Developing a Brand

a. Attractiveness
Your brand must be attractive to your target market. To achieve this, you must determine who buys your product, why they buy this particular kind of product and why they buy yours instead of someone else's. When you know the answers to these questions, you will be able to emphasize the factors which your target market finds attractive and build your brand that way.

b. Value
A strong brand delivers good value. Once you know what your target market finds attractive, you have to deliver corresponding value. When you know your target market, it is easy to focus on what these customers consider valuable and to de-emphasize what they consider unimportant.

c. Consistency
Whatever your market finds attractive and whatever value you deliver to your target market, you absolutely have to do it consistently. It's the attractiveness and the value that characterize the brand but it is the consistency which builds it. Every time you're inconsistent, you'll lose customers and damage the brand. Consistency is so important that, if you can't do it consistently, don't try to do it.

In this link, cbizmag gives ten tips on how to develop a successful branding program. Properly done, such a program not only develops a customer base which knows what to expect from you, likes it and continues to buy from you but also helps you and your company with guidelines in marketing, advertising, logos etc. Since the brand determines what you're going to do and the thinking behind the brand is consistent, you'll have firm guidelines to help you decide what will work and what won't.

Even if your product is not yet an established brand, think branding when you market and you'll make fewer mistakes and be more effective.

For a more in-depth discussion of this subject try the "Growing Your Own Small Business" course at Suite University.

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