Lots of research around the worlds hints at how, in most mature markets, three brands will come to dominate. Brand marketing is behind this phenomenon.
It's an observable fact: three brands have a tendency to rise to the top in any given sector, hoarding 80-90% of market share between them, whilst all the other players battle it out for the remaining 10-20%. In some cases, two brands become the market leaders (think Coke and Pepsi).
Take house building in the UK. It's dominated by Redrow, Barratt Developments and Persimmon Homes.
Supermarkets? Tesco, Sainsbury, and ASDA.
Fast food? McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC.
Coffee? Costa, Greggs (surprisingly), and Starbucks.
Cars? VW, Ford, and Audi.
Smartphones? Apple, Samsung, and Google.
If you're outside the Top 3 in your space, sector, or location, then you're going to find that it's difficult to grow consistently and that competition is fierce because there are lots of you all fishing the same smaller pond.
The third sector isn't immune to this effect either. Can you name four cancer charities? Cancer Research UK, Macmillan, and Maggies probably spring to mind with relative ease, but can you name another outside these three?
It's no accident. It's because they pour resource into brand marketing.
Why brand marketing matters
It's easy to fixate on 'performance marketing' designed to drive sales in the present, like PPC ads online and on social media that exist to promote discounts, limited-time offers, and special 'while stocks last' deals that are all intended to nudge buyers into action.
It might generate some immediate gains but they're short lived.
The reason those businesses that make the Top 3 and gobble-up market share are able to do so is thanks to their long term investment in 'brand marketing' - getting known about and known for what they do - not just marketing aimed at driving here-and-now results. They have all spent money building their brands in their chosen markets, slowly elevating themselves until they're the most well known.
This matters, and here's a neat example of why:
Think about the last time you made a high value purchase for your home (like, say, replacement windows) or for your business or charity. How many quotes did you get? The chances are it was three. Where did you look for the businesses to give you these quotes? Most probably three businesses you already knew of or the top three you found in a Google search.
The three businesses that are most easily remembered and/or found most easily get most of the opportunities - sort of by default - while everyone else has to work at it much harder.
Remember, before someone can buy from your business, they need to know about you. Everything starts with brand awareness, and so it's important to put plenty of emphasis into that.
What does brand marketing look like?
Promoting your brand can take many forms, but essentially it's about three things:
1. Standing out and getting noticed
2. Making yourself memorable
3. Establishing credibility and trust
So, with that in mind, think:
Standing out and getting noticed
Running awareness ads on social media that put your brand in front of key audiences on a regular basis is a great start. So is posting organic content.
PPC ads on Google and Bing, coupled with website SEO, will help to make sure you're more visible in search engine results.
The two together become mutually reinforcing - someone who finds you through a Google search is more likely to click through to your website if they remember you from social media.
But everyone around you is doing this with similar objectives, so you have to do it differently. The human brain is wired to spot things that are unusual, unexpected, or out-of-place, and is also more likely to store such irregularities in long term memory. It's the reason we're always getting our balls out.
So, whilst advertising like your peers is sensible, it's also a good idea to do so with over-the-top creative concepts.
Remember the double-glazing company with the "You buy one, you get one free. I said, you buy one, you get one free!" slogan barked at you in a thick Lancashire accent? Safestyle UK now tops the leaderboard in its sector, ahead of Everest and Anglian Home Improvements.
Other examples of stand-out brand brand marketing include Compare The Market with Sergei the Meerkat, Nokia with that ringtone, Specsavers with its stunts that all revolve around the phrase "Should've gone to Specsavers", and Aldi with its social media jibes at rivals such as M&S.
The trick is to ensure you stand-out in your field. Like our purple cow 😆
Making yourself memorable
Ads and messages that appeal to those parts of the brain programmed to notice the unusual will already be more easily remembered.
We can't help it. Thousands of years ago, the ability to remember what happened the last time you were out on a hunt and nearby bushes rustled unexpectedly was a survival advantage - either you stuck your spear in and bagged yourself some dinner, thus keeping you alive for one more day, or something jumped-out and would have eaten you if you hadn't remembered the need to leg-it.
But you can amplify that effect and help encode those memories for long term storage by also introducing an additional element: emotion.
If we see an ad that features something not just unexpected but also funny, we're guaranteed to remember it for longer. Not only that, it creates positive associations, so when we think of those brands that make us smile with their antics, we think of them more fondly. We like them.
You can make things more memorable by tapping into other emotions like anger, fear, and sadness (which might be just what you need depending on what it is you are all about).
Establishing credibility and trust
It's all well and good getting known about and remembered, but you also want to be known for being good at what you do - expert, high quality, reliable.
This is where the judicious use of proactive PR forms part of your brand marketing.
Getting positive media mentions creates a sort of 'halo effect' around your brand. So, now, when people encounter you in their internet searches, they find good news stories that make you seem even more appealing.
Selling-in thought leadership articles and opinion pieces is a great way to show off your subject matter expertise, making you a voice of authority.
Key takeaways: grabbing attention, being remembered, and earning trust with brand marketing
Successful brand marketing is a long play, and requires you to keep investing time, effort, and money into it. The results are like compound interest, and the gratification is delayed, but when the rewards arrive they're worth it.
Here are our key takeaways:
Brand marketing is what makes people buy into you, not just what you sell or do. So, when there's a choice to be made between you and a rival, people are more likely to choose you
The better known you are, especially if you make into the Top 3, the more opportunities come your way with less effort
It's important to focus on standing-out and grabbing attention, because every sale your business makes, or donation your charity secures, starts with awareness of your brand
Consistency is key. Brand marketing is a long term effort
You should hire us to help you boost your brand marketing with bold campaigns 😉 But, also, it's a mistake to think you can grow sustainably with just performance marketing, you need both