The word brand and branding have different meanings. Brand has the meaning of brand or name of a product or service. Meanwhile, branding is more about the process of brand recognition or product names to customers. In other words, branding is a variety of communication activities carried out by a company with the aim to build and grow a brand or brands. When we do branding, it is like doing a communication effort that is designed in such a way and planned by a company. Again, the purpose of this branding process is to make a product or service brand more famous. We always need to remember that in the business world, branding is a very important central foundation for any marketing strategy.
So, What is the Relationship between Product Branding and Business Startup?
Product branding will help us in building the business identity that we expect. Do we want to be a popular product among young executives? Millennial generation? or young mothers? By having a strong business identity, it will be easier for us to develop business in the future. When doing product branding, we are also growing our reputation and first impressions in the eyes of our customers from the products and services we offer.
The first impression will help customers to assess “is this product suitable for me?” or “roughly, this product as I have been looking for so far or not huh?” Prospective customers will begin to guess the quality of our products and services starting from the beginning of the branding process that we do.
Now, when talking about “reputation” or “first impressions”, these are two things that are very necessary for a startup business. As we all know, startup business is a term that represents new companies that have only recently been established. Logically, if a company has just been established, whether it was a few months ago or just been running for a year, then not many people know about this startup company. Not only the company is not yet well known, but the startup products they have are also not yet familiar to many people. That is why product branding is so necessary for startup businesses.
Unfortunately, there are still many people who are mistaken in applying this product branding. According to the entrepreneur’s website, there are 4 product branding mistakes from the startup business that are often done by many people. What do you think about that? Let us consider the following explanation.
1. Don’t have Product Brands or Like Changing Brands.
The first mistake in the startup business that is most often done when the branding process is to have no product brand at all. What? How can our startup brand become famous if we don’t make a product brand at all? As we discussed at the beginning of the article, the brand or brand of a product or service is the main thing that will be known and remembered by customers. So it can be concluded that the brand or brand is the main thing we need to have when setting up a startup business . Without a brand, we cannot do any branding.
In addition, some startup businesses also have product brands that are introduced in the branding process. Unfortunately, they are very vulnerable and like to change the brand name or brand of the products and services they offer. Changing brands and brands will only make customers confused and distrustful of our products. Trust from customers is something that is very meaningful and important for us to have. If we don’t have that trust, then our startup business will find it difficult to develop.
2. Following the Brands of Competitors’ Products and Services.
Maybe we intend to rival the startup competitors by having a name that is almost the same as them. However, again we explained that it would only make customers furious and confused. If we believe that the quality we have is no less great than the products of our competitors, then why do we have to use a product brand that is almost the same as them? Customers will be more confident with startup brands that dare to be different from other products. After all, this will form a significant feature for the startup products we offer. In addition, different, unique and easy-to-remember product brands will facilitate the process of product branding that we do for customers.
3. Excluding Sound Elements.
Even though we already have a beautiful, elegant and easy-to-remember product brand. In addition, we have also begun to do product branding, all of which will be incomplete without a sound element in our branding process. The sound element can be a video that we play to potential customers to introduce our products and services.
Why is the sound element considered so important? Because we tend to feel confident when listening to direct explanations from others. Humans catch sounds from other humans so they feel more comfortable and safe. Therefore, the sound element is believed to be very powerful to be embedded in the product branding of our startup business. So, don’t forget to make a video for the branding of your fellow readers!
4. Inconsistent.
Yep! One of the most important factors for successful product branding is consistency. Unfortunately, there are still many products and services that are not consistent with what they focus on. Important guidelines that are in the products and services we must keep making a product guide at any time. One example of inconsistent product branding is to change target customers in the middle of the sales period. This not only disrupts all employees in the field of marketing or marketing , but the inconsistent product branding process will also disrupt other processes.
