In short, branding is the secret sauce that differentiates businesses that get lost in the crowd and those that emerge as a name that people remember. And when you start talking about branding, you should also know well about brand strategy. It covers the planned direction for your brand. In this blog, we’ll tell you what branding strategies are and what are the different types that you can explore for your brand. 

Branding Strategy – an Overview 

According to Marty Neumeier, a renowned American author of several books on branding like, “The Dictionary of Brand”, brand strategy is,

“a long-term plan to outmaneuver competitors through radical differentiation” 

Brand strategy is all about coming up with a plan of action to set your business apart from the competition. It is about defining a personality for your brand. Not to be confused with business strategy. Business strategy talks about what you have in plan for your business in terms of the products, the markets, and more. But brand strategy talks about how you want people to identify your brand. 

In other words, it is about understanding what you want people to remember your business by. Do you want all the focus on you? Or do you want the focus on the brand name? Perhaps you want customers to identify your brand name as synonymous with a particular product! 

This plan for your brand is what convinces your target audience to take your business seriously. And the brand strategy is what tells them that your brand is unique, not like every other business in the segment. 

To come up with the brand strategy, you need a thorough understanding of the following aspects:

• Your target market
• Target audience 
• Competitors and their branding strategies 

Along with this, you should also know what your brand stands for. And that’s how you can identify the right type of brand strategy for your business. 

But Then, Are Branding Strategies Really Important? 

Yes! Your brand strategy clearly lays down your long-term plan for shaping your brand image. Without knowing how you want people to perceive your brand, how can you promote yourself efficiently? And if you do not define this clearly, your communication might not be consistent after all. That’s why branding strategies are a big deal. Here are some benefits of defining your brand strategy:

• Brand messaging is clear and consistent when you have a brand strategy. And you can have all your marketing designs built around this brand message. After all, you do not want to send confusing signals with each of your marketing collateral. 
• With a clear brand strategy, all your marketing teams have a common reference to work with. They know the common goals. So, the copywriters and designers both deliver content that aligns with your brand personality. 
• With this, every conversation with your customers becomes more meaningful and therefore you are able to build quality customer relationships. This in turn helps in creating a loyal customer base. 
• When you have a clear brand strategy you will be able to build your brand without blowing your budget. Since there is a clear direction, your goals for your campaigns and the kind of designs that work for your brand are clearer. 

So, yes, you need to take branding strategies seriously. Let’s now talk about the different types of branding strategies and how big brands use them. 

5 Types of Branding Strategies & Examples 

1. Personal branding 

If you identify yourself as someone who is an expert in your field, and if you want to promote yourself in a competitive market then personal branding helps. 

Have you come across brands or services where you are introduced to the creator of the brand before you even find out what the brand does? Or perhaps you see the name of that individual popping up quite a lot as a reliable authority in a particular niche? All this happens when there is strong personal branding. 

Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, and Vera Wang, a renowned fashion designer are great examples of people with strong personal brands. 

Personal branding often helps social media influencers gain better reach. And as they continue building the trust of their audience on social media, there are better chances of these influencers getting more productive brand partnerships. 

The others who might benefit from personal branding are individual consultants like real estate agents, legal attorneys, fashion designers, and others who provide tailored services in different industries. 

Kimp Tips: 

Even when you are creating a personal brand you can still use branding designs that traditional brands use, like a logo, and business card, for example. All of these only show people how serious you are about your personal brand. And it makes your brand look more professional and credible. 

In branding designs for a personal brand, adding your full name or even details about the services you offer can make a huge difference. Here is a logo for a personal brand that instantly tells you all these details but without complicating the design. 

Need help creating branding designs for your personal brand? Book a call with the Kimp team today. 

2. Product branding 

Most people call a disposable tissue a Kleenex or a vacuum flask is better known as Thermos. See how the brand name has nearly replaced the actual product name? Apple users do not call their phone a smartphone – it is an iPhone! That’s what strong product branding does. 

Product branding strategy is when you choose the hero product for your business and build your brand around it. There are many examples to help you better understand this type of branding strategy. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are other big names to talk about.

Your marketing design promotes your product efficiently and consistently. Do this for years and use impactful marketing strategies to get people to think of your brand the moment they think of that particular product. That’s what product branding is all about. 

As you can see, this strategy that works for brands that cater mainly to one type of product. There might be several variations but the core product line is the same. For example, there is Diet Coke, Coca-Cola No Sugar Vanilla, and other variations but they are all frizzy drinks. The fact that the brand value of Coca-Cola is US$ 83.8 Billion is proof that strong product branding pays off!

Kimp Tips:

When it comes to marketing designs for product brands, you should be clear about the kind of emotional response your product triggers. Like Coca-Cola lets you “open happiness” or KitKat lets you “have a break”. 

Catchy taglines, strong color palettes, and great branding designs are the key to the success of a product brand. 

3. Service branding 

The idea is very similar to product branding but this strategy is for businesses that offer services rather than products. When you book an Uber or find an Airbnb for your next travel, you should realize the strength of service branding. 

In service branding, you need to ensure that you present to your audience a clear picture of the kind of experience you provide. Let’s take our Airbnb example again. There are many ways to find accommodation when you are traveling to a new place. But how did one brand manage to make such a huge difference in the hospitality industry? 

Airbnb is a strongly community-driven brand. It has always focused on the people for whom the brand is built and that’s one of the strongest ways to approach branding. The logo of the brand itself is created as a symbol of “belonging”. 

Kimp Tips: 

For service branding, you do not have a product to showcase. It is all about experiences. In the case of a tangible product, people can read about the features and look at product images to know if they like the product or not. But that’s not possible with services. So, you will have to get creative with your visuals, your ad copy, and even your branding designs. 

Your visuals should focus on capturing the experience. It should exemplify the emotions. Videos can be very helpful for service brands to show how they are different from the others. 

As you can see in the above video, Airbnb continues to deliver content that resonates with its brand value of helping everyone “belong anywhere”. 

4. Corporate branding 

Sometimes, you remember the names of brands even if you are not too sure about all the products and services they offer. And that’s because these brands used corporate branding strategies. 

Google is an example you can easily relate to. There are tangible products like the Pixel smartphones and Nest smart devices as well as services like the mail services like Gmail, and navigation tools like Google Maps. 

Corporate branding strategy is useful for businesses that have a wide range of products and services to offer. Here the brand name and identity get all the attention. Sometimes even more attention than the actual products or services the business offers. 

Nike is also a very popular corporate brand. If you look at the ads from Nike as well as its social media designs, you will see more about the people behind the brand, the people whom the brand targets, and the values of the brand rather than the products from the brand. 

235M followers but still, on Nike’s Instagram page, you see hardly any post about the products from the brand.  

This is a classic example of corporate branding. 

Kimp Tips: 

In the ads from corporate brands, you might not always see the actual product or hear about the service they offer. But this is possible only after the brand starts out as a product-based or service-based business and slowly builds trust and then expands. And for corporate brands, you need to come up with ad ideas that continue to convey to your customers the ideals your brand stands for. 

5. Umbrella branding 

When there is one parent brand under which there are many other brands umbrella branding is useful. Unilever is the epitome of umbrella branding. 

Unilever comprises five brand families and several brands within each of these. 

All of these brands within the umbrella of Unilever have become household names over the years. 

For a brand that branches out into many product lines each with a brand of its own or huge conglomerates that are formed by the amalgamation of several brands, umbrella branding is a great choice. 

Kimp Tips: 

The parent brand might have its own branding strategies. But then each of the sub-brands also has its unique branding guidelines and brand identities. These might sometimes be nothing like the parent brand’s branding approach or the branding approach of the other brands under the same parent brand. 

When you have multiple brands to manage, your design needs increase significantly. That’s why with Kimp you get to choose an unlimited number of subscriptions and add unlimited brands to your account. But still, you can conveniently track all your brands from the same dashboard. 

Simplify Branding by Letting Kimp Take Care of All Your Branding Designs 

Each branding strategy has its own set of ups and downs. You cannot simply name one based on the industry the business belongs to or even the products or services it offers. The choice of branding strategies depends entirely on the way the business wants its customers to perceive the business. So, based on what you have planned for your business and based on the kind of brand image you wish to establish, choose the right branding strategy. Irrespective of your choice, the Kimp team is here to help you with all your branding designs and marketing designs. Since you will be working with a dedicated team, your designs remain visually consistent, thus making it easier to establish your brand identity among your customers.

So, are you ready to change the way you brand your business? Sign up for Kimp’s free trial now.