Branding is how you promote your product, service, or company by distinguishing it from that of your competitors. Without your brand, your business will wither away and pass into obscurity, just one of millions that didn’t make it.
If this is a fate you would like to avoid, you need to taking branding seriously and make it a focal point of your business operations. Let’s break branding down into its components:
What is branding?
Branding is the practice of creating a name, a design, or symbol that people associate with your product, service, or company. You need to make an impression on your customers, and it must be a strong impression that they will remember. But it’s about far more than an aesthetically pleasing logo and a catchy slogan. There’s more to branding than that.
Your brand must give customers an indication of what they can expect from you and why they should choose your company over another. So, branding is about creating a perception of your product, service, or company’s superiority. It’s a tall order, especially when you are operating in a fiercely competitive market.
The importance of branding
Your brand should make an impact on the market if you want it to be successful. It gets you the recognition you need to make sure your doors stay open. Your logo is important as it is usually the customer’s first point of departure when they engage with you. It’s what you build onto that logo that will strengthen your branding.
You need to build on your logo with a brand promise that your customers will believe, backed by good customer service and an excellent reputation. This is where Six Sigma comes in, according to Peter Peterka, of the 6Sigma.us website.
The Six Sigma approach to branding
The global Six Sigma approach to marketing and branding is the DMADV process. Broken down, it means this:
D – Defining the need for branding intervention. There must be a reason your branding needs attention. It could be that your market share has declined, or that you haven’t told your customers enough about your product, service, or company. You may not have gotten the foothold you wanted in the market, and it’s time to do something about it.
M – Measuring where you are now and projecting where you would like to be in the future. You’ll be collecting data about your current market share, sales figures, and customer perception. The first two are easily obtained. The third involves market research using surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups to find out where you stand with your clients and suppliers.
A – Analyzing your current process of meeting customer goals with your branding strategy to evaluate where the gaps or problems lie.
D – Designing the interventions you’ll need to put in place to make your planned interventions successful.
V – Verifying whether the interventions have been a success by comparing measurable data with that collected earlier. The results will inform your next branding decision. If there has been no real change, it will be time to go back to the drawing board and see what else you can try.
How Six Sigma can revolutionize your branding approach
Six Sigma is a methodology that ensures companies are having data-driven conversations when it comes to their branding and marketing strategies. Whereas people assumed in the past that marketing and branding were an art form, the truth is that there is an element of science in them as well, in the form of authentic statistics.
The success of brands today is largely down to them being able to find the balance between art and science and apply them both as a strategy. Together, they create great potential for outstanding outcomes.