Put simply, branding is the strategy – identity, message, experience - while marketing is the tactic – research, advertising, promotion.

People commonly mistake marketing for branding. They spend thousands of dollars to get their brand out there in a big way but brand awareness does not always translate into sales.

Effective branding can elevate your business from mundane to memorable and help you stand out from the crowd. The more emotion customers have with your brand, the more they will be delighted to buy from you. This is brand equity - the value from connections and relationships that customers have with your brand.

Develop Your Brand Strategy

Branding is essentially the image you want to burn into potential customers' minds. It includes all aspects of your business – from logo and tagline to products/services to the way you engage with customers, suppliers and staff.

Here are some questions to consider for a successful brand strategy:

• Where do you see your business going? (vision)
• What does your brand believe in and stand for? (values)
• How is your brand different from others? What are your strengths?
• How do you want your brand personality to come across?
• What brand promises are you offering?
• What qualities do you want customers to associate with your brand?
• What do you want customers to say about your products/services and brand?

Connect Your Brand Strategy With Marketing

Once you have established your brand identity, you can plan how to get your message across and connect it to your marketing activities. For example:

• aligning branding with marketing and business goals
• positioning products/services in relation to potential customers and competitors
• creating marketing programmes and messages by target audience and product/service
• identifying which marketing efforts to focus on, e.g. mainstream media, direct mail, social media, viral video, etc
• deciding what messages to run on which media
• building relationships with potential customers

When branding and marketing work tightly together, they will bring enormous benefits such as:

• higher sales
• loyal customers who not only recognise your brand but understand the qualities that make you better than the competition
• commanding a premium price
• mind share – customers think of you as the first and only choice
• fencing off competitors and protecting your market share

Get Help With Branding & Marketing

This guide is only the starting point of your branding journey. You may want to hire a branding consultant to carry out strategic research and develop your brand strategy.

IE Singapore runs training courses and offers consultancy services to help SMEs develop their brands.

• Starting Your Brand Journey 
• BrandPACT

SPRING Singapore and the Marketing Institute of Singapore have developed an online SME Marketing Toolkit to help SMEs develop their marketing and branding strategy. It consists of guides, checklists, tips, templates and case studies.