“Branding – it’s just like people talking about you when you’re not in the room”. How do you build
In the market, many brand and advertising agencies have their own proprietary brand planning tools. (If you can afford to pay premium fees for their services then you probably can receive high quality studies and input) Amongst those, they may have different terminology, jargon and presentation, however they all have similar processes and development steps. Here are a few ideas to guide Hong Kong marketers in the first step of “Exploration” in brand strategy development.
As first step of developing a brand strategy is all about understanding of consumers in their consumption behavior and gaining insights about your brand, the category and market. In the new digital world, people are well connected, therefore, it is important to also know about social influencers, the market and also staff as to what they think and how they relate to the brand.
Another way of extracting the insights is to map out the customer journey to explore direct and indirect interactions between the brand and customers. It helps to uncover the points of interactions in both online and offline communications and other forms of influential media such as social media, search and related influential platforms (eg openrice, babykingdom, tripadvisors, etc). In addition, the tangible touch points in-store, promotional booth, service center, customer hotline and sales meetings are the ultimate physical interaction between the brand and customers that count the most to customers.
In order to understand thoroughly the difference between customers, influencers and staff as well as their interactions with the brand, it is necessary to conduct research including interviews, find listening tools to monitor social conversations plus analyse customer and marketing data and information.
The more you know about both positive and negative feedback and insights of key brand attributes, images, personality and relationship, the better it helps define the brand uniqueness and opportunities in the market. Together with your business goals in both short and long term (if you have it already), it is likely you can start to develop a good brand strategy in the market. In the next newsletter, we will further explain what “brand strategy” is about and how it helps business to grow when you have a good brand strategy.
Contact us at www.cheerbox.com.hk if you’d like to know more about the potential for building your brand strategy.
