Have you heard the saying: “Your reputation precedes you.” When we talk about brand equity, that’s exactly where we direct all our focus to. Trust me, the reputational image and the emotional weight that your business holds in the mind and heart of your audience plays a key role in making your company recognizable, trustworthy, and damn irresistible. So, if you truly want to give your business revenue an unprecedented boost, why don’t you focus on building your brand equity?
In this blog, we will unpack the idea of brand equity and its importance for growing your business. What’s more in the blog? You will learn all about brand equity through real-world examples and insights.
Why wait? Just scroll down for a deeper understanding of the concept!
What is Brand Equity
In simple words, brand equity means the value that your brand occupies in consumers’ hearts and minds. Truly speaking, it is not just about money or making your products cheaper for the consumers. It is more than that. Yeah, way more! It’s about making people emotionally connect to your brand. You can even call it “commodity fetishism,” as referred to by Karl Marx (but, unlike Marx, we are more into exploring the positive influence of it on the growth of any business).
Well, it is this commodity fetishism or better say infatuation with your brand’s product that persuades your customers to buy a product from you. Just take Starbucks as an example. Their customers are willing to pay a little more for a Starbucks coffee instead of going for a generic cup of coffee (which is relatively cheaper) because they perceive it to be the best one in the market.
Due to this trust of customers over a product of companies with stronger brand equity, such companies are able to charge 15%-20% extra for their products or services. Now, you must have understood why branded products are always more expensive than local products, even if the cost of production and raw materials used are the same).
Why is Brand Equity Important?
As assessed from the Starbucks coffee case, we can outline several benefits of brand equity for businesses:
- Brand equity ensures customer loyalty. That means people will keep coming back to buy the product from their favorite brand.
- You can increase the price of your product. And you know what? People will pay more unquestioningly.
- Brand equity puts you one step ahead of your competitors without spending on ads. It, indeed, gives you a definite competitive edge in the market.
Brand Equity in Digital Marketing: Does It Help?
As online shopping is increasing, so do the frauds and scams. It is making it extremely challenging for the brands to come into the good books of people. If your business has good brand equity, that’s a big plus point for you.
Undoubtedly, your brand’s online presence has a huge role to play in shaping your brand’s reputation and building your brand’s equity. Here’s how brand equity in digital marketing can be built:
- Remain active and engaged on social media by interacting with your customers. A good customer service team and the use of a chatbot are important in this regard.
- Make content that resonates with your audience. Storytelling can do wonders in this regard.
- For strategic management of brand equity in digital marketing, build a good set of customer reviews and testimonials to showcase it to your potential customers.
Brand Equity Model:
Building a brand does not happen in a day. The brand equity model provides business people with a systematic way of building that value. In this respect, Kevin Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model is the most popular.
Let’s discuss its four stages:
- Brand Identity (Who are you?): It involves your brand logo, tagline, etc.
- Brand Meaning (What are you?): It involves attaching value to your brand through performance and imagery.
- Brand Response (What about you?): It involves building the trust of customers in your brand.
- Brand Resonance (What about you and me?): It involves establishing relationships with your customers and making them advocate for you.
Brand Equity Management System
You know what? Brand equity is not a one-time job. It requires continuous work. You can’t set it and forget it. It demands to be run like a proper system for sustainable equity growth. Here’s how to do it:
- First, measure your brand’s awareness, customer loyalty, and social sentiment.
- After that built it through consistent quality, audience engagement, and transparent working procedures.
- That’s not all to it. You have to protect your brand equity from any crisis or PR missteps.
Brand Equity Examples
Let me cite a very popular example of two brands: Nokia and Apple. Apple products are making rounds while Nokia products have completely vanished from society because Apple gave importance to their audience’s changing needs and changed accordingly, protecting and sustaining their brand equity in a better way.
Final Thoughts
According to the statistics, brands with high levels of equity enjoy 31% higher profit margins than their competitors, making it a jugular vein that keeps businesses alive. Indeed, it can turn a local burger shop into a global fast-food giant. I am not kidding at all. You have an example of KFC right in front of you.
So, what are you waiting for? Get out there, build your brand equity, make the world aware of who you are, and set yourself aside from your competitors. Wanna know how? Just contact UnityDiv for world-class digital marketing services. We are indeed your biggest weapon for building brand equity that will have a lasting presence.
