Directorate of distance education

The Road to Branding Success
Building on the inherent values of a brand should be the core of 
any branding strategy. If they’re not clear, get a good grip on them first. 
Is the brand about honesty or integrity? Quality? How about excellent 
communication and customer satisfaction?
Knowledge of a company’s values, at least in a literal context, is 
typically an internal matter; yet, those values become evident to everyone 
in contact with the company, from customers and prospective customers to 
business-to-business relationships and employee relations. Consistency is 
the key here. If members of the organization aren’t accurately representing 
the values of the brand, steps must be taken to rectify the chink in the 
armor. And unlike a brand’s key business proposition, values should 
never change even though the landscape in which the company operates 
and even its products may.
Winning Brand Strategies Starts with Top-Notch Research
With values set, a brand proposition is ready to be established. 
Objective and comprehensive branding research are the keys here. At a 
minimum, both must be done to establish clarity on the brand’s strengths 
and weaknesses, the target audience and the competition. If possible, 
branding research should also be done on the brand’s industry, its history, 
the status of the market and possibilities for future expansion.
Your Target Customer will Determine your Success
If it’s only possible to do one body of brand research, discover as 
much as possible about your target customer. Find out who they are and 
what their needs and desires are. Make it your mission to get as detailed 
information as possible on their age, gender, income, shopping habits 
(online and off) and anything else of relevance you can determine. If 
you’re targeting a business market, these criteria will differ, depending 
on the industry. Understanding your target market and what they want is 
key to developing a winning brand. Knowing these things should also give 
you an idea for what communication medium and content would work to 
engage your market.

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Other research you might want to do is find out what your 
competitors’ offerings are like. How do your offerings stack up? What 
can a customer get from your product that they can’t get from anyone 
else? Find out these things, and you have the seeds for a winning branding 
strategy, not to mention great fodder for an ad campaign.