Creating a successful, recognised brand requires a clear understanding of your company’s vision, core values, which could inspire an impeccable corporate branding. A corporate brand should bring all products under one roof with a shared purpose and mission. Done well and the corporate brand should be as successful as its individual product launches. The importance of corporate branding stretches further than the customer viewpoint. Good corporate branding should also extend to how employees feel about the company and how they define their roles within it.

What is Corporate Branding

Corporate branding is the practice of promoting a corporate identity under a brand name. The scope of this is broader than product branding because a corporate brand must reflect company values and represent all brands under the umbrella. Modern corporate branding is so much more than simply choosing a company name and logo. We know that purchasing decisions are made on emotion, so a corporate brand needs to influence that and tell a unique story.

Key Components of a Strong Corporate Brand

Corporate branding objectives include the following strategies:

• Create an agreed vision – By having clear corporate brand aims, and a road map on how this can be achieved. 
• Business Analysis - It benefits to evaluate your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats by performing a SWOT analysis. 
• Define your target market – Understand their habits and learn how they are currently being communicated to. 
• Research - the market well, including your competitors and any potential gaps. 
• Track the progress and review regularly - Your corporate branding objectives should also be measured to ensure that you can track progress efficiently.

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Benefits of Strong Corporate Branding

Here, we outline 5 advantages of corporate branding:  

1. Creating Brand Awareness

   In a sea of competitors, having a clear corporate image is crucial. Gone are the days of creating a broad corporate branding strategy; choosing a niche and ensuring that you're talking your customer's language is now far more important. 

2. A Competitive Edge

   Having a corporate brand which your target market can identify with is what sets you apart from your competitors. As your brand recognition and loyalty grows, your corporate brand and individual products will elevate, giving you a competitive edge. 

3. Employee Advocacy

   If your parent brand has clearly defined mission statement and employee guidelines and this is reflected in your corporate branding, your employees are far more likely to feel connected and advocate for the company. Employees tweeting positively on their company’s values can supply an organic way of marketing the company and retain valued staff. 

4. Creating Brand Loyalty

   A strong corporate identity will attract customers and later maintain loyalty. A repeat customer is much cheaper to market to. Winning the hearts of your customers is the key to effective long-term sales. If a customer feels associated with the corporate brand, this will positively affect individual brand launches. 

5. Successful Product Launches

   With a strong corporate brand, you can build on this sturdy base when launching new products. With an existing loyal following, you already have a captive audience and this can make the introduction of new products more cost effective to market to. Clients might even hotly anticipate new releases! 

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How to Develop Effective Corporate Branding Strategies

Identifying and understanding the target audience

More effective marketing campaigns can be formulated by identifying and understanding your target audience. Start by defining your audience by tracking their behavior, psychographics and other criteria based with respect to the audiences’ age, gender, location, interests, values, etc. It is necessary to conduct thorough market research to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience which can occur in the form of surveys, focus groups, or in person interviews. This process also calls for benchmarking, which essentially require a business to look into how their competitors are affecting the market and how they are outreaching clients. By doing so, it allows your business to identify an missed opportunities or to formulate ways of differentiating the brand.
 

Crafting a unique brand voice and messaging

Creating a unique brand voice and messaging structure contributes to good branding, which can be achieved by a thorough understanding of your company’s core mission. In turn, the brand voice should align with your core mission and company values. This process also requires an in depth understanding of your target audience through market, which will allow you to further define your brand’s tone of voice. Once established, a business should maintain consistency in tone across all communication channels by creating guidelines that can be followed. The aforementioned strategies will enable the creation of a unique brand voice and messaging structure that not only aligns with your company’s values but one that also resonates with your target audience.
 

The role of visual identity

The concept of visual identity plays a crucial role in the process of branding. In essence, visual identity refers to the visual components and elements of a brand, which often includes a brand’s typography, color palette, and imageries just to name a few. These components can be used to identify and further differentiate a brand from its competitors. Similarly, consistent visual identity is key to establishing recognition when the look and feel remain consistent across all marketing channels. In summary, visual identity is a subset of branding as it remains to be a vital vehicle to formulating connection and resonance with a business’ target audience over time.

Conclusion

Corporate brand credibility lays the foundation for expansion with a clear vision and objectives. This is not only an outward-facing exercise, but a strong corporate brand will also have the support of loyal employees who advocate for the company. When you understand your target market, you are ready to create a solid corporate brand. Be clear on your brand objectives and you’ll see a swifter return on investment and long-term sales for years to come.