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Market strong brand with these 8 components (+3 tips)

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Marketing

Written by Niek van Son MSc on January 22, 2025

Niek van Son

Last updated February 26, 2025

Introduction

What exactly is a brand? We define brand as follows: a brand is a concept (in the form of a name, term, design or symbol) used to recognize and distinguish a product. We often have a certain feeling about a brand, which makes us choose that brand specifically. The psychology of a strong brand goes a long way: research shows that different brands even activate different brain regions. It is therefore as a matter of course that you want a strong brand for your business.

Inspired entrepreneurs with ambition who have great ideas for a modern product or innovative service naturally want to market their brand strongly from the start. And that's quite a challenge when you're a start-up. A start-up usually has no marketing experience.

What is a strong brand?

A strong brand is one that successfully differentiates itself from its competitors and makes a positive impression on customers. The brand's values are so clear that customers choose products from this brand almost as a matter of course. A strong brand has even more advantages. Working for a strong brand motivates employees, who take pride in their employer. A strong brand also increases bonding with customers and offers plenty of opportunities to turn an ever-increasing turnover.

So a strong brand is recognizable, memorable and trustworthy, building brand loyalty and long-term relationships with customers. Creating a strong brand starts with yourself. That's why we explain to you the 8 components that make up a strong brand. By strengthening your brand, you can grow as an organization and make more profit.

8 components of a strong brand

1. Brand name

The first step is to come up with a strong brand name. A unique, catchy and easily remembered name that differentiates the company, product or service from competitors.

2. Recognizability

A strong brand is easily recognized by its logo, color palette, font and other visual elements. Design a logo that is easily recognizable and represents the brand. Choose a consistent and recognizable color scheme that contributes to the brand identity and visual appeal. And finally, a unique and consistent font that contributes to the brand personality and style.

3. Brand identity

Brand identity is actually the face and voice of your brand; the personality of your brand. A strong brand has a clear and consistent brand identity that is reflected through all marketing and communication channels.

4. Brand values

Brand values are the core principles and beliefs conveyed by the brand that guide decision-making and behavior within the company. They are closely linked to an organization's core values.

5. Brand story

This is the story behind the brand, including the history, founders and reasons why the brand was created. By using storytelling techniques, you can write a strong brand story that will boost your organization.

6. Brand Strategy

Defining your brand strategy is an important part of your brand. It defines what your brand stands for, who your target audience is and what the goals of the brand are. Everything you do in your business should align with the brand strategy.

7. Slogan or tagline

Every good brand needs a slogan or tagline. It is a catchy phrase or sentence that communicates the essence of the brand and helps build an emotional connection with the audience.

8. Positioning

Your positioning in the marketplace is a crucial part of creating a strong brand. With it, you determine what type of customers you will attract and how you will differentiate yourself from the competition.

3 tips on establishing a strong brand in the marketplace

Tip 1. Guarantee offline visibility to potential customers

Startups, zzp'ers taking the gamble and small businesses looking to grow quickly need to see that they are highly visible and findable offline. Seeing is believing, as the saying goes. So make work of good branding and, among other things, make sure you have a recognizable company logo that makes an impression and thus sticks in the minds of those who see it.

Place this company logo on your work clothes, your business premises, company car(s) and, of course, on stationery, envelopes and business cards. By creating attention-grabbing giveaways in the early stages, such as printed pens, USB sticks with your company name or doppers, you will quickly make yourself popular with your first customers and suppliers.

Tip 2. Make sure your website and online services work flawlessly

Very important when coming up with a strong brand name is to present yourself digitally as modern, contemporary and preferably innovative. This can be done in several ways. The basic starting point is to have your ICT affairs in order. This can be done, for example, through shared hosting but also managed hosting. Managed hosting means that the provider takes care of security, updates, configurations and a consistently large bandwidth for your website(s), so that your homepage or web store can be reached quickly and easily.

For smaller brands, a stable shared hosting environment is also sufficient. Most hosting companies have excellent uptime in this area as well. Whether you choose managed or shared hosting, be sure to check what the customer service is like. Because as long as everything is stable, service is the same with many companies. Only when there are problems do you really see what you get from a Web host.

Tip 3. Use social media to get noticed

As a marketing strategy, the use of social media has become inevitable. At least, if you want to stay in the game and appeal to today's generation of young people. Therefore, create a few accounts on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and/or Instagram, for example. And regularly put photos, short stories or enticing videos from and about your company online. This modern marketing strategy is one of the best ways to strongly market a brand!

What are the strongest brands in the world?

Every year, brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance produces a list of the world's strongest brands. Also in 2023, Brand Finance charts which brands have decreased in value and which have actually increased. It is striking that the leaders Amazon (-14.6%) and Apple (-16.2%) have decreased in value. In addition, we see that companies like Tesla (+43.9%), TikTok (11.4%) and Starbucks (+16.9%) have made great strides in value. Remarkably, these are the brands you undoubtedly hear about or have come into contact with on a regular basis. These figures make it immediately clear how important it is for a brand to be relevant and strong: it directly affects the value of your business. According to Brand Finance, this is the list of the strongest brand names in the world in 2023:

  1. Amazon
  2. Apple
  3. Google
  4. Microsoft
  5. Wallmart
  6. Samsung
  7. ICBC
  8. Verizon
  9. Tesla
  10. TikTok

Also discover Tasmanic' s compiled list of company name examples, brand names and read more about corporate branding.

Niek van Son
THE AUTHOR

Niek van Son MSc

Marketing Management (MSc, University of Tilburg). 10+ years of experience as an online marketing consultant (SEO - SEA). Occasionally writes articles for Frankwatching, Marketingfacts and B2bmarketeers.nl.

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