Top 10 Branding Principles That You Must Know

Originally posted 2021-12-02 17:19:00.

As competition creates infinite choices, companies look for ways to connect emotionally with customers, become irreplaceable, and create lifelong relationships.

No matter whether a company is B2B or B2C, they all want to send a strong message. A strong brand stands out in a densely crowded marketplace. People fall in love with them, trust them and believe in their superiority. How a brand is perceived affects its success, regardless of whether it’s a start-up, a nonprofit, or a product.

Products are built in the factory, brands are created in the mind – Waltor Landor

Top 10 Branding Principles For Business

All this can be achieved by branding. Branding is a disciplined process used to build awareness and extend customer loyalty. Branding Principles help in understanding many things and provide clarity. So let’s start discussing the Top 10 Branding Principles that every business must follow:

1. Stand Out

2. Stake Your Claim

3. Find The Sight

4. Keep Your Promise

5. Connect Emotionally

6. Ready To Adapt

7. Measure The Effectiveness

8. Become Infinite Player

9. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

10. Cultivate Your Community

1. Stand Out

Differentiating your brand and its product is important. With clear brand-positioning, targeted audiences understand Who You Are? Who Needs To Know? How Will They Find You? Why Should They Care?

It also helps understand competition and beat them in the market. Also, every company should focus on becoming an infinite player rather than finite ones. If they do this, it’s easier to stand out from others and create a valuable company.

2. Stake your Claim

Defining your area and category helps in achieving brand success. For example, brands like Kellogg’s, Dabur, Nevia, Mount Woods Studio, Patek Philippe are known for their quality and to whom they serve. This maintains its category leadership worldwide to this day.

Mount Woods Studio is a global Branding and Consultancy agency solving design problems for successful CEOs and organisations helping them grow to become a unique brand identity.

3. Find The Insight

Understanding what the current market desires and making a shift according to it, thus making humans life easier. Like UX(User Experience) finds what the customer needs are and then transforms the whole experience. The insights gathered can be used for enhancing technology, core brand elements, and achieving satisfaction.

Hubspot is a full platform of marketing, sales, customer service, and CRM software — plus the methodology, resources, and support — to help businesses grow better. 

It really simplifies everything under one roof with advanced technology, understanding user needs, and providing better solutions.

4. Keep Your Promise

Brands that continue to deepen their bonds with their customers are motivated to exceed their expectations. Keeping your promise with your customers not only builds brand reputation but loyalty too.

Those who understand this are more likely to succeed. Let me give an example: my Macbook had some problem, I called customer service and they guided me very well and told us to promise to resolve the issue. Don’t worry we are there with you until the problem is not solved. The associate stayed with me on the phone for 4 hours. I also received a call afterwards asking if I’m facing the same problem again or not.

They kept their promise and this is just one example. It’s been 5+ years since I’ve been using Macbook, then the next product was iPhone 6 and now I’m using iPhone SE 2nd generation. I always say that I belong to the Apple family as I know they will do the best.

They always keep their promise.

5. Get Emotional

It’s very hard to create a place in customers’ minds, once a brand does this, no competitor can replace them easily.

Royal Enfield has a rich history starting from 1901. It is one of the leading brands in India for bike lovers. The brand has become so Iconic in India and continues to touch the emotions of people. It’s a dream bike which is very hard to replace from people’s minds.

6. Ready To Adapt

Brands should be ready to adapt to stay in the market otherwise it will be difficult for them to survive or comeback again. They should be flexible especially when everyone wants to be number 1 and stay ahead. 

Nokia is one such example of Rise and Fall. They were reliable, secure and people loved it. With time, Nokia came up with new ways to attract customers and using technology which was like the future.

The tagline “Connecting People” clearly said what they wanted to do.

But when Android came and took the market by storm, Nokia was not ready to adapt and thought its symbian os will beat. In the early stage, Android was not stable but people loved it and made a shift.

Nokia was losing its customers and lost its way. They did try to come back but it was late and other mobile companies conquered the market. This is a branding principle which no one should forget in their entire brand building process.

7. Measure The Effectiveness

Branding effectiveness can be measured from customer engagement. One of the best ways is to ask them instead of assuming yourself. There are various strategies that can be implemented that too at a reasonable price.

For example, survey forms can be sent to customers where few questions are asked about their overall experience. A website can have ratings on how well a website is performing or a feedback form on which a company should improve.

This can be done internally with employees: how satisfied they are with the company. What problems they are facing.

We have covered the full topic on How to measure the effectiveness of Branding which is worth reading. I’m sure no founder or organisation is going to skip this as it will guide them to understand better.

8. Become Infinite Player

Brands need to become an infinite player in the industry. By infinite player, I mean they should focus on becoming better everyday instead of saying they are better than others. If they constantly improve themselves, they’ll be the one who’ll set the benchmark and others will follow. It’s good to know who your competition is as it helps you understand what they are doing, but all focus should be on improving the brand itself. Not talking about them. This is one of the very important branding principle which should be focused from the day one.

Simon Sinek explains this very nicely and it’s the best advice that I follow & you should too.

9. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

This title is taken from a book which is written by Rashmi Bansal. Here I’m referring to the knowledge and wisdom we all can incorporate in ourselves. We all need to stay hungry so that we can learn new things and implement them in our daily lives. This approach not only helps in personal development but building a brand which is valuable. A foolish person keeps on discovering new things, finding answers for the questions which are not yet solved.

10. Cultivate Your Community

The community is an effective platform that engages different people, lets them share their opinions, and builds loyalty. Brands collaborate with each other to understand their culture, exchange knowledge so that they can create value for customers.

Understanding these Top 10 Branding principles will help you build your brand stronger. We appreciate any feedback provided to us to make this article better. Any information which can be added to this article on Branding principles and adds more value, please contact us.

Also, If you need any help in your project, always remember Mount Woods Studio is there for you.
Contact us and let our expert team help you resolve problems you are facing in the organisation.