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Entrepreneurship

How Do You Make Your Brand Grow?

1. Focus on making a great product. The Best brands 8. Marketing is about innovation and influence
never start out with the intent of building a great Innovation thrives where there is great need. Some
brand. They focus on building a great product or of the great brands historically are those that have
service and an organization that can sustain it. brought solutions for people’s particular needs at a
time when they were needed the most.
2. Do the easy things first. Pick a good and easy name
this helps with recall. Position yourself as or find a 9. Increase mobile experience
niche you can comfortably serve in the beginning. . When looking to enhance your brand and
Create an emotional liking for your brand by the customer’s mobile experience, do not bombard
way you communicate, the things you sponsor e.g. your target and other audience with too much
charity or social causes. technical information unless the product requires
so. Product information should be simple and easy
3. Plan the life of your brand, what you will be doing on all platforms used i.e. social or traditional media
in the short medium and long term. The pillars and
values upon which the brand will be built. 10. Integrate online and offline experience
While we don’t have many stores in Zambia that
4. Make it Measurable offer both physical and digital stores, it is worth
With many brand promise examples, the promise noting that as we aim to narrow that gap, having
becomes too many things in an attempt to be a combination of both does help a great deal in
everything to everybody, and ends up being growing great brands. There are several ways of
nothing to anyone. For your brand promise to enhancing the buyer experience as you implement
be effective, it must be measurable. Avoid using your online and offline marketing strategies.
phrases like best quality. Be specific in your
promise. In my journey as a marketer, using the nuggets
shared here above, I have been privileged to be part
5. Make it Meaningful of the small team that worked on establishing the
This is where the old cliché “actions speak louder Atlasmara Brand and was the main consultant for
than words” is particularly true. A brand promise the Zambia Institute of Marketing Brand Refresh
is nothing if it’s not followed through with action. and the rebranding of the Public Service Pensions
Customers will remember you for the experience Fund. Setting up a well-crafted brand has helped all
you give them with actions. these organization inspire confidence amongst their
stakeholders, won a lot of recognition awards in their
6. Personalize communication respective industries and helped them acquire new
Direct digital communication will be achieved clients.
through more-personalised and individualistic For the start company, you too can set your brand for
communication to customers as opposed to growth. You don’t need a big budget, a well-structured
the broad target audience/market approach. and consistent plan.
Organizations need to improve the level of
customer interaction which gives insight to 1. Develop the right product and systems of servicing
customer data. Often times organisations employ your clients efficiently.
broad based targeting and marketing when 2. Take advantage of the cost effective digital
they interact with their customers. However in channels like social media. Do not be tempted to
current times, to enhance brand affinity, a more invest in things like website, lavish offices.
personalised approach is advisable. 3. Professionally design, high quality documents like
brochures, fliers, business cards and company
7. Marketing with a purpose profile that can be easily shared electronically.
In the moment of great competition, a strong 4. Build customer loyalty and trust by the reliability
brand helps organizations to survive. Therefore the you serve with.
purpose should be to build great brands. Brand 5. Always be forward looking at the changing
management should be integrated in all marketing consumer tastes and evolving communication
communication strategies. Building your brand techniques.
should consciously sit in all your 4 P’s of marketing
i.e. Product, Price, Place & Promotion. Ndela Sichizya
Marketer
ntsndela@yahoo.com

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