Why Every Small Business Should Run A Branding Campaign

What Is A Branding Campaign?

Branding is the process of growing a relationship between your business and consumers. Instead of promoting a specific product, service or offer; the purpose of a branding campaign is to promote your business as a whole. A branding campaign will tell your story to consumers and allow people to recognize and differentiate your business from your competitors.

Traditionally, branding campaigns were executed on channels with large audiences, most commonly TV, Billboards, Radio or Newspaper. More recently digital platforms such as social media and display ads have emerged to give small businesses more affordable alternatives to these more traditional channels…

Advantages Of Running A Branding Campaign

Brand campaigns are considered to be highly effective tools for small businesses. There are two main reasons for this:

Exposure

The most basic advantage of a branding campaign is the exposure that they bring your business. Simply put, if people don’t know that your business exists, they’ll never become customers. A good branding campaign will expose thousands of new people to your brand and let them know what you do and why they should do business with you.

Brand Loyalty

For those that are already familiar with your business, a branding campaign will keep your business at the top of their minds and promote brand loyalty. People that are constantly reminded of your business and the qualities that make you unique / better than your competition are more likely to continue to do business with you than those that are not.

What Digital Marketing Channels Should You Use For Branding?

To get the best possible results, it is essential to evaluate the different marketing channels available to you to determine which ones will work best for your business, and your budget. So which digital marketing channels are best for branding campaigns?

Social Media

Social media is a valuable tool for businesses to tell their brand’s story, share their brand’s values and mission. Social media networks also have a large, active audience and advertising platforms that are relatively inexpensive to use. This makes social media an ideal candidate for branding campaigns.

Display Ads

In display advertising, ads are made up of text, images and/or videos which are displayed on website networks like the Google Display Network. These ads are placed on relevant third-party websites in the form of banner, image, and text ads.

An example of a display ad that is included on a news website in the Google Display Network.

Why Run A Digital Branding Campaign?

Traditionally, branding campaigns have always had a couple of drawbacks for small businesses. Firstly, the cost of some offline branding channels like television and billboards is typically higher than many small businesses could afford. The results of these campaigns are also very hard to track. This makes gauging the success of these campaigns almost impossible. This made them a very unpopular option for small businesses.

Fortunately, digital branding campaigns have three advantages over these traditional channels that make them a much better option for smaller businesses.

Trackable

A key element to the success of any marketing campaign is setting clear and measurable goals. By tracking your progress, you are able to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign and determine whether or not it is worth running again in the future.

Digital branding campaigns allow you to track primary branding objectives like how many people your ads are reaching and how often, while also allowing you to track secondary goals like website traffic and sales generated as a direct result of the campaign.

Targeting

To run an effective branding campaign, reaching your target audience is essential. , You need to make sure that the audience you select has the potential to engage with your products and benefit from them. It’s not just about being seen by a broad audience, but being seen by the right people that will truly give you the full benefits of a branding campaign.

Some offline branding channels like television, magazine and radio are able to give basic statistics about their audience to give you a better sense of which of them are better suited to your target market. The targeting capabilities of digital marketing channels, however, are even more powerful. Social media networks allow you to build a target audience using both demographics, their geographic location, and their interests. Display advertising allows you to build audiences using a variety of different methods. These methods include demographics, location, past browsing history and what websites they’re currently visiting.

Value

One of the main reasons to run a digital branding campaign is the value that they can provide your business. Both social media ads and display ads allow you to reach tens of thousands of people for only a few hundred dollars; a fraction of the cost of traditional branding channels like television, billboards and magazines. This makes them a powerful tool for small businesses that would like to expand their reach but don’t have a ton of money to spend.

Wrapping Up

Branding campaigns can be a very useful tool from small businesses. They not only grow the awareness of your business, they can also increase brand loyalty and encourage repeat business. The rise of digital channels like social media and display advertising have made branding campaigns both more affordable and more trackable in recent years; making them a very attractive option for many small businesses.