Brand marketing is the practice of promoting your company as a whole, rather than a single product or offer, to build long-term recognition, trust, and an emotional connection with your customers.
Companies in any industry don’t just sell products. They promote a specific promise, and they build relationships with customers through consistent values and experiences.
When customers look for products, services, or solutions to their problems, they’re not just comparing features. They’re looking for companies that can deliver the benefits they want and that match their expectations and values.
With the right brand marketing strategy, you form an emotional link with your customers that keeps them buying from you, even when cheaper alternatives enter the market.
In this guide, you’ll learn what brand marketing is, how it differs from branding and from product marketing, why it matters, real examples, how to build a brand marketing strategy, and how to measure it.
What is Brand Marketing?
Brand marketing is the use of marketing channels to promote your brand’s identity, values, and personality, so that people recognize, remember, and prefer your company over time.
Rather than focusing on the features or capabilities of the products and services you sell, brand marketing highlights what makes your company unique: its mission, its story, the way it treats customers, and what it stands for.
The goal is long term. A product campaign tries to get a sale this week. Brand marketing tries to make sure that when someone needs what you sell, your company is the first one that comes to mind, and the one they trust.
Brand marketing promotes the entirety of your brand identity, from your unique selling proposition to your approach to customer service. It usually includes:
- Brand identity: The visual and verbal elements that make you recognizable, such as your name, logo, colors, and tone of voice.
- Brand story: Your origin, mission, and values, told in a way people can relate to.
- Differentiation: A clear reason why you are different from the competition.
- Emotional connection: Shared values that turn buyers into loyal customers and advocates.
The channels companies use for brand marketing are typically the same ones used for product campaigns: search, social media, content, video, PR, events, and offline advertising. The difference is the message. With brand marketing, the focus is on your identity, values, vision, and mission rather than on a specific product or offer.
Branding vs Marketing: What’s the Difference?
Branding and marketing are two separate but overlapping concepts, and brand marketing sits where they meet.
Branding is about building an identity for your organization that resonates with your customers. Your brand isn’t just your logo or website color palette. It includes everything a business does that shapes how people perceive it, from your business name to the tone of voice in your messages.
Marketing is about promotion. It involves reaching your audience through channels such as email, PPC, SEO, social media, and content marketing, usually to draw attention to a specific product, offer, or action.
For instance, when you run an email campaign to promote a sale, you’re marketing. When you decide how that email looks, sounds, and what it says about who you are, you’re branding.
A simple way to remember it: marketing gets people to notice you, and branding gives them a reason to remember you.
| Branding | Marketing | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | Who are we and what do we stand for? | How do we reach people and get them to act? |
| Focus | Identity, values, personality, perception | Channels, campaigns, offers, conversions |
| Time frame | Long term, built over years | Often short term, campaign by campaign |
| Typical outputs | Name, logo, brand story, tone of voice, brand guidelines | Ads, emails, social posts, landing pages, promotions |
| How it is measured | Awareness, recall, trust, loyalty | Traffic, leads, sales, ROI |
Brand marketing combines the two: it uses marketing channels to promote the brand itself.
Brand Marketing vs Product Marketing
Product marketing promotes a specific product or service: its features, benefits, price, and who it is for. Brand marketing promotes the company behind it.
Most businesses need both. Product marketing drives sales of what you have today, while brand marketing makes every future product easier to sell, because customers already know and trust your name.
If you are looking for tactics that drive short-term sales, such as discounts, contests, and limited-time offers, see our guide to promotional marketing.
Why Is Brand Marketing Important?
Today’s consumers want more from a company than access to the right features and products.
Loyalty and customer retention are built on an emotional connection between a consumer and a company. Brand marketing is how you develop a consistent, compelling identity that earns you a place in your customers’ minds.
With brand marketing, you show your customers that your company stands for more than making a profit. You connect with them through shared values and demonstrate a vision that separates you from the competition.
Brand marketing can help to:
- Build trust: Trust is a deciding factor in what people buy. In Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer special report, 81% of consumers said being able to trust a brand to do what is right was a deal breaker or deciding factor in their purchase decisions.
- Strengthen your reputation: Consistently drawing attention to what makes your business different, such as your vision and values, makes it easier for customers to remember your company.
- Influence purchasing decisions: Customers buy based on their perception of a company and what it stands for. A 2021 study by Razorfish and Vice Media Group found that 82% of US consumers make purchase decisions with purpose in mind.
- Improve marketing ROI: People are more likely to remember campaigns that create an emotional connection, and a strong brand draws attention to your entire company rather than a few products.
- Attract talent: A strong brand helps with hiring as well as sales. Companies with a good reputation find it easier to attract talented candidates.
- Differentiate you from the competition: Any company can create a product with similar features, but copying a complete brand identity is far more difficult.
Brand Marketing Examples
The best way to understand brand marketing is to look at campaigns that promoted a company’s identity rather than a specific product.
Nike, “Just Do It”: Launched in 1988, the slogan rarely talks about shoes. It sells a mindset of determination and athletic achievement, and it has anchored Nike’s brand for decades. It is an example of brand marketing built on a brand story and emotional connection.
Apple, “Think Different”: Apple’s 1997 campaign featured creative and historical figures rather than computers. It positioned Apple as the brand for people who challenge the status quo, which is an example of differentiation.
Dove, “Real Beauty”: Since 2004, Dove has built its brand around realistic, diverse portrayals of women instead of product claims. It shows how shared values can become the center of a brand.
Patagonia, “Don’t Buy This Jacket”: In a 2011 Black Friday ad, Patagonia asked people to think twice before buying its own product. The message reinforced the company’s environmental mission, showing that brand marketing can put purpose ahead of a short-term sale.
Coca-Cola, “Share a Coke”: Coca-Cola replaced its logo on bottles with popular first names and invited people to share them. The product barely changed. The campaign was about connection and sharing, the feelings the brand wants to be associated with.
You don’t need a global budget to apply these ideas. A local bakery that tells the story of its family recipes, or a software company that publishes honest, helpful content under a consistent voice, is doing brand marketing too.
How to Build a Brand Marketing Strategy?
A brand marketing strategy involves more than running a range of different advertising campaigns.
To showcase your brand in the best possible light, you must understand what your company stands for, who your competitors are, and who your target audience is.
If you are starting a new brand, you will spend most of your time on steps 1 to 3, defining who you are before you promote it. If you are working on an existing brand, start by auditing how people perceive you today (reviews, social mentions, customer interviews) and compare it with how you want to be seen. The gap between the two tells you where to focus.
Here are the core steps involved in building a brand marketing strategy:
- Conduct Market Research
- Define Your Brand Identity
- Establish Your Brand Positioning
- Develop Your Brand Marketing Mix
- Build and Maintain Your Brand Reputation
- Continuously Monitor and Evaluate Your Strategy
1. Conduct Market Research
The first step in any successful brand marketing strategy is research. Understanding where your business stands in your market is crucial to connecting with your audience and outshining the competition.
Start by researching your market, looking at trends, common pain points, and the potential customer segments you can serve.
Focus on finding a specific niche. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, ask yourself what kind of customers you’re best positioned to support, and which audiences in your industry are underserved by existing brands.
The most useful research often comes from talking to people directly. Short interviews with customers (and with people who chose a competitor) tell you how they describe their problem, what they value, and what they think of you, in their own words.
A good way to step into the shoes of your customers is to create a set of user personas.
These personas should outline who your customers are, from their demographics (age and gender) to their purchasing behaviors, values, and goals.
Think about the challenge your business can solve for your customers and their primary pain points.
Aside from looking at your target audience, you should also research your competition.
In any industry, there are likely to be similar organizations selling products or solutions like yours.
Define who your main competitors are, and ask what their strengths and weaknesses are. How does your business outshine them, and what makes you special?
2. Define Your Brand Identity
Based on your research, it’s time to work on your brand identity. There’s more to a compelling identity than a great name or logo.
You’ll need to think about the following:
Your brand mission/vision: What does your business stand for?
What are your company's core values, and what do you want to accomplish in your industry (aside from making a profit)?
What led you to create this company in the first place, and how will you deliver on your promises for great services, products, or experiences?
Your brand personality: If your company was a person, what characteristics would it have? Do you want to be seen as friendly and informal or educated and authoritative?
How do you want your customers to perceive you? What tone of voice will you use in your advertising campaigns?
Your visual identity: What should people see when they interact with your business? How can your logo convey your core values and personality? Which colors will you use, and what feelings should they evoke in your target audience?
Your visual identity may include additional assets alongside your logo and color palette, such as brand photography, iconography, and typography.
Your brand story: Bring it all together in a story that tells customers everything they need to know about your origins, mission, and purpose.
Your brand story and identity will form the foundation for all the marketing collateral you create.
3. Establish Your Brand Positioning
Once you understand the core components of your brand identity, you can think about your position compared to other companies in your field.
Brand positioning means capturing a space in your customers’ minds that establishes you as the best solution to their problems.
Looking at your target audience and your competitors, ask which parts of your business set you apart from other organizations.
There are many ways to position your brand.
Some companies focus on being the most “affordable” option in their space. This can work, but it is hard to defend, because a competitor can always cut prices further.
Another option is to position yourself as the source of excellent customer service, or as an innovator with the most exciting new products and services.
Your brand positioning should be based on what your audience needs and what you do best.
List your unique selling points and key value propositions, and define how you will present yourself to different audience segments.
For instance, you may take a slightly different approach when positioning your company to B2B buyers than to B2C consumers.
4. Develop Your Brand Marketing Mix
With your research in hand, you can decide how to promote your brand to your chosen customers.
The right channels depend on the type of brand identity you want to promote.
For instance, if you want to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, you might focus on content marketing and SEO to improve your search rankings.
You could use paid advertising to appear when people search for specific keywords, and experiment with PR, events, and influencer marketing.
If you want to connect with customers on an emotional level and position yourself as a reliable friend or partner, you might focus on social media marketing, where you can show the behind-the-scenes side of your business and build a community around it.
Think about:
- Which channels are best suited to your brand presence? Where do your customers spend most of their time online? Where are your competitors already active?
- Paid and organic marketing: How will you blend organic strategies like SEO and content marketing with PPC and paid social media ads?
- How will you expand your reach? How can you strengthen your brand presence through PR, community events, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and referral campaigns?
Plan a marketing strategy that combines multiple channels and platforms around one consistent brand message. Our guide to building a digital marketing strategy walks through this step by step.
Make sure you can monitor the results of every campaign, so you can increase the ROI of your strategy over time.
5. Build and Maintain Your Brand Reputation
With a good understanding of your brand, competition, marketing mix, and customers, it’s time to put your brand strategy to work.
Once you have designed your brand, integrate it into every asset connected to your company, from your website to your social campaigns.
Consistency builds recognition and trust. It also supports authenticity, which people value: in a 2021 Stackla survey, 88% of consumers said authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support.
A good way to make sure you send a consistent message online and offline is to create a set of brand guidelines.
This is a document that guides your employees and contractors on how to use your brand elements, from your tone of voice to your visual elements, and even which marketing channels you should use.
Develop marketing collateral that highlights your unique selling points and builds relationships with customers and stakeholders throughout the entire customer journey.
This means you’re not only building awareness for your brand but also helping customers see what differentiates you from the competition and why they should keep buying from you.
Monitor your reputation as you build your brand, paying attention to social media mentions and to reviews or feedback left by your customers.
You can use reviews and testimonials as social proof. However, don’t ignore negative feedback.
If a customer has a complaint, show your commitment to excellent service by responding quickly and solving the problem. This strengthens your reputation.
6. Continuously Monitor and Evaluate Your Strategy
Brand marketing is an ongoing strategy that requires regular optimization.
Monitoring and evaluating your strategy helps you make sure you’re sending the right message to your customers and developing a good reputation.
Pay attention to your market, the changing trends in your industry, and your competition, and make changes when necessary to strengthen your brand. The next section covers the metrics to track.
How to Measure Brand Marketing
Brand marketing is harder to measure than a sales campaign, because its effects build up over months and years. Instead of relying on a single number, track a mix of metrics:
- Brand awareness: How many people in your target market know your brand. Measure it with surveys that ask people which brands they know in your category, with and without prompting.
- Branded search volume: How many people search for your company by name. Google Search Console and Google Trends show whether branded searches are growing.
- Share of search: Searches for your brand as a share of all searches for the brands in your category. It is a simple way to compare yourself with competitors over time.
- Direct traffic: Visitors who type your website address or use a bookmark, which you can see in Google Analytics.
- Brand mentions and sentiment: How often people mention your brand on social media, in reviews, and in the press, and whether those mentions are positive or negative.
- Customer loyalty: Repeat purchase rate, retention, and customer satisfaction or Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Set a baseline for each metric before you start, and compare them quarter by quarter. Brand marketing works when these numbers keep improving together, even if no single campaign shows an immediate spike in sales.
Conclusion
Brand marketing is how you promote your company as a whole, not just the products and services you offer.
Branding defines who you are. Marketing gets you noticed. Brand marketing uses marketing channels to make sure people notice, remember, and trust who you are.
With brand marketing, you connect with your customers on an emotional level through shared values and vision.
The key to success is understanding your customers, your competitors, and your brand identity before you start.
Once you know what your business stands for, you can build a strategy that highlights your unique selling points, show your brand consistently on every channel (online and offline), and measure and improve it over time.
To see how brand marketing fits with the other channels, read our guide to what digital marketing is.
