Types of Branding and the Role of a Good Logo in Your Branding Strategy

Intro

With 5.5 million businesses launching in the past year alone, distinguishing yourself from your competitors is more crucial than ever, and branding is one effective way your company can achieve this. The foundation of brand building lies in meticulous planning and execution. From defining brand strategy and identity to implementing robust marketing tactics, every aspect plays a crucial role in shaping the brand's perception in the minds of consumers, which we will discuss in great detail.

In this article, we will unravel the diverse branding realm, exploring various types such as corporate, personal, product, geographic, and service branding. We will also explore logos's pivotal role in creating a lasting and trustworthy brand image, a key factor in driving success and growth in today's competitive market.

Building a Brand: The Basics

Brand building involves:

• Strategy: What, where, how, and to whom will you deliver your brand message?
• Identity: How you put basic concepts to practice, such as through colors, logos, brand messaging, and more.
• Marketing: It focuses on targeting various social media platforms and allocating advertising budgets.

The first step of building a brand is to identify your target audience, such as by creating a buyer's persona. It is a rough sketch of the ideal lead you'll sell, too. A brand persona should cover income, gender, location, product use case, etc.

Research your competition to match their strengths and capitalize on weaknesses like untapped sectors or market inefficiencies. Use keyword research tools to identify topics and subjects your competitors need to target.

Create a mission statement that establishes what your brand wants to achieve and accomplish, aligning with your business plans and values. Develop a brand voice and personality that echoes across all brand operations, from product pages to emails and social media profiles. The five basic brand personalities you can consider adopting include:

• Sincerity
• Sophistication
• Excitement
• Competence
• Ruggedness

For a brand name, you can use inspirational figures like Nike (a goddess from Greek mythology), made-up words like Adidas, or Word combinations like Facebook. To get the word out about your brand, consider following these strategies:

• Design a great logo and place it everywhere
• Develop a concise, meaningful, memorable tagline that captures your brand's essence.
• Integrate it with every business aspect, such as what your salesperson wears or how you answer the phone.
• Write down your brand messaging and ensure every employee knows the brand's attributes.
• Create brand standards for your marketing materials through standard logo placements, color schemes, and fonts.

The Role of Logo in Your Branding Strategy

A logo is a symbol representing text, graphics, and colors used to identify a brand or product. When executed effectively, a logo acts at the forefront of your business, helping your audience remember your identity and values. Your logo serves as the initial introduction of your brand to consumers, helping you create a positive first impression. Once you've captured their interest, they're more likely to purchase.

A well-designed logo can give you a competitive edge by creating a unique identity for your business and help you differentiate yourself from competitors, opening up more opportunities for business growth. A successful logo translates a brand's values and message into a visual language, attracting consumers who resonate with your brand's values, such as compassion, connection, or love. It appeals to consumers who share similar values.

In online and offline business ventures, a strong marketing strategy is essential to attract customers by effectively presenting your products and services on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Your logo appears wherever your brand name is mentioned, making it a key element in marketing. A well-designed logo can be memorable, helping customers recall your brand and a highly effective way to boost sales.

The Types of Branding

Your logo and branding will vary per the project you launch. Professional website designers and marketing experts, such as those at Bizango, can make sure your digital presence and marketing reflect your brand guidelines cohesively. Let’s discuss the types of branding in depth:

1. Corporate Branding

Corporate branding focuses on business as a whole and covers all aspects, such as employees, services, and products. It focuses on the business's value proposition and unique selling points (USP) and how you'll communicate those to the public and customers. It helps you attract business partners, investors, and top-performing candidates.

2. Personal Branding

Personal branding differs from personal image, representing how individuals brand themselves. It's typically used by affiliate marketers, freelancers, and influencers. It aims to attract audiences they want to reach, and you can build it through meet and greets, social media posts, and more.

3. Product Branding

Product branding is done for single product lines because different products have different benefits, price points, and end users in mind. Consider conducting a competitive analysis to see how your competitors market similar products.

Distinctive product branding helps with identification; customers easily identify your product among lookalikes. Expanding to a new product category or market becomes easier as it builds credibility for your new product. Strong product branding can create barriers to entry by discouraging other businesses from entering your niche, meaning you have to compete less on price.

4. Geographic Branding

Geographic branding is ideal for the tourism industry. It focuses on customers and consumers in your area and the region's traits as selling points to attract people to a state, town, or city or to attract locals by building a sense of community. For successful geographic branding, putting a famous attraction, landmark, or statue in your logo can generate interest.

5. Service Branding

Service branding is similar to product branding in that you focus on one business aspect. Still, it's more challenging to create as you don't have a physical or tangible item like the product or its packaging. You have to generate trust by branding something customers can't see, focusing on the feeling and experience you provide potential customers through your service to solve their problems. A custom tagline and logo, engaging with customers through podcasts, blogs, and videos, and a robust online presence help with effective service branding.

6. Online Branding

Online or Internet branding refers to how your business is positioned online. Examples include blog publishing, website building, online advertising, and social media presence. You must pay attention to:

• Strengthening your About Us page
• Creating a buyer's persona to reach the right target audience
• Create your brand's style, which includes consistency, the brand's story, mission, goals, color pallet, logo, and more.
• Partner up with influences to reach new audiences and increase sales opportunities.

7. Offline Branding

Offline branding happens off the web, and despite the digital revolution, it is a great way to promote your products and brand. Offline branding isn't that different from online branding; it's how you use your values, logos, and other visual assets that make a difference off of digital channels. It guides how you publish your work on:

• Billboards
• Event banners
• Media placements
• Handing out business cards
• Flyers and brochures
• Cold calls
• Press releases
• Staging sit-down lunches with leads or clients

8. Co-Branding

Co-branding involves using various brand names on a service or goods as part of a partnership or strategic alliance. It can also occur because of mergers or company acquisitions. It typically involves at least two companies and aims to combine their awareness, market strength, and positive association to compel customers to buy from them at a premium. Some successful examples of co-branding include:

• Uber & Spotify
• GoPro & Red Bull
• Nike & Apple
• Starbucks & Spotify

9. Retail Branding

Retail branding aims to build strong store perceptions for customers through store layout, ambiance, customer service, and after-sales support. It makes for a memorable shopping experience. You can incorporate your brand in the store through:

• Using branded signage
• Getting the right lighting
• Playing some music
• Incorporating logo and leveraging brand colors
• Paying attention to the scent
• Product packaging and displays

10. Activist Branding

Activist branding or brand activism, or "conscious branding," is driven by justice and is concerned with society's problems. It's what it means to be a "value-driven" company. Brands may align themselves with social or environmental issues, movements, or causes to advocate for positive changes through volunteer opportunities, fundraising campaigns, and more.

Understanding Rebranding

We know consistency is critical for long-term brand engagement and stability; however, don't persist with strategies that aren't working. Rebranding can be practical in attracting new audiences or appealing to existing customers.

You can transform your logo and change your tone of voice, color scheme, and target demographic as you deem fit. You should carefully test it by gathering feedback from your existing customers before implementing it to gauge their reactions and views. You may want to consider rebranding when:

• Your business model has shifted dramatically
• Your industry has evolved to include more competitors
• Your brand identity doesn't resonate with your target customer base
• It has experienced negative associations
• It is unable to gain an edge over competitors
• You want to expand internationally
• When you are facing trademark or legal challenges
• It's unable to communicate company values
• Brand lacks consistency in visual identity

Endnote

In the business world, with its fierce competition and crucial first impressions, strategic branding can guide your company toward distinctiveness. From corporate to personal, product to geographic, and service to co-branding initiatives, each type of branding serves distinct purposes in crafting a brand's identity and resonating with its target audience. A logo also serves as a vital tool in your branding journey. It acts as the face of your brand and a marketing powerhouse, fostering recognition and trust, boosting memory, and driving sales. Building a brand involves meticulous strategy, identity development, and marketing tactics to create a lasting impact in the minds of consumers.