A Full Guide to Brand Management

Differentiation is important for brands to stand out. Yet, with many companies competing for the same customers, relying on unique products and services is often not enough. It’s rare for a brand to be the only one offering a type of product and service. Instead, businesses want to focus on a brand identity that speaks to its mission, core values, and culture. It’s here that the opportunity to differentiate becomes possible.

Developing a strong brand identity means delivering a consistent brand experience. It means creating an emotional connection that turns potential customers into loyal supporters. This is where brand management comes into play. Learn more about the concept and how it can help your business experience growth, plus steps for maintaining an effective brand management strategy.

What Does Brand Management Mean?

Brand management refers to the various activities a business pursues to develop and nurture a brand image. Effective brand management should increase the brand’s value to potential customers, ultimately growing market share and sales.

Brand identity is a major focus of brand management. Although logos, fonts, and taglines are important, brand identity goes beyond these elements. It includes the more intangible aspects like your tone of voice and brand values, also called your corporate identity.

Another crucial piece is brand equity. This refers not just to the value your brand offers to customers but to your business. Brand equity considers how a brand name can be synonymous with quality, often creating customer loyalty and enabling businesses to sell at higher prices than competitors without the same brand recognition.

How Does Brand Management Work?

There’s little doubt about the influence that a brand image has on overall success. Research indicates the power of trust for consumers, with one study finding over 80% of consumers say they need to trust a brand before they can buy. Without having used your products and services, potential customers are relying on brand reputation to guide their choices. This is just one reason why effective brand management is vital.

You begin with a brand management strategy, which outlines the steps you’ll take to develop and maintain a consistent brand image. Your strategy should help:

• Generate and enhance brand awareness
• Evaluate and manage brand equity
• Assign brand positioning within your target market
• Confirm consistent brand messaging across all platforms

Brand Management vs. Marketing: How Do They Differ?

At first glance, it might seem that brand management is no different than marketing. After all, both focus on cultivating an image of the business that attracts customers. However, brand management goes beyond the efforts of a single marketing campaign. Key differences include:

External vs. Internal

A marketing strategy has an external focus. It’s concerned with the target market’s perception of the company’s products and services or its brand in general. Brand management factors in external interactions but has an internal focus. Its objective is to create an action plan across departments, including marketing, to ensure consistent messaging that aligns with corporate identity.

Marketing Comes Before Management

Brand marketing is often the first step; brand management comes later. In the initial stages of owning a business, when launching products and services, there might not be enough resources for brand management. The marketing team manages the brand’s image during the campaign. It’s after these initial marketing efforts that companies can evaluate the outcome to help guide the management strategy.

Brand Management Is More Specific

Resources are typically more limited for the initial marketing campaign for a new product than for brand management initiatives. After several marketing campaigns have helped promote products and services, the brand management team can gather insights to define and formalize their strategy.

Brand management isn’t just for influencing customer perception. You want to manage brand image among existing and prospective employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Brand management teams collect data from other departments to ensure the entire organization understands and agrees with the brand management strategy. This increases the likelihood of a successful implementation.

How Brand Management and Marketing Work Together

Although brand management is distinct from marketing, it’s still an essential aspect of any effective marketing strategy. Creating a unique brand identity begins with exploring different tactics that might increase the value of your products and services. Over time, your brand image becomes more focused. This strengthens your brand voice and hones your messaging, enabling you to stand out from competitors. From there, you can achieve brand loyalty, which ultimately boosts sales.

The Pillars of Brand Management

Brand management doesn’t stop with creating a brand image. It’s an ongoing process that involves frequent updating as companies face growing product and service lineups, evolving markets, and shifting customer expectations. While your brand management strategy should be dynamic, several principles of brand management should always guide your initiatives. These pillars include:

Brand Recognition

Think of the most iconic brands like Apple and Coca-Cola. Simply by logos and color scheme alone will consumers recognize them. Brand recognition is the first principle because you can only begin building a loyal customer base when consumers can identify your brand. More than increasing brand awareness, recognition is about generating positive associations with your products and services. Once you experience greater brand recognition, your brand management team can begin analyzing consumer responses to hone their strategy.

Brand Equity

You might not receive direct dollars from your brand’s value, but this doesn’t mean you won’t profit. Brand equity is the commercial value of your brand. It develops over time as you create relationships with customers that increase loyalty. Positive brand associations and customer experiences, alongside greater visibility, convey your brand’s value. Often, companies with higher brand equity generate more sales.

Brand Loyalty

Brand recognition makes consumers aware of your offerings, and brand equity helps them understand their value. However, your competitors have likely done the same. A consumer might recognize your brand, make positive associations, understand the value, and still go with a competitor. This is where brand loyalty comes in. You want to develop such a strong relationship with existing or potential customers that they can’t imagine supporting anyone else.

To increase brand loyalty, businesses must demonstrate how their products or services meet the target audience’s needs. It’s also about delivering exceptional customer service to provide support as long as they use the product/service.

When companies experience higher customer loyalty, increased word-of-mouth advertising and user-generated content like testimonials tend to follow. In turn, your brand reputation grows, stimulating more brand recognition.

Brand Stewardship

More than damage control, brand stewardship considers the ways your brand can evolve in response to changing demands and perspectives. It assesses the various aspects that might impact the brand and potentially cause reputational damage if not addressed.

Compliance

Many industries must comply with data privacy laws and similar regulations to operate ethically. Think of brand compliance in the same way. This principle ensures your brand assets are true to your products and services. When brand assets don’t align with your corporate identity, it creates inconsistency that threatens customer loyalty. Brand management teams want to devise brand guidelines to reinforce all employees use brand elements as intended. It also offers a way of verifying that new brand assets adhere to guidelines.

Brand System

Brand systems refer to the tangible assets that convey your brand. This includes logos, color schemes, fonts, visuals, and language. It empowers more consistency when team members create branded content, as they know how to style messaging and imagery.

Skills and Strategies for Effective Brand Management

Having a successful brand is crucial to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, if you haven’t explored a brand management strategy, you might be unsure where to start. Consider these tips for enhancing brand management:

Start With the Brand Basics

The most successful strategies begin with a firm understanding of the basics. These are visual elements, vision/mission statements, and your target audience. The marketing team is typically creating these assets at the beginning. The brand management team steps in to refine them.

Understand the Skills Necessary for a Brand Manager

Your team should have the knowledge and skills to enable successful brand management. Success often starts from the top down, with managers setting goals for the whole team. Whether you decide to hire or promote an employee to brand manager, make sure they have proficiency in the following areas:

•     Strategic thinking
•     Market research
•     Digital marketing
•     Brand asset management
•     Public relations

Establish Emotional Connections

You want to develop customer relationships, and this means going beyond the product or service. Think about the value you offer and communicate this to customers through storytelling. In fostering emotional connections with your target audience, you generate more positive associations that can boost loyalty.

Develop Language and Tone Guidelines

Similarly, brands want to adopt a consistent tone of voice across all channels. Your brand guidelines should include standards for language and tone. Consistency of language is especially important when different teams manage different marketing channels. When you ensure messaging is consistent no matter where consumers interact, it builds trust in your company.

Prioritize the Target Audience

No matter what new developments may affect your brand management strategy, ensure your target audience is the focus. In other words, you want to communicate the value you provide in all messaging.

Set Internal Rules

As alluded to earlier, creating guidelines is necessary for ensuring compliance with the brand management strategy. Without them, all brand-related tasks like marketing campaigns and sales activities can move away from the established brand image and potentially diminish recognition and loyalty. Brand guidelines should also include an approval process when an employee or department wishes to use assets that deviate from the standards.

Track Brand Performance With Metrics

No brand management strategy will be perfect right away. That’s why you need key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate your progress and spot areas for improvement. Some metrics that measure brand performance include:

•     Customer satisfaction
•     Brand awareness
•     Brand equity
•     Brand salience (related to recognition)
•     Brand perception
•     Brand loyalty
•     Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Encourage Team Members to Be Brand Ambassadors

Don’t neglect the power of your team members. They should be brand ambassadors for your organization, embodying the values and culture that comprise your corporate identity. Of course, this is only possible if employees feel connected to the mission and core values. So, your brand management strategy will involve developing a clear corporate identity and ensuring employees recognize their role in brand management.

Invest in Brand Management Software

Brand management comprises digital (website, social media) and traditional (print) marketing channels. The more channels you add, the more complex brand management becomes. Many organizations rely on brand management software to facilitate brand consistency. Depending on the software, you can achieve better digital asset management, seamless distribution of marketing materials, workflow automation, and more.

The Impact and Benefits of Brand Management

Brand management is essential for growth. It helps you draw the attention of your target audience, turning them into loyal customers through communicating value and delivering consistent experiences. The opportunity for growth is significant. According to some research, 84% of consumers claim they prefer to buy from brands that share their values. It’s only through effective brand management that potential customers can understand your values. It could be what differentiates you from various competitors vying for your target audience’s attention, empowering success even in the most saturated markets.

Effective brand management leads to other advantages besides sales growth, including:

• Higher prices: A strong brand reputation may allow your business to sell products and services at a premium. When customers make positive associations with your brand, they might be willing to pay more than what competitors charge because of the unique value you offer.
• Employee engagement: When team members understand the mission, values, and objectives that guide their efforts, it can increase morale and productivity. Companies also rely on their culture, a key component of corporate identity, to find top talent that will fit in well.
• Less uncertainty about market position: As market conditions fluctuate, companies often worry about how it will affect their place. With effective brand management, you might experience less volatility. Customers might not want to sever relationships with brands they feel connected to, even during the most challenging financial times.

Sharpen Your Brand Management Strategy With MarcomCentral

No two brands have the same mission, goals, culture, or even tangible assets like logos and color schemes. These unique elements help them stand out. However, there is one constant – an effective brand management strategy. As organizations navigate the complexity of brand management in today’s digital landscape, it helps to use brand management software, such as MarcomCentral. Our on-demand marketing platform centralizes management tasks so teams can create and distribute more consistent and effective marketing materials. Contact us to learn more about our brand management portal or request a demo today.