5 Benefits You Get from Branding
When businesses plan their direct mail or email campaigns, their goal is generally customer acquisition or retention. But what about branding? Marketing campaigns explicitly designed to build your brand are as important as those for customer retention and sales. Why is branding so important?
1. Awareness
When people talk about your category of product or service, you want your name to be part of the mix. Think about categories such as vehicles (Ford, Chevy), carbonated drinks (Coke, Pepsi), and shipping (FedEx, UPS). When people talk about your product category, you want brand recall and awareness that stays top of mind.
2. Loyalty
Most people aren’t loyal to their favorite brands simply because of price or products. They are loyal because the brand resonates with them on a deeper level. Say you are a local hardware store that gives its employees days off to work through Habitat for Humanity to help build a house for a family in need. Once the house is finished, you might send a direct mail piece with the faces of smiling employees standing in front of a house with tools in their hands: “We’re more than the corner hardware store. We care!” Imagine the community impact and branding power of a message like that!
3. Referrals
People who have never used your product or service may still recommend it if they’ve encountered your brand enough times to develop a sense of familiarity.
4. Premium pricing
A powerful brand can lift your product or service out of the commodity marketplace. For example, with so many stores selling coffee, what makes people stand in line and pay top dollar at Starbucks? Branding!
5. Lower your marketing cost
Although you have to invest resources to create a strong brand, you can maintain it without having to re-tell your story over and over once your brand is established.
Successful marketing is built on three pillars: customer acquisition, customer retention, and branding. Make sure you are developing strategies for all three so you can meet your customers where they are at.
Aradius Group is a commercial printing company that specializes in marketing strategy, specifically with direct mail, based out of Omaha, NE.