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46 May | 2023 Business I f we told you there was a way you could establish and grow a relationship between your company (your brand) and consumers, how much would you pay? Well, you don't have to pay anything because the knowledge and advice in this article are free. So, just what is brand marketing? Here are four defi nitions, all with slight variations but also common themes. 1. Amazon—surely a marketing genius if there ever was one— defi nes brand marketing as "… promoting a brand's products or services in a way that elevates the brand as a whole. It involves creating and maintaining brand-consumer relationships and marketing brand attributes—the traits that people think of when they envision a particular brand." 2. Bynder, an international digital asset management company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, explains brand marketing as "A long-term strategic plan to continuously boost a brand's recognition and reputation, with the goal of developing an ever- growing base of loyal customers. is is achieved by continually and consistently communicating the brand's identity and values in meaning ful and engaging ways." 3. "Brand marketing is a slow- drip strategy that focuses on telling your company's story, clearly and consistently, to your specifi c audience," says Built In, an online community for startups and tech companies. 4. Finally, G2, a software marketplace based in Chicago, Ill., says "Brand marketing is a long-term strategic plan to promote a brand as a whole instead of marketing individual products or services. It shares a compelling story to generate brand awareness among prospects and build a reputation." To understand brand marketing, one must fi rst understand the two terms—"brand" and "marketing"— independently. In simple terms, a "brand" is a customer's perception of a product or service—a perception created and managed by the company, and "marketing" is the process of building awareness of that brand. erefore, brand marketing involves building awareness of a brand among prospective customers by managing a company's reputation and infl uencing the set of attributes associated with company's name. G2 explains that a brand is " … not a logo, an identity or a product. Instead, it is the personality of your company. It's communicated through logos, colors and taglines, and it represents who you are as a company and what you do. A brand is what connects a product to its customers." Is all of this getting to be too much for you? Well, let it all digest while we move on to how to get started. A brand is " … not a logo, an identity or a product. Instead, it is the personality of your company."

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