Property branding and marketing expert Jho Alzamora of Viabrand reveals the important differences between the two and the first steps to take at the start of your next project.
Consistent branding and effective marketing can make a big difference to the success of any endeavour. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to establish a clearly defined brand and persuasive marketing strategy before they launch.
Much of the problem stems from misunderstanding the roles of branding and marketing and the differences between the two.
Put very simply, branding is a process of defining yourself. Who are you? What do you stand for? Your business’ values, mission, and goals all add up to build a brand personality.
When preparing to enter the market, you should always start by clearly defining your brand in these ways.
Start by asking yourself why, how, what, which and who.
Why does the business exist? Why do you do what you do in the way you do it? What gets you out of bed every morning? Go beyond simply, "making money", as you could choose any number of industries in which to profit. Why this one? What excites you about property development? This will help you define your brand personality.
How does your business accomplish its goals? In what ways do you provide products or services differently to and better than your competitors? Some people refer to this as your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), but it also relates to the ways in which you operate that aren’t unique to you e.g. "service with a smile".
What specific product/s and/or service/s do you offer? What does your company do?
Which problems do these products or services solve for people? Which ways do you make people’s lives better?
Who will benefit most from the products and services you offer? Who is most likely to want to purchase from you? Who would be most delighted by what you do?
Many people find they get confused between branding and marketing during the next phases. It’s true, the lines can blur as these disciplines work hand-in-hand.
Once you’ve answered the important brand questions, you can move on to your marketing strategy. Research the market you’re wanting to enter. Find data on your target markets that you defined in answering question number five.
Look at how your competitors are branding and marketing themselves. Research how your industry as a whole has been performing and how it’s expected to perform. This process of reviewing and understanding your market will help you determine the best strategy for communications.
Now you can move on to how you’ll communicate it all to your market. Symbols, colours, fonts, language tone and images can all serve to define and convey your brand to people. This is called "branding".
These elements should all go together to form your brand style guide.
The guide then serves to inform decision-making when it comes to marketing your brand. Your style guide can include the business and/or product name, slogan/s, logo/s, colours, fonts, marketing strategy, brand personality, keywords, vision and mission.
Use your marketing efforts to tell consumers who you are as defined in your brand Q&A.
Keep every message and image in line with the principles outlined in your style guide. Consistent and strategically targeted marketing builds your brand awareness, preference and loyalty.
In short you need to be using the language and imagery your target market likes in media they consume, while staying true to your branding.
Always communicate your brand’s values, hopes and desires in a way that connects emotionally first then logically with your ideal customers.
In the end, it’s the consumer who decides what you brand represents. They’re the ones who will form perceptions and tell others of their feelings.
Branding and marketing experts can help you ensure the opinions the market forms about your business are in line with what you want them to believe.
Visit our website to download our free Property Branding Guide for insights, tips and to find out more about how all of the best property development brands are built.
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