Branding is critical in today’s business world whether you run a large company or manage a startup. This is because the world is radically changing and some of the drivers of these change include the internet, globalization , social media and internet of things. The internet is helping make customers, smarter and savvier Globalization on the one hand, is increasing competition as you no longer must deal with those in the local, home environment but also on the international scene. Social media is built around interactive communications, often between two or more people while the internet of things is making our buildings, cars, plumbing smarter through the integration of technology.
What these means is that the entry barriers to running a business is becoming lower and lower. Getting access to global communication is relatively easy and the barriers to reaching customers via communication channels has been significantly lowered. This means you do not have to spend so much money running advertisements on traditional media channels such as television and print newspaper. Even manufacturing has become a lot easier as countries such as China have found a way to make low-cost manufacturing available to business owners. The video by Mauro Porcini provides further insights on this.
Brands have now become the topic of communication and part of the conversation going on online about them relates to their values or feedback about what their customers experienced either with the products or with engagement. In class we were made to understand that people don’t buy products anymore , they much prefer experiences. People make purchase decision based on how they feel and what stories they would become a part of if they were to associate with a brand.
As entrepreneurs, my team and I struggled a bit with the image and values we wanted associated with our brand. I have learned that there is so much content being generated daily – these range from new product launches, to negative stories about celebrities, All these variety of information is competing for the attention of the consumer and so businesses can no rely on the traditional methods for attracting and retaining customers.
What all these means for as an entrepreneur, is that for my business to rise above the noise and succeed, I have to find a smart way to become relevant in the conversations going on and to the people my business is targeting. One of the ways that I can achieve this is by being up-to-date on the latest trends in my industry. Accenture reports an estimate of $1 trillion as the potential revenue that businesses lost to competitors in 2017. So in development of my products and developing my business strategy, I have to ensure that the customers are always at the centre of the design.
According to Mckinsey, one of the ways I can do this is through data-driven insights. Data can help with understanding business trends and investing in the right marketing strategy. For example, when working on the marketing strategy for our journal, we realized that not all social media channels were useful for marketing our products. We did some research, comparing information from Statista and the Passport database and found out that facebook and Instagram were much preferred by our customer group as opposed to twitter or Linkedin. This information was important for us as it not only allowed us to prioritize scarce resources but helped us narrow down what channels we needed to start building relevance in. This was a key takeaway for me.
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