The 5 Most Important Principles for Brand Management Success

There are a number of marketing principles that anyone who wants to be a successful brand manager needs to know like the back of their hands. In this article, we’ll take you through five of these.

Marketing principles for brand managers

Build solid brand equity

For your product and/or service to be truly successful, you need loyal customers who repeatedly buy from you. Remember the case we told you about where the supermarket chain lost millions because they were out of stock of Coca-Cola? The cooldrink giant’s powerful brand shows just how a brand can translate into hard-earned cash.

So the first step for a brand manager when he or she in building a solid brand in the digital marketing space is to ensure that they build brand equity in the minds of their consumers. In other words, you need to imbue your products and/or services with such value so that your customers feel that they have no choice but to buy from you.

Know who your competitors are

In the market space that you operate in, as part of your digital marketing strategy you need to know who you are playing against. You need to know what their strengths and weaknesses are so that you can make sure that you position your brand in such a way that potential customers come to you and not them as well as that your competitors aren’t enticed to buy from them and not you.

Establish your competitive advantage

When developing your brand you need to firmly establish in the minds of consumers why they need to buy from you and what benefit they will have from having your products in their possession. Swedish retailer, IKEA which produces affordable home furnishings and furniture, has managed to be so successful – even though they require customers to deliver and assemble their products themselves – by playing on customers’ perceptions that because Sweden produces good, safe, well-built goods and IKEA is a Swedish company their products must have these qualities as well. Thus people are prepared to buy their products as they are good value for money and of a superior quality.

Effective brand management entails choosing your channels carefully

A brand manager must choose the channels, on which he or she will decide to the company’s product, very carefully based on their carefully defined target market. If an incorrect channel is chosen, this will result in many, many thousands of lost marketing expenditure. To find out which channels are appropriate, the brand manager will have to conduct a lot of research among their current customer base to find out what channels – such as social media, online magazines or print publications – they frequent so that the brand can attract like-minded people.

Be careful with choosing your price points

Consumers are extremely price sensitive. Price something too high or low and you can alienate potential lucrative buyers of your products and/or services. For example, if a luxury car is priced too low, the consumer will most probably elect not to purchase it because they’ll ask why it is so cheap or what is wrong with the vehicle. It is the brand manager’s job – in conjunction with the finance department – to make sure that the company’s offerings are not priced out of the market.

There are many more principles, such as those mentioned above, which will assist a brand manager to be successful in the corporate world of brand management. On the Digital School of Marketing’s Brand Management Course, South Africa’s premier digital marketing course, we teach you these and so much more. Course modules for this digital marketing course include:

• Developing an identity for your brand
• Developing Brand Equity for your products, services and/or business
• Positioning your brand well in the marketplace so that it is easily distinguishable from your competitors
• Making your brand messaging cohesive
• Communicating effectively in your marketing efforts
• Managing a corporate brand
• Developing branding growth strategies
• Mastering the fundamentals of marketing communication concepts.

Contact DSM | Digital School of Marketing

This digital marketing certificate is accredited by the MICT SETA. This means that you will be receiving quality education with the highest stamp of approval when you sign up for the Digital School of Marketing’s Brand Management Course. Follow this link to find out more and to become a brand manager who is in hot demand!