Importance of Branding & Marketing

IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING AND MARKETING FOR ENTREPRENEURS

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRANDING AND MARKETING:

BRANDING:

When a product or service is created, one of the first things that is considered is that what it should be called. The name of a product gives the product it’s identity and a logo that is unique makes sure that it makes the product recognizable. It focuses on making long term relationship with customers and building trust.

MARKETING:

Marketing is the process where an individual promotes their services and shows the customer why their product is different from the other brands in the market providing the same service/product. It’s like pitching your product to the world and the main focus here is attracting customers and increasing sales.

WHY IS BRANDING AND MARKETING IMPORTANT:

I’m sure everyone had a favourite candy from their childhood that got discontinued, apart from the taste what made that specific candy stand out? It could have been the packaging ,the toys you got for free with it or could also be the advertisement you saw about the product or the tagline it had.

That’s the power of branding and marketing. It helps the product stick with you even after it is no longer available. Word of mouth is also a type of marketing but it works only in a limited space.

The branding of a product should be related to the product or its history, if the name is not helping the customer identify the service you provide then it might not be helpful at all.The branding is what helps the customers connect with you and helps them understand the story behind your creation.

One of the biggest shows for entrepreneurs today is “Shark Tank” and I have myself have watched a couple of episodes and what I noticed is that even when a company does not get any funding from the sharks, it’s sales significantly does increase as compared to before. For many companies I have noticed that they ask the number of followers they have on Instagram.This proves that having a good marketing team and social media team is very much necessary for any product.

Brands pay influencers to make videos for them and post it on social media creating a positive impact among users and customers about the brand, this in return increases their sales. This also helps bootstrap entrepreneurs who are self-funded as not a lot of investment is needed to pay social media influencers but it is also very effective because in today’s day and age people of all age group use social media so using that to market your product is a very efficient way of making your product mainstream.

One example I can think of which was very menial before it’s branding is “Baba Ka Dhaba”. The story of an old man working and cooking to fill his own plate is what stood out to people and made him so popular that a normal shop became a food hub.

Now, have we not seen many other elderly people on the daily working hard to just earn a few bucks? We have. So how did so many people get to know about him all over India? The food blogger who posted about his food and his story, increasing his sales unprecedentedly.

India has seen many such instances including “Dolly chaiwala” who was just a normal tea seller with a unique way of serving tea before a video of him went viral on all the different social media platforms making him known not just all over India but worldwide which also gave him an opportunity to make a collaboration with Bill Gates.

This is how marketing and branding pays off.