Why is branding important?

Your customer’s memory is like a room full of moving boxes waiting to be packed.  When they see or hear a marketing message, they take that memory and categorize it in a box in their brain.  When they get to a point where they are ready to make a decision to buy from a company in your category, they look back into their memory at the boxes labeled in that category.  If you have competition, there will likely be several of these boxes in their brain, and they usually choose the box with the most memories in it.  If your marketing doesn’t have a common thread that runs through it like a logo, colors or a common message, those marketing messages that reached that person will likely be thrown into separate boxes, spreading out those memories and making the decision to choose you more difficult.  And let’s face it, customers usually choose the easiest option.

This is why branding is so important.  If you are going to spend your time, effort and money on marketing, you want it to all land in the same box so that you can be the company most likely to be chosen. 

In the customer’s head, it sounds something like this:  “I don’t know anything about any of these companies so I’m going to choose this one because I’ve heard of them before.  They must be pretty good.”

How often have you thought that before choosing to buy from a company?  If you’ve done it, you can bet your customers are doing it too.