Brand Promotion - Meaning, Importance & Examples

A brand is what sells when the customer has to decide among different products having the same features.

A survey says that 91% of buyers prefer to buy from a well-known brand. The only reason is that they have come across this brand name many times and heard people have satisfied and recommended this brand.

While branding makes a product recognizable, brand promotion helps to leave a deep positive impression about the brand in the buyer’s mind. Not only that, the promotion of a brand builds the trust of the customer and makes them believe that the quality of the product or service the brand provides is the best choice available in the market. So, when they make purchasing decision they tend to favor that brand.

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What Is Brand Promotion?

Brand promotion involves informing, reminding, persuading convincingly and influencing the buyers to drive their purchasing decision in favor of a brand. It also focuses on building a loyal and long-term customer base.

The process involves:

Marketing the brand name and logo rather than individual products
Popularising the mission statement and focusing on building brand equity
Gaining publicity through mass marketing strategies and enhancing brand perception
Sometimes, making use of the existing customer base to promote the brand

Establishing a strong brand requires maintaining consistency in the products or services that are provided, in interaction with customers as well as in the message that is shared. The basic aim is to make the customers feel that the brand can provide exactly what they need.

Why Is Brand Promotion Important?

Brand promotion is not only beneficial to business houses but also consumers and society.

Benefits To The Business

It helps the business to build a long term brand
Sometimes help in building the overall market share in the short term as well
It reminds the loyal customers how well the brand has served them over the years and persuades their purchasing decision towards their branded products.

Benefits To Consumers

It educates the customers about the quality, quantity, price, use, and availability of their branded products.
It saves the time and effort of the customer in making a purchasing decision as they are well informed.
It gives them greater freedom of choice and prevents dishonest traders from exploiting them

Benefits For Society

It provides employment
It activates the facility of mass production and hence lowers the cost
It leads to higher sales of the branded product which means higher tax revenue for the government and consequent growth of the economy

How Brand Promotion Is Different From Product Promotion?

Brand promotion is a broader and long-term strategy where the firm makes an effort to build and maintain a brand image along with the trust of the buyers which helps them make their foundation, as a brand, stronger. While promoting the brand, firms try to connect themselves to the audience by conveying some positive messages about their brand.

For example, Nestle uses the tagline “Good Food, Good Life” which not just only promotes a particular product but the entire Nestle brand.

Some firms try to establish themselves as the leaders in innovation just like Philips does by using the tagline “Innovation and You”.

On the other hand, product promotion is a short-term process that solely aims at promoting a particular product of the brand. It mainly focuses on providing information regarding the availability of features and uses of the product to the targeted customers. It is all about simulating the demand for a particular product by creating awareness and highlighting the importance of it.

For example, KitKat is one of the products of the Nestle brand. When in an advertisement particularly Kitkat bar is promoted, it falls under product promotion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o2qeU4RSuA

A brand with a strong reputation gets a better result when they market a product because of the already earned trust of the buyers.

Methods Of Brand Promotion

The following are the four popular methods used by marketers to promote their brands.

Advertising: Advertising is the method of spreading awareness about the brand through various traditional media (newspapers, television, etc.) or new media (social media, blogs, etc.). Although it is a convenient and economical process, it lacks a personal touch.
Publicity: It refers to the method of promoting the brand by publishing commercially significant headlines about it or its owner in a medium or airing favorable presentations for which the sponsor doesn’t directly pay. Mass media covers these events which enhances the public image of the brand and hence earns high credibility with mass appeal. However, marketers don’t have much control over publicity.
Packaging: When a product is sealed in a nicely designed wrapper, it not only gives a noticeable identity to the product but also builds the image of the brand. Nowadays, the firms are favoring innovatively designed wrappers to pack their products. Even the customers are willing to pay more for the convenience, dependability, and appearance of the packages.
360° Campaign: A 360° campaign uses a combination of different marketing channels to promote a brand. Usually, a successful campaign can boost sales unbelievingly.

Online Brand Promotion

Online brand promotion is the method of promoting the brand on various social platforms by leveraging the power of the internet to reach a wider range of audience.

Considering the statistics of internet users in today’s world, online brand promotion has become as important as the traditional one.

Advantages Of Online Branding

It costs less than the traditional one
It promotes your brand to a wider audience
Targeted promotion is possible
The results are easier to measure using various free tools available online
It is more beneficial for smaller firms, having lower budgets to compete with larger firms.

Bottom-Line?

Brand promotion is all about building the trust of the consumers in a firm’s product. Moreover, the Internet has made it possible for a brand to reach a wider range of audiences through social media communication and globalization. As a result, the firms are investing heavily both online and offline to boost their brand image.

Though branding can skyrocket the firm’s sale, it requires a lot of effort, money and time. But once the identity of the brand is established as a leader in the market, the result will be long-termed with little effort. So, firms like Nike, Philips, etc. are leaving no stones unturned while hiring endorsers or approaching ambassadors who can help them to build the desired image.