If you start marketing before founding, you ensure that your launch can be a success. Another advantage is that you can and must be clear about your profile, your offer and your target group during the development phase. This is how you avoid shooting into the dark and making a lot of money.
What is the biggest problem for most founders? They put their heart and soul, time and money into their idea, only to find out that nobody is interested in it. In the best case, you have carried out market analysis and know how large your potential target group is. However, you have to reach these people first. You’ll have a much easier time getting started if you’re doing branding marketing from the start.
What is branding marketing?
Branding gives your company a face, an unmistakable profile. Branding marketing is by no means limited to the colour of your flyers and the font of your logo. Rather, it’s about defining precisely why customers should buy from you or book you.
You should start marketing your startup as early as possible because building a brand takes time and care. It’s easier to plan and execute branding marketing at leisure than to rush into it when you’re just getting started.
WHY DO CUSTOMERS DECIDE FOR OR AGAINST A PRODUCT?
The world is flooded with products and offers. So how do customers make a purchasing decision? Either they buy based on price or they choose a brand. Both give them the possibility of identification. One customer is a bargain hunter and proud of it, the other consciously buys “high-quality and durable” products and has their t-shirt printed individually. We both know that the expensive pair of jeans were sewn in the exact same factory as the discount store pair. The difference lies only in the thinking of the customer himself!
So if you don’t intend to conquer the cheap segment (although you would have little chance against the big names in the industry anyway), your only option is branding marketing. The magic word for making it work is divergence, at least according to marketing branding expert Al Ries.
WHAT IS DIVERGENCE?
In branding marketing, divergence means that you have to be first in your field to stay in the minds of your customers. Tempo is synonymous with paper handkerchiefs, Coca Cola is the ultimate fizzy drink and Red Bull was the first energy drink. These brands have a firm place in the minds of customers that no one can dispute. But it’s not just enough to be the first – you also have to rattle loudly to get attention. Or would you have thought that there is an internet bookshop that predates Amazon? Its name is Powell’s, and the fact that you’ve never heard of it shows how good Amazon’s marketing is. This was in fact founded more than 20 years after Powell’s.
I can no longer be the first, everything already exists!
This feeling quickly arises in branding marketing, because it actually looks as if all markets are already fully saturated. That this is not the case is made clear by the fact that new, successful companies are constantly being founded. If you can’t do anything really new in your area, you can always do something different. You can achieve this in the following ways:
- Do the opposite of what the market leader does.
- Position yourself on the price.
- Be the expert in your field.
- Create a new product category within your industry.
- Offer the best quality and communicate it.
WHAT IS POSITIONING IN BRANDING MARKETING?
Where would you rather get advice from an expert who specializes in your industry? Or someone who wants to cover many industries? Like most clients, you would choose a specialist consultant, rightly assuming they are the most knowledgeable in your field. The more pointed your positioning and the sharper your profile, the more likely it is that the perfect customers will find your offer. And, why should your future customer’s book or order from you? Finding the answer to the question is branding marketing.
THIS IS HOW YOU IMPLEMENT YOUR BRANDING MARKETING EVEN BEFORE THE FOUNDATION
- Define your brand. What are your values and are they reflected in your brand? Can your customer discover themselves in your values and thus identify with you? Small businesses find it much easier to create a “we” feeling with their customers and should use this advantage to their advantage. Social media marketing in particular offers numerous opportunities for effective branding marketing.
- Don’t imitate your competitors. Do you want to remain the eternal second? What you can do, however, is modify particularly successful offers and use them for you.
- Find your audience where they are. Social media is perfect for this. Speak their language and make it easy to identify with your brand.
- Find the right influencers who can spread your brand message. These can be bloggers, Instagrammers or YouTubers. The most important thing is that your brand and the people harmonize authentically!
- Create an SEO strategy. Now that you know your target audience, you also have a better idea of what search terms your offer might be found with. Nobody will probably be looking for your brand yet, because it has to be known first. That’s why you should generate traffic through the problem-solving that you can offer to your target group. Drive traffic to your website, blog, and social media pages. Choose keywords with less competition and ditch the highly competitive keywords.
- Advertise your offer in advance on a landing page. Create a landing page that you’ll promote on social media, guest posts, and email lists. Address the following points here:
- Write a strong headline.
- Address the problem that your offer will solve.
- Install a button with a direct call to action. For example, you can offer the option of pre-registration or ordering with an attractive discount.
This way you can validate your offer and get an accurate picture of the interest of your target group.
Conclusion:
Marketing a startup is difficult. You have a limited budget and cannot always call in experts for support. If you work strategically over the long term, you have a much better chance of being successful. Start with these tips and put them into practice before you start. If your branding marketing is successful, you can soon reap the rewards as you watch your business grow.
