Branding Strategies 101 Guide: Types and Best Practices

There are so many branding strategies you can choose from, and it may be tough to decide which branding types go well for your business. Some of the safest ways to choose brand strategies are, to begin with knowing what branding is and determining your brand identity.

What Is Branding?

Branding is a marketing practice that assists individuals to distinguish their business’ products or service from others. Branding often requires building elements such as a logo, mission statement, and uniform design throughout every marketing communication type.

Your brand represents who you are as a business, and applying effective brand strategies can benefit your business to expand and reach beyond your target audience.

7 Types of Branding Strategies

Several branding types may attach value to your company depending on your target audience, industry, budget, and marketing campaigns. Here are seven types of branding strategies that have the potential to develop brand equity for your business.

1. Personal Branding

Personal branding defines branding that is required for a person instead of branding for an entire business. This kind of branding is often used to build a person’s character, personality, or work as a brand.

Celebrities, politicians, thought leaders, and athletes often employ this form of branding to present the best version of themselves to the public.

2. Product Branding

This is one of the most common branding types. Product branding concentrates on creating a single product distinct and recognizable. Symbols or designs are a fundamental part of product branding to support your customers to recognize your product quickly.

3. Corporate Branding

Corporate branding is a core value of the business and a philosophy that a business develops to present itself to the world and its employees.

Effective corporate brands often seek to display their mission, personality, and core values in each point of contact it has with prospective customers, current customers, and past customers.

For example, Nike’s core values and mission are recognizable across all of their platforms and products. Nike’s mission statement is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” And its slogan, next to their famous swoosh checkmark logo, is “Just do it”.

Nike positions itself as a brand for athletes, sports enthusiasts, and anyone passionate about fitness as a corporate brand. They also make it clear that they believe anyone can be an athlete.

4. Service Branding

Service branding leverages the needs of the customer. Companies that use service branding seek to provide their customers with world-class service. They aim to use excellent customer service as a way to provide value to their customers.

For example, Chick-fil-A is known for its excellent customer service, making it synonymous with its brand.

5. Co-Branding

Co-branding is a form of branding that connects companies. Essentially, co-branding is a marketing partnership between two or more businesses. This helps brands impact each other positively, and it may result in one growing its business, spreading brand awareness, and breaking into new markets.

For example, Frito Lay and Taco Bell came together and made the Doritos Locos Taco that appealed to both audiences.

6. Online Branding

Online branding, also known as internet branding, helps businesses position themselves as a part of the online marketplace. This type of branding includes a company’s website, social media platforms, blogs, and other online content.

Most companies use some aspect of online or internet branding in today’s marketplace. Incorporating online branding as a part of your brand strategy is crucial in today’s digital era. A strong element of online branding involves distinctive visual components, like a logo, that define your business and communicate instantly with your audience. To effectively emphasize your unique identity, it’s essential to create your logo online. This not only enhances brand recognition but also ensures uniformity across various platforms, elevating the overall professionalism of your presence.

7. No-Brand Branding

This type of branding is also known as minimalist branding. These brands are often generic brands that seek to let their products speak for themselves without all the extras; many others provide their consumers with.

Some of the most noteworthy no-branding branding examples include Brandless and m/f people. As you can see on Brandless’ website, their packaging, colours, and the overall aesthetic is very simple. This aligns with their mission of providing fairly priced food to people without a typical brand.

Although Brandless recently announced its closure, it is an excellent example of no-brand branding that saw great success for several years.

m/f people adopt simplicity in everything, from their branding and packaging to their product designs. For example, their skincare products are packaged in bottles with black and white colours and a simple font.

This decision to opt for simplicity aligns with their commitment to making gender-neutral products and pursuing their overall mission: “We aim to make life simple, so you can focus on what matters most.” They don’t need loud colours and flashy font. They want a minimalistic appeal.

How to Select the Best Branding Strategies For Your Business

Many businesses use several brand strategies to reach their goals. Selecting the right strategies is important for your success. Follow these steps to find the best approach that fits your business.

a) Define Your Brand Identity.

Before you select the proper brand strategies for your business, you should define your brand identity. This involves asking yourself and others involved in the marketing and sales process a series of questions, such as:

• What are my company’s mission and core values?
• If I had to describe my company in three words, what would they be?
• What do I want to be known for in the marketplace?
• What kind of difference do I want to make in my industry?
• What do I want my brand to look like visually?

Asking yourself these questions helps you to determine your goals and direction in the marketplace as a unique brand.

b) Determine Your Brand Objectives.

Once you identify your brand identity and answer the key questions mentioned above, you should determine your brand objectives. For example, your objective may be to position yourself as an industry leader in a set period or to increase customer interactions through reviews, website visits, or online product purchases.

This way, you’ll be able to select a brand strategy that aligns with your business goals and objectives.

c) Define Your Brand’s Audience.

The best way to define your target audience is to consider what they’re interested in, where they’re located, their age, what they think of your brand currently, and how you will attract them to your services or products.

Knowing your target market allows you to gather enough data to solidify your message and select the correct brand strategy that helps you appeal to your target audience.

d) Consider Your Industry.

Each industry likely has different goals and objectives it would like to achieve. Each brand strategy has different things to offer your business. However, not every strategy will fit your specific industry.

To help you decide which brand strategies to choose, you may consider conducting a competitive analysis with your industry’s competitors. Conducting such an analysis will help you to uncover your opportunities and threats in your respective marketplace.

Best Practices for Building Your Brand

It takes time to build a brand, and as your credibility and reputation grow, your brand strengthens. Follow these best practices to expedite this process and foster trust with your audience.

1. Perfect Use of Visual Content.

Visuals are an important part of branding and marketing.

In fact, according to a study conducted by HubSpot, visuals are processed and retained by individuals at faster rates than text. And visuals such as infographics are 3X likely to be shared on social media over other forms of content.

Visuals make up a large part of what your prospects and customers remember about your brand. Make sure your visuals are related to your overall brand theme and core values.

This provides you with brand consistency and makes it so that your customers can easily identify your brand later on when they see similar images.

2. Humanize Your Brand.

Making your brand more human means finding something to believe in and marketing that message to your prospects and customers.

The best way to do this is to find unique solutions to your consumers’ problems by understanding that their problems have three parts: external, internal, and philosophical.

When you identify their needs and problems, you can begin to weave a story into your marketing messages that provide your customers’ value and make them believe that you have the answers to their problems.

3. Keep the Conversation Going.

A large part of positioning yourself as a strong brand includes getting people to talk about your brand and contributing to the conversation.

Keeping the conversation going involves having a strong online presence that allows you to post and comment about the things that your brand cares about.

Give back to your customers and thank them for remaining loyal to your brand. Direct interaction with your prospects and customers in person and via phone, email, or social media helps you maintain and increase engagement, leading to building a strong brand.

Building a brand includes various elements that require patience to develop and execute. As you move forward with understanding your business’s needs and what you hope to deliver to your consumers, you will be able to select the right brand strategy for your business, and your brand will grow and delight your customers.