By M. Isi Eromosele

The success of a product, service, individual, business or organization is based on being perceived as unique. Branding is creating that individual niche in the consumer’s psyche and owning it. More than just marketing, branding is the entire effect that creates a memorable identity.

A successful branding program should be based on differentiating your company as unique. Effective branding should create a perception that there is no other product, service, organization or community quite like yours. Whether the distinction is a result of function, form, ease of use, price or prestige, the consumer has to be convinced you offer something exceptional.

Consequently, your brand is your image as seen from the outside. Your brand is who you are - your strength, your integrity and your reputation. It’s not simply how your logo looks, but rather the emotional and intellectual response your logo elicits from your target audience.

Brand yourself well. Take control of your image. The next time your name comes up, it will evoke the brand qualities you have established and achieve the desired perception in the mind of the consumer. That's the power of branding.

Keep Your Branding Simple

In branding, do not say too much. People are overwhelmed with excessive sales pitches. The reality is that if you say too much, no one will listen.

The only other effective way to separate your message from the noise is to be focused, personal and simple. Consumers must choose to pay attention. Your message must be a simple message, because the consumer attention spans don’t last very long.

Generate Word-of-Mouth To Build Your Brand

Most brands are built through word of mouth. It is very difficult to build a brand through advertising alone. The goal is to build confidence and market awareness.

The most effective way to do this is to engage customers in conversations through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Support these social media efforts with strategic and targeted digital public relations activities.

Focus Your Brands

The objective of a powerful branding program is to create a memorable concept. To stay in people’s minds, you must first get inside. This requires focused, sharp and to-the-point branding. Focused branding are more powerful than diffused brands.

Loss of focus can occur in two ways. It happens with emerging companies that don’t yet know what product or service is going to sell best, or established companies that once had a focus and are now trying to corner the market on everything. In both cases, this lack of focus becomes their downfall.

Differentiation Is Key To Successful Branding

Your product or service is what sets you apart from your competition. Whether it functions better, looks nicer or rides smoother, these qualities can serve as the catalyst that separates your brand from your competition. Sometimes, however, this differentiation is not so obvious or perhaps not present in a functional way.

If you have no apparent distinction, find something different and connect that to your product or service.

Avoid Sub-Branding

One of the most common mistakes made by marketers is relying too much on sub-brands as a means for introducing new products or services. Often referred to as line extensions, this marketing strategy not only usually fails to create a market for the new product or service but the parent brand also suffers as a result.

Sub-brands usually benefit initially from the parent brand recognition as the trust is initially transferred. The problem is that the goal of branding is to create a special, singular identity that people can connect in their mind with your product or service.

Using a sub-brand not only dilutes the focus of your parent brand (it’s no longer special), but the new brand never has a chance to have a truly focused identity (it’s never special).

Perception vs. Quality

While quality is important, quality alone does not win in the marketplace. Quality is important, but not as critical as the perception of quality.

It is often the quality of the service, not the quality of the product that matters. The reality is that most buyers equate the quality of what they’re purchasing with the way they aretreated.

For success to be real and lasting, the perception of quality must be a reflection of actual quality. A key to good branding is to communicate the important qualities that are actually experienced by the user or buyer. If you are selling quality, there had better be real quality to sell.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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