The most important step in choosing the best brand marketing strategy for your product is to conduct accurate market research on your target customers. After all, the reason you have a product to market is to get it into the hands of consumers. You're simply not going to be able to accomplish this effectively unless you use marketing strategies aimed directly at your target customers. Understanding their needs and wants should guide your branding strategy in every part of your marketing mix.
Marketing mix strategy includes every detail about how a product is marketed to its target audience. Everything from the product's price to how it's packaged, distributed and sold must be carefully planned to get the best sales performance possible. The channels of distribution, or how the product gets to its target consumer, must be thoughtfully considered as well. Will the product do best sold in person to shoppers or on a website? The answers to questions such as this tie into the final determination of the best brand marketing strategy.
The brand is the consumer image of your product that includes its name and overall identity. To find the essence of a brand, marketing experts often suggest that marketers think of how the product will be positioned in the marketplace. Product positioning refers to what selling angle different brands of similar products offer. For instance, vanilla ice cream may be sold in a large plastic tub and made with lower cost ingredients, or it may include real vanilla beans and be packaged in an elegantly printed small cardboard container.
The brand marketing strategy would be different for the two ice cream brands because they would be targeting different market segments. The smaller, more elegant brand is likely to be purchased by single people or couples, while the larger economy one is targeted more to families on a budget. The packaging and prices of the two ice cream brands would reflect the different branding strategies. The promotion, or advertising, would also be very different. Value priced pails of ice cream would be positioned as money saving, while the premium variety in the elegant containers is likely to be promoted as being top quality.
A solid brand image increases consumer awareness. It's important to remember that your product advertising should communicate your strategic message to the people most likely to buy it. Showy, arty commercials can entertain and amuse and even win awards, but if your target audience doesn't remember your brand after seeing your ads, your advertising budget isn't being effectively used in your brand marketing strategy.
