It is necessary to build a suitable identity for your business. Whether you’re an established business or just starting out, or if you’re seeking to expand your presence in new, international markets, undertaking a credible and effective branding exercise will help to create global awareness of your brand.
What Is Branding?
Before you dive right into a complex branding strategy, let’s go back to the basics and discuss what branding is.
Branding is your company’s identity, both visually – in the design of your content, logos, products, etc.- and your reputation.
There can be an intangible element to branding; the emotional connection your customers have when engaging with your products or services.
As you work to create a global awareness of your brand, think about the impression you want to make and the reactions you want to evoke from potential customers.
Mediums for Increasing Brand Awareness
Once you have established the look and feel of your brand, as well as the reputation you aim to develop, you need to find ways to get your brand seen by your target audience.
There are several mediums your business can utilize to do this, such as:
- Advertising
- Social Media
- Traditional Media
- Word-of-Mouth
- Physical or Online Contact with your goods or services
How Brands Are Built
Branding requires some serious thought and usually a team of experts. The product names and logos that are created as a result of this process are well-thought-out and have specific ideas and aims behind them.
As branding experts from Alfred London point out, consistency is key to the way you present your brand to potential customers.
As a result of repeated interaction with your brand over a significant period, your branding exercise bears fruit, and your business develops a brand or reputation.
Brands serve as symbols of quality and make products or services sold with the branding more marketable.
Branding helps to increase profits while, at the same time, boosting the sense of satisfaction that buyers get when they buy products from you.
Why Businesses Invest in Branding
There is a very valid reason why businesses invest time and money into developing brands and raising brand awareness.
The primary benefit is that once they have successfully built brand awareness, they can boost the sale prices of their products and services.
People are willing to spend more on trusted and noted brands as they are assured of the quality.
Think Apple, Mercedes, and BMW; the respect and trust customers have for these brands leads them to spend that little extra.
These brands have established a strong trademark and have built unbreakable social trust for people to continue to patronize their products. Because of the demand for their products, there are attempts of replication, which didn’t threaten them at all.
One reason being is that most likely these brands have already secured their intellectual property through the protection given by the law and the guidance of qualified trademark attorneys.
Make Your Brand Suit the Market
When trying to establish your brand globally, you must do your homework. Research your target market and audience thoroughly. Seek help from local branding agencies that are more familiar with your new customers to facilitate this process.
Keep in mind, the suitability of brand messages and other marketing concepts may differ from one country to another.
It’s therefore recommended that you work with a localization service to help you modify your existing brand to make it appropriate for and successful in the new market. And finally; don’t forget to study your competitors, you will learn an awful lot.
Use Appropriate Marketing Channels
Now that you have determined your brand’s message, you must deliver it through the appropriate channels.
Use the mediums that people are most accustomed to. For example, take out radio or podcast ads in a city where people have long commutes.
Research what social media platforms your customers use and how they use them. The marketing channels you use will be informed by your market research.
Final Thoughts
The critical thing you need to keep in mind during your branding process is that every negative customer experience can be magnified many times over.
They can negate all the positive brand experiences you have so carefully crafted. The key to success in international brand awareness is maintaining a constant vigil.
Create all the resources you need to achieve that, such as seeking help from experts, developing manuals for your employees, training them appropriately, and assessing your growth pace. Aim to deliver on your brand promise irrespective of the market.
As your business expands into new markets, you will need the services of a reliable professional translation agency such as BeTranslated.
Our experienced translators will play a vital role in your brand’s success with its new target audience. For more information or a free, no-obligation quote, contact us today.
