101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 82:
A STRONG BRAND
In areas where the brand and brand image is a powerful factor, it is important to actually use that in selling. A strong and positive brand image is an expensive thing to create and maintain, and many well-known brand names have been many years in the making. The obvious way a brand is exploited is through advertising and other promotional activity, but if the brand is well used in selling, it can strengthen sales success.
Idea
From the pen manufacturer Parker Pens…
Pens are big business. A large proportion of more expensive pens are bought as presents, and another large part of the market is pen bought as business gifts (they are probably the commonest product used in this way). So while all (well, most) pens write effectively, many sales have more to do with other factors. In this context two factors are whether a pen will make a suitable, and perhaps lasting, gift, showing a degree of care, or help to promote positively a company that uses pens bearing its name as a part of the communication mix.
Less well-known brands are at a disadvantage in this context. Someone may not appreciate being given an unknown brand as a present, and a business person sent a pen as a promotional gift, perhaps at Christmas, will not respond in the right way if they only say, “Another tacky old ballpoint”. So the brand is an important part of the sell.
Parker stresses its “pedigree”, its quality and reliability, and its image. It can sell you a pen costing hundreds of pounds that will be a memento for life, or amore reasonably priced pen that still has real presence, status, and which will be seen as something worthwhile. In both cases the pen needs to be seen as something to be treasured. It is not the ink or its ability to write that does that, although design is an important part of the appeal: it is the brand image.
In practice
- Branding has been described as providing customers with insurance; this is a good way of looking at it. The brand gives people a measure, something to indicate what their expectations should be, and an assurance that promises made will be met.
- Branding is an asset to anyone selling, should be used accordingly.