Brand marketing, branding, brand strategy… in addition to being practically synonymous terms, they are practically unknown territories for SMEs.
For a small company, marketing, and even more so if it is digital, is synonymous with sales. If I invest X, I want to get at least X +1%. Something that all of us who are dedicated to marketing know is not a reality, and even less so if we only launch sales campaigns and in a timely manner as most companies do.
In this context or in that of a company with a more mature marketing background, how can you convince an SME that brand marketing is important for their company?
For me the steps would be:
Explain to him/her what branding is and what it is used for
Show him data that convinces him.
Give you concrete examples of how you can apply it to your company (brand marketing).
1. What is branding and how can it be used for SMEs?
What is branding?
When I was talking saudi arabia mobile number owner name about brand positioning on this blog a few years ago, I defined it as:
“The representation of the tangible and intangible values that the company contributes through its brand”
What does branding mean for an SME?
But to explain it in a simpler way, I think it is better understood if we talk about brand marketing. That is, how we apply it to reality.
I could say that for an SME branding is:
What is brand marketing?
Talk about the company's history with your audience
I think this is the simplest way to define it. If we add some details we could say:
To make known the values and attributes of the company.
Connect with the company's audience by explaining the whys and wherefores of the company.
Give reasons, beyond the product or service, to trust the company.
To all this I would add that the starting point of branding must be the brand's purpose . The purpose is above the brand, but it is what gives meaning to it and its activity in the market.
What benefits does branding have for an SME?
Okay, this all makes perfect sense. But as the head of an SME, how and why should I use brand marketing in my company? What advantages does branding have for a small business?
When selling a product or service, many factors come into play beyond those directly related to what we sell. There are related factors such as service or logistics, but others that are equally or more important end up reinforcing the trust that we must generate to achieve the sale .
One of the pillars of this generation of trust is in the connection and brand recall that we create with our audience through our brand strategy. To achieve sales:
Our customers should receive a combination of brand and product messages before deciding to purchase.
2. How can we quantify the benefits of a brand strategy for an SME?
There are no studies on this subject in SMEs in Spain, at least I am not aware of them, but if we look at the results of a study by the Boston Consulting Group (conducted in 2022 on 150 companies from 15 different sectors), the conclusions are quite obvious:
Companies that stop investing in brand marketing: reduce their sales, lose market share and generate lower profits for their shareholders.
Comparing the results of the companies that invested the most in branding, with those that invested the least, the results were:
Sales growth: – 13%.
Visit-to-sale conversion rate: – 6%.
Market share: – 0.8 %.
Increased costs: They must invest $1.85 for every $1.0 saved by not investing to recover the lost share.
In times of crisis, brand marketing is often one of the first budgets to be reduced or cut: “if it doesn’t bring me direct sales, it’s no good to me.” We have already seen the consequences this has on a sales level, but we also lose other market opportunities, because by reducing the presence of other brands we have the possibility of gaining market share, impacting our audience in a more effective way (less advertising noise) and improving our relationship with them.
How to make brand marketing more effective?
If we have limited budgets and resources, a good solution is to apply the segmentation criteria of conversion campaigns to brand campaigns. That is, instead of launching actions to the market in general, we can launch these messages telling the story and attributes of our brand to the audiences on which it will have the greatest impact and/or which are most interesting to us at a strategic level.
We have brands like Coca-Cola that are experts in brand strategy , but how do we apply this to an SME?
3. Brand strategies for an SME
I recently talked about the best digital marketing strategy for SMEs , and reflecting on this and the brand, I think the most appropriate points to start with would be (there are many other options, but I am focusing on those that are closest at hand for a first approach):
Content : in the broadest sense of the term. This is the answer to many of the needs of an SME in terms of digital marketing. It represents the best combination for almost any objective (given the circumstances of an SME).
The distinguishing feature when we talk about branding and content is that the focus of the content will be very different from what the company is used to. It will talk about ideas, approaches, values, ways of connecting with the audience above the product, etc., it will do so in the format of thought or concrete action, with the aim of providing value and connecting (we must give a reason for them to consume our content), and it can do so from any of the usual channels:
What is branding and how to apply it in an SME
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