Originally posted 2021-11-15 17:42:00.
Branding Expert: A term widely used by MNCs whether they are in B2B or B2C industry. Whenever Brands need to position themselves stronger and ahead of their competitors in the market, they call a Branding Expert to solve problems they are facing.
It’s no surprise that each company needs a Branding Expert whenever they want to build a stronger visual Identity, capture the attention of customers while launching new brands in the market, and the list goes on. They are so important to the industry, that having them on their side gives so many benefits that we can spend our whole day counting what they can do.
Also, blunders can also happen if you encounter the wrong person or fake branding expert. So it’s very important to get to know who is a branding expert? Common traits of a branding expert etc.
Let us get to know who is a branding expert in detail. This way you can understand:
1. What they do,
2. What are the capabilities of a branding expert,
3. How to become a branding expert,
4. What You Should Know before hiring a branding expert?
5. How To hire a branding expert?
6. Questions to ask while hiring a branding expert?
I’ll answer these questions one by one but first let’s get started by knowing who is a branding expert?
Who Is A Branding Expert?
A Branding Expert is a person who is responsible to build a brand either from scratch or whenever existing brands are facing problems. With their deeper knowledge they know how to position a brand into customer’s heart and mind, build a brand stronger, identify who their customers are, and build a reputation which a brand deserves.
A Branding expert knows his responsibilities and understands his work. He/She is responsible to make things happen and that to which will last for a long time.
“A great brand agency or consultant will use their own unique experience as well as a defined, repeatable process that both uncovers the client’s unique brand and flexes to accommodate the unique needs of each client. Don’t just look at the pretty pictures of past projects. Ask for case studies, ask about how they got from point A to point Z in branding another company, and ask what makes their process better than their competitors.” –Mike Jones
If a branding expert says branding is all about logo design, website development, beautiful designs etc. then you must cut the call or run.
A branding expert or consultant is a person who educates clients about branding, why they should invest their time and money in branding, and how to implement branding processes correctly.
The one who educates is considered to be one of the best experts. Clients are layman when it comes to branding, so providing knowledge is the best thing one can do. This way trust is built and clients also get to know his expertise, how he/she thinks, the way he/she works etc.
Capabilities Of Branding Expert
Now that you know Who is a branding expert, how important their roles and responsibilities are, let’s get to know their capabilities:
1. Get To Know Who They Are Dealing With
2. Getting Clarity On Business
3. Building Brand Strategy
4. Identifying The Audience
5. Identifying Who The Competitors Are?
6. Brand Positioning
7. Helps in Solving Problems For Already Established Brands
1. Get To Know Who They Are Dealing With?
Whenever a client comes in, branding agency or expert identifies with whom they will be dealing with. If a branding expert doesn’t know about his clients, how will they be solving problems for them?
So if you hired a good branding expert, the first thing you will encounter is “Lots Of Questions”
Every branding expert has their own way of asking questions and each time you can face different questions depending on what the scenario is. Questions uncovers many things which helps in getting clarity on business and what client wants. So if they ask you questions, answer them honestly to reach the desired outcome.
Top 15 Frequently Asked Questions By A Branding Expert To His Clients
Here are Top 15 frequently asked questions a Branding expert can ask you in order to get clarity:
Q1 Brief Introduction to get clarity of your business and you
Q2 Why are you starting this business?
Q3 What are the pain points you solve for customers?
Q4 How are you going to define our/my engagement as a “Win”? What are you looking for out of this?
Q5 Why would you want to work with us when there are so many other agencies like ABC, DEF, Agency, etc?
Q6 What values and beliefs define your brand?
Q7 From an overall business standpoint, what is your biggest challenge?
Q8 What type of customers will you be having? Serving to masses or what range you will be having?
Q9 What sources bring in the highest value customers?
Q10 Who is your competition?
Q11 Have you talked to any other agency/expert/consultant before?
Q12 Who is your targeted audience?
Q13 What are your biggest marketing challenges? What kind of marketing budget do you have?
Q14 Do you have any deadlines for this particular project?
Q15 What are your top 3 objectives for this project?
These questions help them understand things better and based on these question’s answer, next step can be taken.
2. Getting Clarity on Business
Many B2B and B2C companies want to do everything whether they are service providers or having products to sell. Even startups do the same thing.
This is not wrong to do but many businesses don’t know who they are, what they want to do and who will be their audience. They give examples of companies like Amazon which now provides almost everything from every industry. It took time to build such an empire.
So a good branding agency or branding consultant will bring clarity on business whether to widen the niche or to narrow down. Later on the services/products can be expanded and with this comes the next topic Brand strategy.
3. Building Brand Strategy
Once getting clarity on business and the requirements are clear, the next step is to create a brand strategy. Brand strategy is the plan of brand expression. Effect brand strategy provides a central unifying idea around which all behaviour actions and communications are aligned.
A brand strategy affects all the aspects of a business and consumers emotion, needs, and competition is directly connected to it. Creating a Brand strategy helps both branding experts and clients to move in a particular direction. While implementing each step of brand strategy, both can get to know its effectiveness, follow and stick to the process in order to reach end results.
A Good profession branding expert always “Trust The Process” to get the best results.
4. Identifying The Audience
Identifying who will be the ideal audience for that particular service or product is very necessary. If we don’t know whom we’re going to sell, at the end of the day we’ll lose business. This is a bad way of doing business.
This problem can be faced by big MNCs too as when they launch a new product, they need to identify who their targeted audience is. So the job of a branding expert is to do research, run surveys, check the demographics, understand the market needs and guide the companies.
5. Who The Competitors Are?
A Branding consultant or expert can help us identify who the competitors are just in case companies don’t know.
They can also help in identifying what strategies are being implemented, what their position is in the market, how they are better and what client needs to go 2-steps further from them.
6. Brand Positioning
Supporting every effective brand is a positioning strategy that drives planning, marketing and sales. Positioning evolves to create openings in a market that is continually changing, a market in which consumers are saturated with products and messages.
Positioning takes advantage of changes in demographics, technology, marketing cycles, consumer trends and gaps in the market to find new ways of appealing to the public.
A branding expert or agency helps clients in brand positioning and is capable enough to build a brand stronger whether it is personal or corporate.
7. Helps in Solving Problems For Already Established Brands
Till now you might be thinking that i’ve already mentioned about problem solving so many times so what will be new here? Well sometimes there are scenarios which are uncertain and cannot be controlled. This can cause huge money loss or can lead to change the entire system.
Let me explain this with an example:
Recently, Myntra – An E-commerce fashion store in India changed their logo because a women activist filed a case against them. The case was given to state cyber police alleging that the logo was offensive towards women. This is a very recent case which was filed in December 2020.
This led to the change on all of the company’s platforms including website, mobile app, and packaging material.
No one would have thought something like this can also happen with an already established brand like Myntra. Shashwat Das, Founder, almond branding shared his learnings from this controversy.
Another example is Burger King’s New logo.
It also got changed recently and took 6 months to create a new logo. After 20 years Burger King changed their logo to give the retro-influenced new identity. However, the renovation of its nearly 19,000 global restaurants to reflect the new look will take several years.
So you can imagine how branding experts help companies at every step, and solve big problems. Whether it is getting out of controversy or creating a fresh look to stay connected with their loyal customers.
What You Should Know Before Hiring A Branding Expert?
“Team Work Makes The Dream Work”
This applies here too. A branding expert cannot do anything alone, they need clients involvement at every step in order to reach the end goal.
With Branding expert knowledge and clients understanding, the results are always fruitful.
But in order to build that understanding clients should test a Branding expert’s knowledge, how their working process is?
This way you will save your time, money and stop yourself from falling in the trap of fake branding experts.
An expert is someone who knows all the major aspects of branding, guides their clients at every step, makes them aware of the problems which they can face and how to resolve them.
Also, to test a branding expert, clients can ask a few questions before hiring them.
Top 10 Questions To Ask From A Branding Expert Before Hiring Them
Q1 How many years of experience you have in the following industry?
Q2 Do you specialize in specific branding areas or industry?
Q3 Can you please share your portfolio with us?
Q4 How did you help your previous clients go from X to 10X or 100X? Any Case Study you can share?
Q5 What is your working process? Is there any strategy you use?
Q6 What makes you stand out from other peers?
Q7 How will you defend my brand from my biggest competitor?
Q8 Do you give free consultation before we put it on paper?
Q9 How much am I looking at spending on the whole process?
Q10 What after launch?
If you are satisfied with the answers, go ahead and don’t think about anything else. Also, make sure if you have any doubts, clear them before signing any agreement or at the time of agreement. A good professional will always be there for their clients at all times whether they are good or bad.
How To Become a Branding Expert?
Now that you know the roles and responsibilities of a branding expert, how they can help you with corporate and personal branding, let us get to know how to become a branding expert.
Talking about the career, it’s a very promising role where one has to face multiple challenges which leads to personal and financial growth. If someone is looking forward to becoming a branding expert or consultant, they should definitely go for it.
5 Helpful Tips To Become A Branding Expert That Works 99%
Let’s discuss what a person needs to do in order to become a branding expert. Here are 5 helps tips to become a branding expert:
1) Gain Knowledge
2) Build A Portfolio
3) Consistency is the key to success
4) Master The Art Of Story Teller
5) Specialize
1) Gain Knowledge
I have seen many professionals become branding consultants or experts having a background in marketing, sales, copywriter, or designers. All roads lead back to the branding expert.
There is as such no particular qualification required to become a branding expert, your hunger to gain knowledge will lead to a successful career. The more you learn, the more complex problems you will be solving.
Now if you are going on this path, you will face gaining knowledge of these particular fields:
a) Sales
b) Marketing
c) Entrepreneurship
d) Psychology
e) Design
f) UX/UI
g) Branding
h) How Business Works
Each person comes from a different background, so one should know the above mentioned field, what importance they have and how they help. Like I’m from an Engineering background and running a Branding Agency, I’ve learned the basics first and while working enhanced my knowledge. The research part of engineering is still with me and helping to improve my skills, knowledge and run my company. So your background will be an advantage, you have to learn about other fields.
Your background will be modality compliments branding perfectly.
Conclusion
From the beginning I’m saying branding experts play a very vital role in companies and having them on our side is beneficial to the company. Whether you need to position yourself stronger, strategy to move ahead, build visual identity, beat your competitors, become infinite players etc. branding experts are needed.
Here at Mount Woods Studio, we help B2B and B2C companies solve problems so that they can grow exponentially to 10X. At every step, we’ll be there for you to help build strategies which are actionable and can be implemented at any stage. So, Work smarter with Mount Woods Studio to help you during every growth stage. Contact Us and let’s talk about your project.
