Brand Management : Everything you need to Know

What is brand management? Before we get into it, let us take a look at this video :

From the above video, it is pretty evident that branding and brand management is important for any business. 

A brand is what attracts a lot of consumers. Having an incredible brand image can help you take it from cold calling potential leads to customers buying from your website on their own. 

Let us start by taking a look at what exactly brand management is.

What is Brand Management 

While branding is the process of building and improving a brand’s reputation to increase its awareness, equity, and customer loyalty, brand management involves monitoring and managing the process. 

In other words, brand management is the development of brand perception in the market. 

Brand management is a crucial element of marketing. As a result, any effective brand management strategy consists of three steps:

• Analysing the current perception of the brand in the market.
• Setting Goals towards how you want the brand to be perceived.
• Defining the milestones which will help achieve the final goal.

Brand Management Principles

Irrespective of how much money is spent on branding, having an effective brand management strategy is equally important.

Here are five basic brand management principles to help you build an effective strategy.

1. Define the brand : What kind of brand image do you want to build in front of the audience? You need to start by defining the brand’s authenticity, mission and vision, position in the market and value.
2. Identify the USPs : Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) are what distinguish your brand from the competitors. To understand your USPs, do a direct comparison of your products with the ones which are already present in the market. This will also give you an idea of how your product will fit in the market. You can start by asking questions – Is your product more durable? Is it more economical? What kind of value your product brings to your customers?
3. Stay Consistent : While the product and services would constantly evolve, the core brand values need to stay intact. Stay consistent with your digital assets, which includes images, colour palettes, type faces, illustration style etc. This will help you build your brand identity in the market while also increasing your credibility.
4. Measure Effectiveness : You need to constantly measure the how effective your strategies are, to ensure that you are on the right path to meet your goal. One of the ways to measure this, is by measuring the Return on Investment from your various strategies.
5. Build an emotional connect : To be able to sell a product to a customer, you will have ensure that you are able to build an emotional connect with them. One brilliant example of this, would be the “Ghar ka Khana” ad by Fortune Foods.

Importance of Brand Management

Brands aren’t built by just marketing a good product. You need to constantly iterate the customer journey and identify how you can make the experience better. Effective brand management can help you provide an unmatched brand experience to your customers. This will in turn increase the brand value in the market.

If you think that brand management is only for your customers, then you are wrong. As much as it helps you build your brand identity it plays a crucial role in building your team morale. The members within your organisation would start believing in the vision of the company and work towards a common goal.

What do Brand Managers do?

Brand managers are responsible for overlooking the development and implementation of brand marketing strategies. They manage business functions like branding, communication channels, product development, online and offline promotions, and market research.

Some of the core responsibilities include:

• Conducting consumer and market research 
• Identifying the current brand perception in the market
• Designing a research-based brand strategy
• Developing and executing marketing campaigns
• Communicating the brand personality internally and align the company around foundational ideas
• Anticipating consumer trends and keep brand up to date

According to Payscale, the average salary of a brand manager in India is INR 10 lakhs per annum. 

Tips for beginners in Brand Management

Brand management is a massive field with a lot of competition. The following are a few tips that can help you get started.

Have great communication skills : You need to build on your communication skills, so that you are able to effectively communicate your message. This will not just help you build the necessary connections in the industry but also help you when you are making branding strategies to help communicate the brand message. 

Understand the core values : Before you go ahead to build a brand management strategy, it is important to understand what the company stands for. Once you are familiar with the vision and mission, you can build the strategies keep them in mind.

Understand the customers : As important as it is to understand the company, it is equally important to understand the customers. You need to understand what they resonate with the most and identify how the product/service would add benefit to them. This will also help you understand the market position of the product.

Analyse the competitors : A competitor analysis will always help you understand what strategies they are using, and what is working for them and what isn’t. You also need to see how consumers react to their brand. Another advantage of this process is that it will help you understand what kind of marketing campaigns work well with your target audience.

Always keep on reading : Being in the creative industry involves having to come up with fresh ideas constantly. And you will also have to ensure that you are able to execute these ideas in a manner that your customers are able to resonate it with the brand. Keep up with the trends and keep on reading up about what is going on in the industry. 

Curious about the world of branding ? Explore it with MyCaptain Advertising and Marketing Workshop!