There are many businesses out there, like over 50M+ at least in the US & over 36M+ in India according to Trade Economics. But why do you only know a handful amount of good brands existing? What makes these few businesses do better than most of their competitors? What makes your company 1 in a million? That's what we are going to uncover today, so sit back and keep your thumb scrolling.
A business or an entity that operates with a set of rules and guidelines, built by the government can be dated back thousands of years. The most significant being the Kongo Gumi - a japan based construction company founded in 578 AD.
These early companies were reminiscent of the potential upside of the commerce and growth they brought to the economies at that time. But in this modern time, every business starts calling itself a brand or tries to be one even without understanding the core principles behind it.
Branding believe it or not can be coined back to ancient Egypt 2700 BC where the word 'branding' literally meant "marking by burning". It was used by the local cattle owners to distinguish their cattle from others by making a distinctive symbol burned to their animal's skin. Lots of history behind that one.
In the modern world, this term just widens its horizon right from the distinctive name, design, symbol, terms, and so on.
In simple English, a brand gives a business its identity to distinguish its position in the market from a generic to a branded store/service.
So, in this tangled world of 1000000+ (1 with 6 zeros) of companies opening every year why you should be interested in building a brand for yourself. Here is the answer to that.
While building a brand has become a buzzword these days, there is more sense in doing it. Google clearly making the most recognized brand in the world compared to a company like DuckDuckGo. It's in no regards DuckDuckGo has been known by most of the tech enthusiast but it never captured the attention of the general mass adaptation like Google.
So here are some of the many steps that you need to consider to build a brand:
It's no surprise that you are building a brand for your customers that eventually graduates to a tribal community. But there is no better explanation to that but to say Customers love to buy from the named brands. Because 71% of customers are more likely to buy a product or service from a name they recognize.
That's why a business regardless of their industry has captured the customer's trust by becoming a well-known name in the market. Even though you are not directly converting the people into buying your product/service, but you need to invest heavily in putting your name out there being organic or paid.
The second one is simple yet painful. Even if your business has started today or 30 years back, it's hard to build your name with such competition laying ahead of you. Therefore, every brand-building tactic you'll find in the tips and tricks lessons will advise you to look up to your rivals as a rule of thumb. So, that does not imply that you should imitate their growth recipe and make clones, but rather that you should learn from their failures and triumphs because they have been around for a much longer time.
Competing up helps your brand get thicker as you begin to be recognized just by being compared to these giants. This not only puts your brand in a prime position to built upward momentum, but you also start to work on improving your game. It's a win-win situation.
History likes to repeat itself and many businesses keep filtering away as each black swan event happens in the world. WTF does the Black Swan mean? It's simply an unavoidable, unpredictable, unforeseen event with extreme consequences.
and the list goes on.
What makes your business immune or in some cases project growth during such Black Swan events? The answer is "your brand".
The brand is "a person's gut feeling about a product, service, or organization" by Marty Neumeier from The Brand Gap.
This definition explains that when your customer's gut feeling is strong & positive towards your brand then they will take actionable steps to help you in getting out of trouble.
A business can go unnoticed for decades and eventually will get demolished if it's not rejuvenated by building a brand around it.
How a local spice shop started in 1919 having only one promise in mind to give authentic spice to every household became ₹2000 crore brand named MDH.
If the local spice shop only catered to the local people in that city, then people never could have noticed their name and even their future generations would venture out of the family business to do something else on their own.
Now knowing that building brand matters to you, the handful of doubts would arise like
The answer is simply, YES. Many giants right from FMCG to Tech, all have multiple brands under their belt.
There are many examples of such groups like
So the real question here is - How do you want to grow your business?
Is it going with a multi-brand strategy where you build a few of the brands and acquire most of them?
Or
Is your goal to build just one brand like Apple, Nike, and more?
The answer is depending on the industry and the types of gear you want to switch moving forward. Every entrepreneur's mindset is different, so let's talk about that a little bit.
"Mind is a flexible mirror, adjust it, to see a better world." -- Amit Ray
A well-thought-out quote explains the intricacies of the mind.
So, mindset. Let's not bore you with the same old have faith, read books, network with industry leaders - you already know these things.
Here are some of the mindset shifts business owners need to go through after the pandemic.
We are already in our 3rd decade in this 21st Century. Customers now have more data about you and your business than at any other time in history. If you think only businesses and brands are only getting smarter then you are highly mistaken, customers are equally getting smarter.
The paradigm shifts that have happened during the pandemic have changed the customer's perception towards the brands. They no longer get persuaded by Ponzi schemes and big discounts. The customer expectation from brands is becoming more apparent. In a world where every person is trying to build their influence over the internet has now come to bite the traditional brands to adapt to their likes and wants.
If your brand doesn't fit in the ecosystem of the customer then it's really hard for you to survive. In fact, a McKinsey report showed that 78% of US consumers have switched brands, shops or the way they buy due to the pandemic.
So the rule of thumb is to question everything until it clicks.
Today the government, media, tech giants and everyone involved in the loop have taken clear steps towards securing user data. Even with the major steps been taken by almost all the big giants, privacy concerns the end-users. According to Salesforce, over 46% of customers feel they’ve lost control over their own data.
Some of the most noteworthy incidents recorded in the 21st Century are
So with the growth in the digital space where everything stays operational 24/7. The traditional business owners will have to adapt to the screen and virtual worlds - securing their own & customers' data.
Famously quoted by Philip Kotler, brings the new thought to life. Sounds counterintuitive at first but hear us out.
I think we have made the point clear here. There are many concepts out there but we want you to focus on the key mindset on basis of which you accelerate the growth of your business while turning it into a brand.
As every person now has their voice on social media. The customer expects their favourite brands to do the same. Don't believe us then just look at the numbers.
According to Sprout Social, 70% of consumers feel more connected to brands with CEOs that are active on social & 67% of consumers believe brands should raise awareness around the social/political issues on their social platforms.
The customer's demands are changing from the regular engaging & nurturing with them to more opinion driven. So, your business transformation journey should keep into consideration the opinions in mind while building your brand.
Now comes the fun part where we selfishly brag about ourselves.
PulsAero. Yes, that's what we call ourselves - helps transforms businesses into brands using a combination of things.
This is the baseline we use to transform some of the clients we recently worked with. And amongst one of them, we would like to share the case of WeHear.
The major challenge with WeHear was their technology which was being introduced for the first time in the Indian market. So, getting people excited about the technology was a hard sell for the founders.
However, as we found the market amongst the Gen-Z being the natural early adopters. We shifted WeHear's business perception from the older generation towards youth through a major rebranding cycle.
Working on the mindset of the Gen-Z, we went on building a vibrant brand with a highly approachable aura. We polished the messaging from more technical to easy-to-digest verbiage. Also coming up with the campaign called #CheekBonesonDuty which resulted in significant growth for the startup. That's how we transformed a cutting-edge tech business into a brand. Check out the full case study here.
In Conclusion, the odds of becoming a 1 in a million brand is every business owner's dream competing in the marketplace. But the ones that do achieve success at the highest level strategically partner up with a creative communication agency like us who can guide the way for them to go beyond the unknown and reduce the variables of risk of not making it.
After this call, you will get a clear understanding of the next steps that you need to take in order to build consistent communication & reliable marketing strategies.
This call is perfect for professionals who want to,
