What is Brand Marketing? How to Create a Brand Marketing Strategy in 2024

There’s branding. There’s marketing. And, then there’s brand marketing. 

Strategic brand marketing is essential to set yourself up for long-term success. The results might not be visible immediately, but if you do it right and you stick to your brand marketing strategy, customers will continuously choose you over competitors. 

Here’s how to build a brand marketing strategy, along with trends and examples to explain and inspire. 

What Is Brand Marketing?

Before digging into a brand marketing definition, you first have to take a step back and understand what’s meant by branding. In short, branding refers to how you communicate the identity, unique features, and values of a business to the rest of the world. It helps to set certain expectations among consumers. 

While branding and marketing are linked, they are distinct concepts. 

There are loads of marketing strategies like content marketing, paid ads, influencer marketing, etc. You’ll also most likely find that your marketing approach changes regularly. Marketing strategies that you used last year might not feature in your plan again this year. 

Your branding, however, remains more consistent from one year to the next. The only time that you’ll see significant changes is when you’re planning a rebrand. 

Now, the reason why branding and marketing are linked is because the brand that you’ve created becomes one of your biggest marketing assets. Whether you’re designing an advertisement for Facebook or you’re driving traffic via YouTube videos, your branding will feature in both these marketing strategies. 

Enter brand marketing. 

Brand marketing is when you specifically use the brand to market the business and/or its products. It’s a long-term strategy that marketers use to strengthen the brand – whether it’s via influencer marketing, paid ads, or a video campaign – across a range of channels. All in all, it has a very important role to play in the overall marketing strategy.

Brand Marketing Goals

Brand marketing isn’t just about getting your name out there. The goal also isn’t solely to drive sales. 

Here’s what else you can achieve with brand marketing strategies:

• Establish a brand identity: The first (and perhaps most fundamental) goal of brand marketing is to establish a strong, memorable brand identity. The focus should be on crafting an identity that authentically represents your business values and promise.
• Build brand awareness and recall: This is about getting your brand seen, known, and remembered by as many potential customers as possible. According to branding statistics shared by Demandsage, boosting brand awareness is the main goal of brands when creating content. The key here is consistency. Sharing on-brand content across various channels increases the likelihood that when consumers are ready to buy, they think of you first.

Source: https://www.demandsage.com/

• Create credibility: Trust is the foundation of any lasting relationship. This holds true for the relationship between a brand and its customers/clients too. Brand marketing aims to establish credibility and trust through positive engagement with the community and content like customer testimonials, case studies, and educational materials.
• Enhance brand loyalty: One of the highest accolades a brand can receive is loyal customers who not only return but also recommend your business to others. To achieve this level of loyalty, you need a brand that creates an emotional connection with your audience. 

• Differentiation: Another key objective of brand marketing is to articulate your unique value proposition. In other words, what makes your brand different and better for your target audience? This isn’t just about what you sell, but how you sell it, your company vision, your commitment to sustainability, or any other attributes that set you apart. Differentiation doesn’t necessarily mean being the best in every aspect, but being unique in ways that matter to your target audience.

What Is a Brand Marketing Strategy?

While brand marketing fits into your overall marketing strategy, it requires its own strategy too. From social media marketing to search advertising, there are various platforms and strategies that you can use to market the brand that you’ve created. A brand marketing strategy explains how you will go about improving brand sentiment and strengthening its position. 

How to Create a Brand Marketing Strategy

Your brand awareness marketing strategy should take a step-by-step process. As you’ll see, there’s also not a definitive conclusion. 

It’s a cycle of implementing, testing, and optimizing. Sometimes you need to move back in order for the brand to move forward.  

Create a brand identity

Before you can apply brand marketing, you need to have a brand identity to market. Your brand identity is more than just a logo or a color scheme. It’s the complete persona of your business and plays a central role in how customers perceive and experience your brand.

Here are the main components you’ll need for your brand identity:

• A memorable and distinct logo that’s versatile enough to work across various media. It should communicate your brand story at a glance. 
• A color palette that evokes the right associations and emotions to ensure your brand is perceived correctly and it aligns with your message. For example, for brands that operate in an industry where trust and dependability are crucial (like the insurance industry), blue will be a good choice.
• Fonts that convey the personality of your brand.
• A tone of voice that uses the appropriate language familiar to your target audience. 
• A mission statement that clarifies your purpose and values, highlights your unique selling proposition (USP), and communicates why your brand exists to both your team and your customers. It should be concise, memorable, and reflective of the impact you aim to have on your customers. 

Thoughtful consideration should be given to how each of these elements come together. All of these elements should work in harmony.

The end result should be a cohesive and authentic image to your customers. 

Choose a target audience

Part of defining your brand is knowing who your ideal customer is. As such, it’s a step that you’ll typically complete while you’re busy crafting your brand identity. 

Defining your target audience precisely allows you to communicate more effectively with potential customers and adapt your offering to their actual needs. You’ll probably find that you can divide your target audience into smaller groups based on similar characteristics like demographics, needs, or behaviors (e.g. browsing habits and device preference). 

This practice of audience segmentation is an essential extra step and enables you to tweak your messaging, strategy, and offerings more strategically. Aside from generating better results, this also helps to optimize your resources and maximize your marketing efforts.

HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report 2023 reveals:

Marketers report that segmented emails generate 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than unsegmented ones.

The trick, though, is to ensure that your brand messaging still fits in with overarching brand identity once it’s been tailored to a specific segment. 

Identify your goals

As mentioned earlier, there are several different goals that brand marketing strategies can achieve. It’s important to have clarity about this beforehand as it will impact the channels, brand marketing tactics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) which you’ll use. 

Let’s say the goal is to boost brand awareness. In this case, platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram that encourage sharing will be the platforms of choice. Then, to measure if you’ve reached your goal, you’ll favor metrics like social shares and mentions over sales. 

Write brand guidelines

As mentioned earlier (and will get mentioned again), your brand marketing is only as strong as your brand is portrayed consistently. To help you with this, you’ll need a brand style guide. Basically, it’s a guidebook that shares guidelines for how the different elements like your logo, color scheme, etc. should be used. 

Design brand assets

Brand marketing campaigns should be implemented across multiple channels. You’ll typically start small by focusing on one or two channels. 

This means that you’ll need different photos, images, and messages that will become visual and tangible representations of your brand created for the specifications of each platform. Yet, there should be consistency in design so that your brand is easily recognizable and brand recall is reinforced. 

Brand assets are more than just pretty designs; they’re strategic business tools. The most successful brand assets are memorable, versatile, and meaningful, capable of connecting with your target audience on an emotional level. In short, they should look good, but also work for your business. 

Before sharing these brand assets on social media platforms, first gather feedback. Be open to constructive criticism and willing to make adjustments.

Invest the time and resources needed to get them right. After all, they’re the visual language through which you communicate your brand to the world. Make sure they tell the right story.

Choose your channels

The strength of your brand awareness isn’t necessarily dependent on how many channels you’re active. What is important, though, is that you build a presence in the right places. 

For example, according to Pew Research Center, Facebook is more popular among users in their 40s and 30s. Instagram, on the other hand, is more popular among consumers in their 20s. 

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/

Implement campaigns, track and test continuously

Now that you have the on-brand material and know where to find your target audience, you can finally share your brand with them. Once your content is live, you’ll need to keep track of how it performs. 

For example, what level of engagement does it attract? Does it manage to keep attention so that views lead to clicks and clicks convert to sales?

It’s recommended that you incorporate A/B testing. This way, you can compare variations to see which one yields better results. 

Aside from comparing the results of your own campaigns to one another, also compare it to industry benchmarks. 

Optimize

Brand marketing doesn’t stop after campaign implementation. One of the reasons why you track and test during the previous step is so that you can improve it further. 

For example, if there’s a specific concept that generates average results, is there a way to exceed the benchmarks? Perhaps A/B testing revealed that one email’s subject headline generated more opens, while another email’s layout delivered a better click-through rate (CTR). In this case, is it possible to combine the high-performing elements to create a new email?

Types Of Brand Marketing

There are several types of brand marketing that you can incorporate like:

• Product Branding: With this type of branding, you’ll focus on an individual product, service, or product range. For example, if you have a main product like the Snickers bar, your marketing efforts will focus on communicating the identity of this specific product. By the way, the brand behind Snickers is Mars Inc. You probably didn’t know that. Hence, why product branding can be so effective. 
• Personal Branding: Personal branding is especially important for industries where trust and credibility are crucial. Instead of zooming in on specific products, you’ll focus on one of the employees’ personal brand image, typically a founder. 
• Corporate Branding: It’s similar to personal branding in the sense that the focus shifts from the products to the entire company. Here, the focus will be on its identity, goal, and values.  
• Retail Branding: If your store experience, competitive pricing, or customer service is what sets your brand apart, you can use retail branding. In this case, your brand marketing goals will be to create a positive view of the store experience, whether online or physical. In other words, what can they expect when visiting your store? 

Brand Marketing Examples

You might be interested: Growth Marketing Examples

What are the best examples of brand marketing? Were Apple, Microsoft, Nike, or Samsung one the brands that you thought of? If you’re reading this closer to lunch time, did you perhaps envision McDonald’s golden arches or Coca-cola’s iconic red can?

Source: https://99firms.com/

These are all examples of memorable brands. 

In fact, Apple happens to be the most valuable brand across the world.

Apple’s brand value is estimated at nearly $520 billion.

Source: https://www.statista.com/

Apple has done that by selling an experience and a lifestyle that’s innovative, sleek, and user-friendly. Apple doesn’t just market products; it markets the ideals of creativity and innovation, promising a high-quality experience that appeals to a customer’s aspirations and desires. 

Its ethos of simplicity not only makes its products accessible but also crafts a brand aesthetic that’s instantly recognizable. At the same time, it’s built an ecosystem of an interconnected suite of products that builds brand loyalty. Once a customer buys into a single product, they are more inclined to invest in others because of the seamless integration and shared aesthetic across devices and services. 

When it comes to Apple’s big competitor, Microsoft, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Microsoft too is one of the best brand marketing examples. 

At the heart of Microsoft’s narrative is its unwavering commitment to innovation. To communicate this, its brand marketing tactic is to focus on thought leadership. 

Through blogs, podcasts, and social media, Microsoft demonstrates its industry expertise, reflects on future trends, and provides valuable insights, thereby fostering a brand perception of authority and leadership, ultimately enhancing brand credibility and loyalty.

Brand Marketing Trends in 2024

You would’ve picked up by now that authenticity and brand marketing go hand in hand. Consumers resonate with real representations. As such, there’s strong emphasis on storytelling. Brands aren’t shy to create narratives that include the setbacks they’ve faced or mistakes they’ve made. 

Source: https://influencermarketinghub.com/

At the same time, consumers want to support brands that support communities. Younger audiences, in particular, want to buy from brands that are actively giving back to societies and the environment. 

The latter is especially important. Environmental concerns are driving consumers towards brands that demonstrate genuine commitment to sustainability.

What this means for brand marketing is that companies must look at their impact on the wider community too. Use storytelling to share how you’re making a difference. In the same breath, consumers are wary of brands being insincere. So, you can only incorporate your positive impact on societies and the environment if you’re actually walking the walk. 

Brand Development and Promotion with NetShopping: One Step Ahead of the Competition!

As you would’ve learned by now, brand marketing hinges on two key components: a memorable identity and the marketing know-how to amplify it. Rated as one of the best branding companies, we have a team of design and marketing experts to ensure that you have the assets and the tactics. 

From brand strategy to development to management, we go beyond merely putting ideas on a piece of paper. We help authentic brands to come alive. 

Conclusion

It takes some time before brand marketing generates results. However, once those results trickle in, various areas will benefit. When tackled strategically, consumers will recognize and remember your brand not just as another possible option but as a credible product or service that they can count on continuously. 

If brand marketing were to be summarized in two words, it would probably be consistency and authenticity. Today’s culture expects businesses to be dependable. Not only in terms of when and where they show up, but also how they show up.