Building Brand Equity

First, let's define brand equity:

Brand Equity is the amount of money that customers are willing to pay just because it is YOUR BRAND. Example: generic coffee vs startbucks, cola vs Pepsi (or Coke)....

How do you develop a brand strategy that builds up your brand equity?

Essentially, there are many different building blocks to any strategy, particularly when it comes to branding. So in this post we will focus on the core foundation of building your brand: Your Unique Value Proposition.

A unique value proposition is simply defined as "what is it that YOU offer that is better than what your competitor can offer". What's so unique about YOU (or product, or service, or company) that others don't already deliver.

With that in mind, your first project to building your brand equity will be to research your competition's positioning and identifying what is it that they offer. In many instances you may have to design a branding strategy that literally carves out a "spot" for yourself that your competitors haven't though of yet. A benefit to your brand that others do not focus on in their branding.

What are your customers' wants and needs and what exactly is your competition offering to fulfill those? In researching this information, you may even find an unfulfilled want or need that you can offer, so then your brand strategy can focus on that.

The point of this research is to find out a VALUE that you can offer to your customers that others are not already offering or that you can offer BETTER. Now if you are thinking "price" then think again. Pricing is a strategy in and of itself, however, does not stand on its own two feet in branding. People in general WILL pay more for a brand just because of the perceived value it delivers.

Key learning: the foundation of your branding strategy starts with a UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION.