Brand Extension – Definition, Advantages, Success and Failures.

Brand Extension

Brand extension is marketing strategy in which a marketer launches a new product with well-developed brand using the same brand name. Brand use this strategy to increase visibility and leverage equity.

An existing brand that develops brand extension is known as parent brand. For example, Nike dealt only with shoes but now it has variety of products like watches, caps, jackets and so on.

While there can be significant benefits in brand extension with significant failures in brand extension. With every advantage there is disadvantage.

The advantages of brand extension:

1.    It increases brand image.

2.    Cost of developing new brand is reduced.

3.    Consumers can now seek for variety

4.    There are packaging and labeling efficiencies.

5.    The expense of introductory and follow up marketing programs is reduced

The disadvantages of brand extension:

1.    Brand extension may get loss of reliability, if it is extended too far.

2.    There can be chances of damaging the image of the brand by the new product.

3.    If the brand extension has no advantage over competing brands then it may lead to failure.

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Leadership: Do’s and Don’ts to become a Successful Leader

Remember the clichéd phrase “Take respect and give respect”?

To become a successful leader you have to follow these words. The most sad thinking of a leader is expecting employees to follow them because they have “so called” title. It is very wrong to expect employees to follow you always. A title is of no use if you are not respected by your employees.

 To know how successful you are as a leader should know what people think about you. Respect cannot be gained through a title rather it should be earned. It is very important to have right communication between you and those whom you lead. A leader can never ignore their employees, if a leader does then be prepared for a professional disaster waiting for you.

Be open to your employees’ suggestion, after all you are human being, you are not omnipotent to know everything what your employees want from you. Evaluate yourself, are you spending time with your employees managing their issues or letting them manage on their own? Are you spending “quality” time with your employees (remember “quality time” means can be for 2 minutes to 2 hours which is very useful)?

You as a leader should be able make difference between dangerous risks and overly cautious. Falling in one stream is not a good form of leadership attitude. You should be a problem solver for your employees and not a problem creator.

An employee mostly relies on their leaders for moral support and mutual understanding in their difficult times. A leader is a backbone of employees during their grim situation. Never under-estimate your employees as they can make and break your business anytime!

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Five Tips for Branding Small Businesses

Do not follow the myth that Branding is only for large companies and not for you. Follow these five tips to brand your small business as big business.

Tip#1 Your Brand Logo doesn’t Really Matter-

Would you choose MSN over Google because the logo is not so attractive? A good professional logo is great but it rarely increases the sales. It is more important to include your logo in every piece of communication. Include your logo in newsletters, letter heads, envelopes, invoices, yellow pages ad, building signage and so on.

Tip#2 Have a Professional Website-

It is good enough to have a website which will reflect your brand.  Your website should be updated at least once in 2 years. The website should include all the relevant information in detail. If you are not on web then you are nowhere. These days’ people refer internet to get the information about anything.

Tip#3 Blogs are Good-

Blogs help your business on multiple levels. Firstly, valuable content on a consistent basis will make you look like expert.  People are looking for experts and not apprentices. The software that powers blogs has multiple advantages.

Tip#4 Blogs are good but they are just one tool-

A blog should not only be your marketing tool. You can market through various other tools, like direct mail, email campaign, webinars, sponsor a local and attend tradeshows. There are a thousand numbers of ways for you to be noticed.

Tip#5 Prepare on page corporate view-

Use short sentences in short paragraphs - people like to read it quickly. Also make it conversational because it is not a whitepaper. Your one page view should include your value proposition, target audience benefits, previous audience experience and a mini case study and do not forget your contact information.

#Bonus Tip- Branding is as much about your people as anything else- Never forget the best interaction comes from one-on-one conversations between executives, suppliers, employees and customers. Employees that want to help and do the best job possible go a long way. 

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How to Brand your Brand?

Branding your brand. A brand is a message based upon a promise and expectations of the product/service and overall company. The message is developed and distributed via various channels for consumers to receive and react. As consumers encounter, experience the product/service and develop a relationship they begin to influence the brand.

So what can a company do to increase their recognition at marketplace? Here are 10 tips to how to brand your brand to increase the name recognition of your firm.

1.    Hire a branding company to bring your image and message under a brand.

2.    Develop a mission statement that shows your reason for being and the value you provide to your customers.

3.    Develop a memorable tagline that expresses who you are and what you do.

4.    Make a matrix of all those you would like to reach in the next year and the potential influencers on those people.

5.    Develop all collateral and image materials to coincide with the brand and your message.

6.    Regularly write and issue press release to the media, your website, and onto the internet.

7.    Diversify all marketing, PR and media to reach the markets where your clients are to be found.

8.    Participate in at least two national and local industry conferences.

9.    Create and issue an online or direct mail newsletter.

10. Participate in professional internship programs.

Branding your brand is very important task to look into. Without perfect branding you will not be recognized at the marketplace.

To know more on Branding, grab a copy of Build YourBrand on web. 

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Know your Leadership Styles

Leadership styles can be defined as how a person plays the role of a leader. If we discuss in detail then we need to interpret his behavior with his team mates, his attitude towards work and peer communications.

There are three kinds of leadership styles, they are:

1.    Authoritarian (Autocratic) Style: The term authoritarian defines itself. It is sort of “I want you to do this or that,” approach. In this case, all the decisions either small or big are in the hands of leader. It is usually taken in negative aspect, but this style is adopted to complete the work according to the requirements of it.

2.  Democratic Style: Also known as participative style. Here, the decisions are taken by the opinions of all the team members and with the consent of employees the leader takes the final decision. The boss becomes participative here helping the employees during work.

3.    Free reign: This kind of leadership style is risky for the leader as well as the management. In this type of style the leader gives authority to one of his team member to take decisions related work. If this style is practiced, it is well and good; otherwise if something goes wrong the leader cannot blame anyone.

These leadership styles can be found in the corporate world. Want to know more on leadership, sign-up the form or visit the link the below

http://contentreach.com/ebook-store.asp

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It’s all about Brand Packaging. Are you replicating your company’s image through your brand?

Your brand image is your company’s image. Does your brand reflect your company profile? What is your brand talking about you in the market?

It is important to realize that packaging always either has a negative or positive influence on the purchaser. A negative impression can detour a potential customer, just as a positive reaction can influence a customer to buy. A time to pay special attention to your packaging is when you are in the launch of a “new” brand.   

Packaging can be judged and represented by the following common business tools:

·         Business cards and stationery

·         Website

·         Answering system

·         Email address

What does your business cards and stationery saying? What does your website say about your company? What does your answering system say about your company? And what does your email address talk about your company?

These areas can strengthen or weaken your image of your brand. Use a valid image, formal/business email address so that it builds your image quality and your company’s reputation.

Clients, customers, prospects, will measure your company’s image on these areas. These act as very important keys to build your brand and your organization’s status.

Grab a copy of Build your brand on web, now!!!

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Best Practices for Email Deliverability

To make sure your email marketing is delivered properly has become difficult task these days, with emerging Spam filters. The open and click through rates have increasingly come down by 20-30% due to incorrect Spam filters.

Permission- Confirming people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for email deliverability. When you are starting email campaigns make sure you have permissions from the leads to send emails- i.e. opt-in emails. These people who are in the opt-in email list will not spam your emails. If the target audience is new for email campaigns, give them unique links so that they can sign up or emails in future from you.

Subscriber Addresses- When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be thrown away accounts and typically have shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance- Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounces when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list.

Message Format- Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity. It is widely supported by most email client software as well. If sending HTML it is important to always send plain text alternative messaged, also called text/HTML multi-part time format.

Content- Even content is filter based. Be careful while using words/phrase, Website URL, Images or Attachments. These things can be used by someone else to send Spam emails and cause damage to your reputation and your business. Also avoid using emails which is filled only with images, this might cause Spam.

These are few best practices to avoid Spam emails.

To know more tips and best practices of Email Marketing, Grab your Copy now!! 

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