Corporate Branding and Identity Key Terms

Get a handle on corporate branding with these helpful ideas

Whether you’re a successful, established business or the new kid on the block, your corporate brand and identity will make you or break you. Consumer psychology dictates that most people purchase things based on emotion, so if customers have negative emotions regarding your company logo, for example, then chances are they will steer clear of any products that bear that logo. To help you better understand the importance of a strong corporate brand and identity, here are some key terms to get you thinking.

 

Corporate branding

When a company attaches its name to a product or service it is practicing corporate branding. Branding is one of the most important ideas in marketing, as it is what gets your company's name out there.
Try: Get back to the basics with this article on corporate branding from wiseGEEK.

Brand loyalty

Once you have branded your products or services with your name, then the idea is that once your customers get to know your company and products, they will look for your company name on other products that they want to buy and brand loyalty is born.
Try: Brandchannel has an in-depth discussion of brand loyalty and what drives the consumer to keep coming back.

Corporate identity

Every company has a personality, and that personality is its corporate identity. It's "who they are" as a company that makes them identifiable when up against competitors.
Try: Who better to find out what corporate identity is than a company that specializes in it, like Corporate Identity Designer.

Touch points

Touch points are the tangible things in the idea of corporate branding. Branding is the general umbrella term for the act of incorporating different touch points into your company identity like a logo, advertisements, stationery, product packaging and the uniforms of employees.
Try: eye-SPEAK delves into the importance of incorporating touch points into your corporate branding plan.

Corporate brand equity

Are you a well-established company with a history of successful products or services or are you a start-up company? If the first statement is true, then chances are you have built up some corporate brand equity, or "positive feelings," in the minds of your customers. The result is that they take to your products or services faster than they would to the products or services of that start-up, which has very little brand equity.
Try: If you’re looking for detailed information on corporate brand equity, read this helpful article at Article Dashboard.

Positive brand image

You may have the same product or service as the next guy, but the only way to grab a large part of the market share is if you have a positive brand image. This means that the customer has to associate something positive with your product - quality or prestige, for example - to want to be a repeat customer.
Try: Rockbridge Associates explains how a positive brand image helps your company.

Copyright © 2011 Business.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

---