What is Branding?
Branding is the lasting impression you leave on your customers or clients.
Branding strategy allows you to stand out from the competition and emphasize what it is about what you have to offer that makes you the superior option. Your brand is created to be an accurate reflection of your company’s identity and desired public perception.
According to a Forrester survey, 95% of customers engage with an organization over a minimum of three channels during a single service transaction. Therefore, when your brand is consistent, consumers will be able to recognize it even when it appears on several different channels. Achieving this consistency will allow clients and customers to view your business as credible, trustworthy, and reliable.
Who are you. Who you want to be.
Finding a suitable market or target niche for a product, service, or brand and establishing it in that niche is known as positioning.
In other words, a successful market position is when a customer thinks of your product or service in a way that you wish to be considered and in which you can successfully deliver that market or service. One does not want to be known for hamburgers when that is an occasional special on the menu– this business should likely place that renowned hamburger on the permanent menu and promote themselves as such; or if this business wants to be known for their primary menu items they should find out why these items are not receiving the same positive response and fix it.
Branding/ Positioning
Service Codes
NAICS Codes
NAICS 541613 – Marketing Consulting Services
NAICS 541810 – Advertising Agencies
NAICS 541430 – Graphic design services
NAICS 5419 – Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
NAICS 541990 – All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
NAICS 512199 – Other Motion Picture and Video Industries
PSC Codes
UNSPSC Codes
UNSPSC 60105409 – Brand marketing or advertising instructional materials
UNSPSC 80141501 – Marketing analysis
UNSPSC 80141505 – Marketing plans
UNSPSC 80141517 – Custom market research
UNSPSC 80141604 – Branding of product naming services
UNSPSC 80142111 – Legacy marketing
UNSPSC 80171603 – Publicity and marketing advisory service
UNSPSC 80171700 – Reputation and brand management services
UNSPSC 80171702 – Brand promotion and management service
UNSPSC 82140000 – Graphic design
UNSPSC 86101717 – Marketing professional training service
Branding is FAR more than your logo or slogan.
Your brand and organization’s position in the marketplace will be represented in your people, your website and your marketing materials, and your customer / client interactions.
A Quick Case Study
A client was in the education technology space. Upon arrival to their office we were greeted with open floor space, bright colors, and high energy. They were a young, innovative start up breaking into the staid, somewhat “old school” K-12 education market.
Their logo was loose and fun. Their slogan felt like IBM had spit it out. Their website was confusing and offered muted colors. Their marketing materials were high quality and looked like a research “white paper”. Their pricey conference booth was modern. The people answering the phones were young and casual.
Visual colors across marketing materials were different. From the website, to people answering to the phones, to the marketing collateral, to the people working the booths, what was said about the company and how it was said varied wildly. The tone, messaging, color, style of their brand and positioning was all over the place.
Separately, it was all professional. Together, it was a mess.
Imagine a potential customer such as a school administrator experiencing all of these aspects of this education tech company. How would they describe this company? What resonsated– would it be website content or a conversation with someone in a conference booth or a marketing brochure they brought back to the office? Would what “stuck” with the potential customer be the experience this company wanted? Who was to say!
This case study is a microcosm of an organization in dire need of branding and positioning help.
Your Brand, Your Story
Resource Overwatch believes in using the branding approach sometimes referred to as “The Story of Us” or the “Hero’s Journey”. It is a process that allows clients to personalize and step into the story of their brand.
Basically, in order to describe who you are and who you want to be, you tell a story. We perform market research internally and externally to identify the “bad guys” threatening your company. We identify the story arc as the problem(s) you are trying to solve for your client / customer.
Your organization becomes the protagonist on the journey. Together, we identify the path to success.
Our Core Marketing Services
A Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)
Marketing Consulting
Insight and expertise built around your needs and goals.
- Current conditions
- 360 perspective
- Lead nurturing
- Market opportunity
Internet Expertise
Current, cost-efficient and proven methodologies
- Development
- Design
- Search engine optimization
- Online advertising
Marketing Research
Gathering insights on needs and preferences
- Target
- Survey
- Sample
- Segment
- Offer perspectives
Multimedia / Video
Creating useful, effective content
- Filming
- Editing
- Design
- Content development
- Offline marketing
Branding / Positioning
Who are you and who you want to be
- Marketing mix
- Target market
- Research
- Logo/design
- Voice and tone