Brand Management Definition & Overview

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Brand management is the bedrock of every business.
• Effective brand management drives leads and sales.
• A brand management strategy helps set you apart from other businesses.
• Branding is more than just your name and logo.

What Is Brand Management?

Brand management is the process of balancing the marketing of a brand. Essentially, it’s the discipline of managing the brand’s marketing, sales, and operations. It’s the task of keeping the brand strong and consistent over time.

More specifically, brand management is the process of creating a unique name, symbol, or image. These components represent your company. Moreover, they help people identify it as originating from a particular company. It’s a crucial part of business, and it’s also something that many companies struggle with.

A brand is the name people give to a product or service. It’s how your company is known to customers and future customers. And it’s what differentiates you from other businesses. Brands are like a promise. They convey who you are and what you stand for. A strong brand can create lasting impressions and increase customer loyalty.

How Brand Management Works

When thinking about brands and marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in the details of strategizing, planning, and implementing. However, brands are big-picture, long-term things. They encompass everything from advertising to public relations to social media.

In particular, brand management is the process of balancing the marketing of a brand. Essentially, brand management is the discipline of managing the brand’s marketing, sales, and operations. It’s the task of keeping the brand strong and consistent over time.

The brand management process looks at all marketing channels as a whole and aims to keep them aligned with the brand’s mission and values. It ensures that marketing strategies and tactics are aligned with the brand’s goals.

Let’s take a look at what this whole brand management thing is and how you can implement brand management in your marketing strategy.

If you’re like most businesses, you’re probably asking yourself what role, if any, brand management plays in your day-to-day operations. The reason you should care about brand management is that it’s the difference between having a struggling business and a successful one.

If you’re not deliberately managing your brand, you’re missing out. It’s one of the most powerful tools in a company’s marketing arsenal. It gives you the ability to inspire consumers to associate your brand with happy memories.

But if you’re doing it wrong, brand management can come across as a rigid, formulaic exercise that doesn’t allow for creativity or a sense of fun.

When executed effectively, brand management helps your company create a lasting client connection.

The main function of brand management is to ensure that your image and messaging are consistent and aligned with its brand values. 

As such, the brand manager needs to have a thorough understanding of the company culture and branding basics. These also include brand values and the unique traits of their organization.

The key to branding success is understanding that brands are more than just a logo, slogan, or name. It’s about more than just a name; it’s an experience people expect and receive when they interact with your company. 

Brand managers have an important job to do. They don’t just need to constantly keep their company’s image in good standing. They also need to be aware of the following aspects of their organization to maximize the success of a branding strategy:

The Tone and Tenor of the Brand’s Voice: Tone is how a company communicates, and it can impact people’s perceptions of the brand. A consistent tone can help build trust with customers by eliminating any concerns they may have about the company’s authenticity.

The Brand’s Content: This includes the words used in marketing materials, social media posts, and other communications. Whether it’s positive or negative, brand content can have a significant impact on how customers feel about your business.

The Nature of Your Communications: This includes where, when, and how you communicate with customers. For example, are you more interested in building a relationship with your customers or making a sale?

Benefits of Brand Management

A strong brand can have a significant impact on your business’s success, both now and in the future. A strong brand can help your company attract new customers, increase sales, and build a stronger competitive advantage.

On top of that, holding onto your current customers and cultivating loyalty is important, both today and in the long term. Once you have a strong brand, it can be a great advantage in marketing and recruiting future talent. A strong brand is something that people recognize, and it can help you stand out in a competitive job market.

Practical Steps for Implementing Brand Management

First, you need to establish a brand strategy. Start by outlining your long-term goals and your vision for how you want your brand to develop over the next few years.

Next, think about the different visual elements of your brand that need to be consistent. These are things like your company name, logo, brand color scheme, and specific messaging. 

Once you’ve identified these elements, you can start to think about ways you can bring these consistent aspects to life in the organization.

For example, you can have a consistent brand presence in the workplace by having a branded fridge. This can help employees feel connected to the brand and its values when they see the brand’s logo every day.

Examples of Brand Management

Let’s say you run a bakery and your core brand value is “Deliciousness.” You want to expand your brand and make it known in a new city, but you don’t know where to start.

One way to establish a stronger brand presence is to use your core values in your marketing activities and other communications. For example, you might write: “Our Deliciousness is off the charts!” Or you can create a report that highlights some of your delicious products.

As another example, let’s say your company sells skincare products. The way you want your loyal customers to feel when they use your products is to feel confident, beautiful and empowered.

You could get bogged down in the details and try to explain the psychological benefits of each product in excruciating detail. But that’s not the kind of brand messaging you want to convey.

Instead, you want to make skincare products feel aspirational and fun. So what are some examples of how you could convey that?

• The brand might have a tagline like ‘We’re all in this together because we’re all beautiful.’
• The company logo could be styled in a way that makes use of color psychology. For example, a yellow and blue logo would evoke positive associations with confidence, fun, and positivity in consumers.
• A company could even host a social media contest with the hashtag #SkincareSelfies. People could post pictures wearing skin care products and share their positivity with followers.

These reasons are why it’s so important to know your target market and reach out to new potential customers. Conducting marketing research will help you get to know who your loyal customer base is. And the better you know your audience, the more refined your branding will be.

And when your approach speaks to your audience, you can reach more people. That’s the ultimate goal of brand management (that, and to drive conversions).

Requirements of a Brand Manager

In order to implement effective brand management, you need to have a thorough understanding of your company’s culture. This includes your brand values and company-specific traits. You should also have experience working in marketing, communications, etc.

Another key requirement of a brand manager is having authority and responsibility within the company. In other words, they should be a leader who is responsible for setting corporate communications and brand messaging. Some of their duties include:

Analysis: Gather intelligence about your competitors, your customers, and the market. This analysis can help you identify what sets your brand apart from the competition and what your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is.

Planning: Map out your various marketing channels, marketing messages, and your sales processes. Then, have your marketing team select a strategy to best attract customers and increase revenue.

Implementation: Put your strategy into action and see how it plays out. This is where you get to see if your brand strategy has been executed well.

Monitoring: Keep an eye on your performance and adjust your strategy as necessary to maintain the health of your brand.

Special Considerations

You can also benefit from brand management if you’re just starting out or if your company is in the early stages of a growth or consolidation plan. In these cases, it can be especially important to establish a strong brand and develop it further.

For example, if you’re just getting started as a small business, it can be challenging to build a consistent and recognizable brand. You don’t have time to build up a strong reputation and name recognition in your industry, so this brand management approach can be helpful.

Summary

Brand management ensures that your brand, image, and messaging stay aligned with your goals and long-term vision. To do that, you need to have a company-wide understanding of your company’s culture, brand values, and brand image.