While “branding” a product is all about promoting a term, symbol, or product name, public relations (PR) experts view their job as also pitching something with marketing and advertising efforts. The internationally known “Coca-Cola” brand owes part of its success to an aggressive public relations campaign that has made drinking Coke akin to apple pie, baseball, and other American “brands.” There is a view that proper branding mixed with good PR can result in both higher sales and customer loyalty for a product or service.

Some people think branding is an afterthought, unimportant, or largely irrelevant to the grand scheme of marketing. Those people are wrong. Demonstrably, inescapably wrong in both the substance and context of their ideas on the subject. While it is certainly true that the importance of branding can be overstated – it is, after all, not the only important metric for success in branding – the plain fact is, too many marketers don’t put enough thought, energy, effort, or resources into their brand.

When most people think about brand-building campaigns, viral videos, and PR stunts, they tend to think about the examples from businesses in the B2C industry. This could be because companies in the B2C industry have shown that their consumers matter to them, or because those companies need to stand out from the competitors and become memorable.

On the other hand, in the B2B industry, the purchasing decisions of the consumers tend to be largely influenced by longevity and return on investment (ROI), instead of on trends and statements. Nevertheless, the core purchasing beliefs are the same with both types of audiences – consumers prefer to spend money with brands that they trust and like. That’s why companies in the B2B industry should be investing in establishing a unique brand image. For many, the professional image they’ve had for years seems to be coming to an end.

About a decade ago, practically the only way that makeup and beauty brands could get noticed by the public was by securing a spot inside a popular magazine, or by getting endorsed by a celebrity.

Plenty of things have changed since then, but one fact remains: the effectiveness of beauty PR strategies in the beauty industry. Beauty brands and companies have a lot of market competition, given the sheer number of different brands available to consumers.

There is no excuse not to understand consumers in order to empathize with them.

As uncertainties associated with the pandemic remain the norm, businesses must be aware of consumers’ emotional state, and lead with empathy in all marketing and advertising efforts.

College students are a massive demographic and consist mostly of 18 -24 year olds. Since college students are geographically stagnant for 4 – 5 years, a business has a lot of time to develop branding and marketing aimed specifically at them. However, they also represent one of the world’s most elusive types of customers. They have certain noteworthy characteristics which make them a viable market segment for new product strategies. Given below are some effective ways to market to college students.

1) Trials and samples – College kids like free stuff. Free samples also lead to heightened visibility. Brand ambassadors should often hand out samples at campus-sponsored events, or host their own events where students can try out their products for free. With the pandemic changing everyone’s behaviors, traditional sampling is no longer considered to be a safe practice. Ambassadors have been replaced by vending machines. Students can enter their contact information on a vending machine and receive free samples and coupons for products.

The key goal of customer excellence is to exceed their expectations.

This does not always require a large financial investment, but it does require investing in thoughts and ideas. Businesses should consider how to adapt to keep customers loyal and to woo new customers.

Whenever an athlete ends up on the cover of magazines such as Sports Illustrated, those magazines show others that that athlete has reached a high point in their career and have become very popular.

This year was the first time an eSports brand was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, which made history and showed how the gaming organization FaZe Clan is influential in the industry.

These days, business communication tends to focus on the customers, and with the sheer number of similar products and services available to them in the market, it’s easy for those customers to switch from one company to another.

Companies that are able to prioritize the customer journey through communication can get a competitive edge because these days, customer support isn’t the only thing that buyers are looking for.