startup branding Archives

It’s the World of digitization and AI. Everyone in today’s world is enthusiastic to build their own business. So if you start a business you have to start from scratch from Idea generation to Capital to Resources. You need it all. Since the startups have very limited or no resources it is important to be specific about defining the target audience.

You might wonder, especially if you’re in the early stages of designing your startup, why audience analysis is essential. After all, you already know that startup marketing costs can reach up to 20% of your budget. Why allocate 20% of your budget only to Marketing?

Here the question arises What is the need of the Target market Audience? In simple terms, I can say that a target market is the result of a marketing strategy and involves analysis and discussion within the organization. Research has shown that 42% of startups fail because they didn’t find the right market for their startup.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou, Civil rights activist & Poet.

What is the target market?

An organization’s target market is the group of people that it has identified as potential customers for its products based on some shared characteristics. Identification of the target market informs its decisions regarding product design, packaging, and marketing.

The target market may be categorized based on age group, location, income, and lifestyle. Other factors may be taken into consideration, such as their stage of life, interests, and careers.

Here are a few factors that one must consider while defining the target market:

Knowing Your Customer:

Knowing your customer base and focusing on crucial customers has the highest probability of Purchasing. You need to analyze your target market and your customers before launching any product. You should talk to them, listen to them, and see what kind of solutions they seek and how you can solve their problems. Before focusing on the target customers, you should know your current customers. Based on their preferences and choices, where the majority of the people are spending their time. Based on these factors you can be able to target the future audience.

Right Business model:

It’s important to have a good business model as it is the ultimate source of any business success. If any product is unique and has varied features with easily accessible to people, everyone wants to try it. Business models help companies develop, attract investment, recruit talent, and motivate management and staff. They should continuously upgrade their business plan or they’ll fail to anticipate trends and challenges. Apart from marketing to the right people, making them use the product is equally important.

Market research:

Entrepreneurs must always update their marketing strategies and target audience. Continuous research would help to keep up the trend with the different strategies and will also get to know how far they have come along with their competitors in the market. You can take the surveys online and valuable customer feedback.

Niche:

If You know your niche and your target market, It will be easy to spend time perfecting it. Having a specific plan of action for the audience is essential to growing the business. Making a plan and sticking will help in understanding the kind of product and service that is liked by different people.

Research about the competitor:

Research about the competitor will give the overall idea of the competitor. Many organizations sell similar products and can outweigh others by having a strong customer focus and doing the marketing. Engaging in social media platforms helps you know the kind of products and services the competitor is offering its customers and you can plan on your products and services without making things similar to that of your competitors.

According to a study, 50% of the startups fail in their first five year.

But we are not talking about them. We are talking about 20% of the startups, that fail in the very first year. And you know why they fail? Now, this can be the reason for 50% of the startup too, but surely for the 20%.

They don’t take branding seriously.

Branding is one of the most important essentials in business, large or small. But how branding actually works and affects a small business like yours.

Let’s take a brief,

In simple words, your brand is a promise to your customers.

So, the first question that arises is, how to identify the theme of your brand?

Your brand is defined by four things :

What is your company’s mission?
What are the benefits and features of your product or service?
What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?
What qualities do you want your customers to associates with your company?

Once you figure out these four things, how will you present them to your customers?

This is where branding comes into work.

Let’s discuss some proven methods of branding and how they affect your business :

Create a visual idenity

A logo for example is something that gives you recognition. Your logo reminds the customer that you gave them the service and quality of work you promised to give them.

For example- when you see an apple logo what comes first in your mind?

It’s a premium quality, best experience, and luxury. And all these are the things that apple promise to provide, communicates through their visuals.

Integrate your brand

You can integrate your brand into every aspect of your business. Like, how you answer your business calls, it shows how professional you are. What your employees are wearing and what message they are giving to the customers, increase the experience of customers and builds trust.

For example- when you go for a coffee in Starbucks there are order takers who give suggestions for your order which is a very good thing to do to connect with the customer.

Create a voice/tone for your company that reflects your brand

A good voice should be applied to your written communication like website, advertisement, etc. it helps customers to connect with your company which results in making them permanent customers.

Be honest while branding

Don’t say something you can’t do or we can say don’t overhype your brand.

For example, if you are not the best in your field, then don’t say you are the best.

Honesty is the most valuable ingredient of customer experience.

So we can say that branding is the backbone of a business/startup. A good brand gets things like funding, investors, good employees, customers, etc very easily, but a local brand always struggles to get these things.

You must do branding, but do it great.

Tag: startup branding

How to find a Target audience for startups?