on Youtube
Here, we can run images, videos to promote our brand. The insights from advertisements like reach, views, shares are important factors to see the impact of your ads. These ads can be run from the Google Adwords platform. Youtube marketing is very vital for branding hence included in this post how to do branding

6. OTT Platforms for Branding

Target Audience: Age group 18-45. These are the people who watch platforms like Hotstar, Alt Blazai, MX player etc

Types of targeting: Here there are two options to target – One is using banners, videos which we see in between matches, shows, other videos. And other is the permanent banner that we see while we enter the platform.(not permanent but the banner space is rented for some time) It is a very expensive option and mostly occupied by big brands

Communication & Materials for branding on OTT platform:
These are expensive options and only brand name/ logo with creative image and CTA(call to action) is showed on the banner.

7. Blogging

Target Audience: Any age group

Types of targeting: One can target all the relevant audiences by writing a frequent blog on the website of related topics. Optimse these blogs so that they rank well and get huge traffic. Read the blog post on How to create your own blog

Communication & Materials for branding through blogging: Reach relevant audiences/ people through information. Imagine people are searching for some information on the web. They see your article and land on the website. As the next step, they will read your blog which is part of the website and get the information they are looking for. They will look for the brand name and will remember it because of the help you provided. Blogging is a very effective strategy in building a brand in a long run

Result expected from branding

One can expect a result like increase in brand searches, increase in direct traffic on the website. The next steps after this how to leverage the opportunity when so many new people enters the website or your page. One needs to make sure there is proper communication, material, offers, next steps for your audience

Stay tuned to know about how to track the result of branding campaigns