Brand Marketing Strategy

An effective brand marketing strategy pulls at the heartstrings of prospective buyers to evoke an emotional response called loyalty. Consumers buy goods and services, not only because of the quality or ability of a product to perform as promised, but because of emotions products and services evoke. Branding is all about promoting the right perception to a target audience, which will convince that audience of the advertiser's promise to bring comfort, safety, security, assurance, a sense of well being, or social acceptance. An advertiser's brand is a name, symbol, graphic, or slogan which identifies the goods and services the advertiser sells, while setting them apart from the competition.

Successful brand marketing strategy can take a product that is similar to another, yet place it in a class of its own, simply due to the emotion it conveys. A prime example is Quaker Oats. The actual product is similar to other brands -- an oat is an oat is an oat -- but the message conveyed is quite different. Quakers are a religious sect noted for purity and old fashioned, timeless hand craftsmanship. Just the name, Quaker, evokes images of vast farmlands with plainly dressed, full-bearded men sowing and reaping fields free of industrial pesticides and assembly lines. In the consumer's mind, those oats must have been harvested by hand and lovingly transported on horse drawn wagons to the local supermarket. But not so; for decades, marketing strategists have successfully promoted Quaker Oats as just a cut above other brands due to the product's perceived purity.

Hospitals and healthcare facilities have long employed successful brand marketing strategy to promote images of caring and loving concern. While everyone knows that a hospital is a place of pain, anguish and cold bed pans; healthcare marketing professionals have succeeded in branding healthcare providers in a more positive light. Print and electronic media portray smiling faces, sunlit examining rooms, and hospital staff holding patients' hands as if they were beloved family members. While some healthcare providers have excellent bedside manners, the perception is more a product of effective branding than reality; and consumers love to have it so.

Brand marketing strategy within the world system operates on negative and positive perceptions. But the Word of God is able to change our negative perceptions to positive ones, bringing faith to believe and receive salvation through Jesus Christ. "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:8-10)

Corporate identity programs not only help to distinguish one enterprise from others, but effectively form positive perceptions or images in the minds of consumers. A company's brand is the interpretation of its image wrapped up into a single graphic, name, logo, or slogan; but delivered and reinforced through print, electronic and digital media advertising. Crucial to a company's marketing campaign is succinctly identifying and portraying its image to a specific target audience to solicit a given response. Successful brand marketing strategy requires repetitive multimedia marketing which drives a corporate message home time after time, until the target audience responds with repeated purchases and eventual brand loyalty.

Advertising in cyberspace opens up avenues conventional marketing could never tap into. Corporate Internet branding reaches a global audience with unlimited opportunities to build loyal consumers. Instead of newsprint, magazines, and television spots, corporate website branding utilizes the full spectrum of digital color, hyperlinks, flash animation, and compelling keyword rich text to captivate and motivate global browsers to purchase products and services. Rather than paying exorbitant column/inch rates for newspapers and magazine space or thousands of dollars for 30-second radio spots, today's entrepreneurs can actively and affordably promote their corporate brand 24/7, 365 days a year worldwide. Internet branding employs the same strategies as other media, but targeting, or narrowing down, the audience is more difficult. But, owners can also buy targeted website traffic through companies that help position and promote cyber-advertisers using specific demographics. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps eliminate browsers who don't fit a consumer profile and places links to corporate websites within reach of targeted consumer groups.

Unlike traditional advertising, corporate Internet branding utilizes online, interactive, digital media with web hosting firms that offer affordable listings from whole pages to hyperlinks. Ads can be placed and paid for online using major credit cards or PayPal options. Some hosts provide pop-up blocks to impede annoying ads from detracting away from a business owner's brand. And unlike static advertising, websites can be edited and updated to reflect changing trends and keep consumers coming to the site. Brand effectiveness can easily be tracked with built-in website counters which monitor hits and visitors to the site.

Effective corporate Internet branding actually positions companies in a more effective way than any other media. Slick, sophisticated graphics, well designed web pages, and flash animation help build a corporate image and draw browsers in for a closer look. Easily navigated pages allow entrepreneurs the opportunity to tell a more complete story and present an image that evokes a more immediate response. While static advertising can only hold a reader's attention for a short time, interactive websites reach out with open arms to embrace a browser for minutes, seconds, hours, and days, compelling visitors to log onto the site repeatedly for more information and to catch updates. Corporate Internet branding is much more than mere advertising. It's about evoking positive perceptions and emotions, establishing relationships, and consistently building customer loyalty through the amazing power of the worldwide web.

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