Secure Your Place in the Market [3 of 4 Steps to Building and Maintaining Your Brand]

My last post talked about building your brand in its early stages through getting exposure and building trust. Even more importantly, you need to take action to maintain your brand position. Here are my tips on how to do it.

Step 3: Secure Your Place in the Market

Advertising plays a supporting and vital function to the kind of reaching out to the customer as described before. It serves as a reminder of the brand and is needed to ensure your brand is chosen instead of your competitor's brand. If you look at brands like Coca Cola or McDonald's, you will notice that they spend millions on advertising. This is absolutely necessary for them to show to consumers they are still the top brand, rather than Pepsi or Burger King. Whenever you see a Coca Cola advert, walk past a McDonald's restaurant, or look at their piece of branded merchandise you are reminded of these brands, even if you don't really pay attention at the time. Each of these instances of exposure to the brand is called an impression. The impact of advertising is measured in terms of the number of these impressions. If you are looking to gain the most impact out of your advertising campaign, it is worth looking at your cost per impression. TV and national newspapers have famously large costs per impression. Airing or publishing them can be costly, especially if you choose to broadcast during the high demand periods or have full page adverts. Consider the table below showing results of the 2013 Advertising Specialities Impressions Study (the research was done in America, hence the cents, but it's just as relevant in the UK):

This information shows how the average cost per impression of corporate gifts is relatively small, compared to adverts.

If you combine it with the information gathered by the BPMA in their 2013 study, which showed how promotional products are more memorable and create more loyalty then other forms of advertising, then the benefits of using branded gifts become clear. If you've ever wondered why Coca Cola would give away their free branded glasses or McDonald's would include a free toy in their Happy Meal, you will now see that it is an attempt to keep the impression of these brands with you for longer. Any form of advertising aims to secure your brand position within your market. From that point, the only way for you is up. Read on to find out how to ensure this happens. Continue reading this series here: Grow your Brand [4 of 4 Steps to Building and Maintaining Your Brand]