An important element of creating a successful business involves designing an attractive brand. Branding can help a business attract its target audience to increase product sales and build brand value. Organizations often hope to have a high brand value because it can display a level of financial success. In this article, we identify what brand value is, why it's important, how to measure brand value and provide helpful tips to build it.

What is a brand?

A brand is a term, experience, design or any other factor that may help a consumer identify a seller's goods or services. Brands are often distinctly unique to maintain an easily identifiable image for the public to increase brand recognition and awareness. Marketing strategies involve branding to create products, build partnerships and other factors that may help a business establish their brand and brand identity. Some aspects of creating a brand include:

• Typography: A visual part of a brand's style guide that uses specific fonts to align with a brand's persona.

• Language and tone: The word choice or vocabulary a brand uses in marketing content to describe a brand's mission statement or purpose, products and services.

• Color palette: Various colors a brand uses to represent itself in a logo, media content, advertisements and other channels of communicating brand identity to an audience.

• Logo: A visual element, symbol or graphic that represents a brand, product and company to help an audience quickly identify a brand.

What is brand value?

Brand value is the financial amount a company's brand is worth in the economy. It also involves determining how much money an individual or a merger company would pay to purchase the brand. Aspects of brand value include:

• Customer loyalty

• Purchase frequency

• Product pricing

• Product availability

• Quality of products or services

• Brand awareness

• Brand equity

• Customer perceptions

• Marketing partnerships and relationships

Why is brand value important?

It's important to understand brand value to evaluate how competitive a company or product is in its market. This helps an owner of a brand or company identify the net worth of a company if they're looking to sell it. They may also develop strategies to become more competitive in an industry to increase their brand value. There are multiple approaches to determining brand value including:

• Cost-based valuation

• Market-based valuation

• Income-based valuation

• Customer-based valuation

• Net promoter score valuation

What is brand equity?

Brand equity is the significance of a brand's worth through consumer brand recognition. Brand equity measures commercial value rather than financial value. Brands with high quality products and memorable attributes often have higher recognition rates than competitor brands. To build brand value, a brand typically builds brand equity as well. Here are some factors that may help build brand equity:

Brand awareness

Brand awareness refers to the level of a consumer recognizing a brand. Brand awareness often involves consumers feeling an emotional connection to a product, company and brand because of the brand's persona and quality of products. An organization may increase brand awareness using branding strategies such as promoting products through various media channels, influencer partnerships and advertisements.

Brand loyalty

Brand loyalty involves a consumer's continuous support of a specific brand because of the brand's values and quality of products. A consumer may feel brand loyalty if their personal values align with a brand's. Consumers also may have a positive view of the brand because of the ideas a brand promotes. For example, some brands may promote their commitment to using organic ingredients as a part of their brand values. It's important to develop consumer trust to increase brand loyalty. A loyal consumer often makes repeat purchases if they trust the brand's ability to deliver quality and beneficial products.

Brand association

Brand association refers to a consumer associating a concept, image or emotion to a memorable aspect of a brand. It aims to encourage consumers to associate positive qualities to the brand and promote awareness. Brands may use specific sensory elements such as visuals and sounds to provide a consumer with information to personally identify with.

Perceived quality

The quality of a brand's products or services can influence a consumer's perception of a brand and assist them with comparing the brand to others in the market. If a consumer has a higher perceived quality of a certain brand, they may believe the products or services of their brand of choice are better than competitor brands. This can motivate a consumer to purchase a specific brand's products because of their belief in the quality of products.

Brand value vs. brand equity

Brand equity focuses on consumer driven-experiences to increase the commercial worth of the brand. Brand value focuses on consumer purchases to identify the monetary value of a brand in its market. High brand equity can indicate successful branding while high brand value indicates the financial success of a company or brand. Some other key differences include:

• Brand value uses financial data to measure the worth of a brand.

• Brand value needs to build brand equity to increase financial worth.

• Brand value measures the sales performance of a brand or product.

• Brand equity measures a consumer's ability to identify a brand which can promote product sales.

• Brand equity involves how consumers feel about a brand.

4 steps to measure brand value

Here are four steps to measure brand value:

1. Determine the strength of brand equity

You can determine brand equity by analyzing consumer perceptions of the brand. You may use consumer surveys, ask for feedback in email campaigns and reviews on social platforms. This can help you get a better understanding of how a consumer feels towards your brand and if they're likely to recommend it to their friends or family. 

2. Evaluate if the brand influences purchasing decisions

Strong brand equity can be an indicator regarding a brand influencing a consumer's purchasing decisions. You may evaluate if a brand encourages a consumer to purchase a produce by reviewing product sales and consumer feedback. If a brand does influence purchasing decisions, they may be able to improve their marketing strategies while incorporating branding to increase product sales. 

3. Compare brand to competitive brands in the market

Competitive brands can have similar products or services to your brand. Comparing other brands in the market to your brand can help you identify your sales performance in the economy. A competitive brand may have high brand value because of high sales performance. You can research and compare brands using information from their website and user review platforms.

4. Analyze the brand's financial standing

Sales performances can assist with analyzing a brand's financial standing to determine the monetary worth, or brand value, of a business or brand. You may evaluate your brand's financial standing through measuring consumer purchases, sales and business profits. If your brand is generating profit, it may have brand value because a profit can establish the monetary value of a brand.

3 tips to build brand value

Here are three helpful tips to help you measure brand value:

Create memorable user experiences

Brand value largely depends on creating products that enhance consumer experiences. Positive user experiences can help consumers solve problems and attain their goals. Memorable user experiences often can create a positive impact on a consumer's perception of the quality your products and brand. Identify a potential need a consumer may have and design an innovative product to enhance a consumer's experience with your brand and in their life. 

Implement engaging marketing strategies

It's important to develop marketing strategies relevant to your brand's identity, objectives and goals. An engaging marketing strategy may promote brand awareness and persuade an audience to purchase a product depending. Some examples of engaging marketing strategies include:

• Email campaigns

• Creating paid social media campaigns

• Developing a partnership with local businesses or influences

Hire brand ambassadors

A brand ambassador is a professional influencer who publicly represents a brand, product or service to increase brand awareness. It can be helpful to hire an ambassador because they can help build a brand through product sales using promotional strategies for brand awareness. There are a number of ways a brand ambassador can promote a brand including: 

• Posting about a brand on social platforms.

• Wearing a brand's merchandise such as hats or shirts.

• Writing positive reviews about a brand on websites.