How branding can help advertising

Bob Berting

Dec 1, 2020

A brand is intangible. It reflects how you feel about a product — how a product is perceived, particularly by the consumers.

A newspaper’s advertising customers must see a multidimensional business that owns the news market, owns the information market and owns the advertising market.

Our business prospects must realize that branding is a quantifiable, long term, strategic marketing process of building and overseeing perceived value.

FOUR WAYS TO BUILD A BRAND

1. Evaluation — decide on the position of your brand in the marketplace.
2. Get management involved to facilitate a strategic plan.
3. Create an integrated marketing plan that ties in all strategies, marketing vehicles and objectives into a long-range program.
4. Check on the campaign’s progress after it has been underway for a reasonable length of time.

A HARD LOOK AT CHANGING NEEDS AND BEHAVIORS

The vision by management is to build the community. This means the branding model must be for the long term — to see the big picture/ to see the total forest, not just the trees.

This also means salespeople must move their thinking away from special promotions. Particularly, shifting from one-time promotions to thinking that this is real marketing must be a constant.

This means a much greater emphasis on the customers — where the customers become totally primary — and all products and services are adapted to fit the changing needs and behaviors of these primary customers.

It’s easy to forget the changing needs and behaviors of customers, and that’s the reason why many businesses lose out to competition.

FUTURE OF BRANDING

Branding pre-sells the product or service. The endorsement of the newspaper is represented by the branding process, not always by the personal recommendation of a salesperson.

If your newspaper is branded properly, it will be at the heart of the community and be a great help to the sales force.

Actually, the salespeople must be like an evangelism or missionary team, constantly getting more involved in community building activities — which will further the branding process.

These things aren’t just public relations and they’re not charity — it’s real–life service that needs to be done regularly by a business that understands the importance of branding.

BRANDING SUMMARY

Publications should be focused on branding and less on direct sales.

Businesses aren’t just about product sales or marketing — or maintaining new equipment. These are only the ingredients of a basic foundation platform. Branding brings out agenda-setting leadership and vibrant community involvement.

Start thinking more about what your newspaper represent and less on what it produces.

Bob Berting is the author of four best-selling e-books for the newspaper industry — “Dynamic Sales and Image Power;” “Advanced Selling Skills for The Advertising Sales Pro;” “Power Selling Tools For The Advertising Sales Consultant;” and his latest e-book, “Smart Customer Connections” for Advertising Salespeople. Any one book is $19.95 … any two books bundled are $35.00 … three books are bundled at $49.95. You can order on the website, bobberting.com. Read Bob’s books and discover how his vast experience and know-how can help you achieve much more business for you and your publication. You’ll greatly benefit from the wisdom of one of America’s top advertising sales experts. Bob is a professional speaker, advertising sales trainer, publisher marketing consultant and leading columnist in many national and regional newspaper trade association publications. He is the president of Berting Communications and can be reached at bob@bobberting.com or 317-849-5408.