Branding for Business

Overview

Branding is a marketing concept, and not just a logo, pretty font or a slogan.  This course will help you understand what is in a brand, and how to create a strong brand that sits alongside your business and marketing strategies.

The course will cover brand perception and authenticity, defining your brand, understanding your audience and how your brand affects them and working towards a brand strategy. Don’t worry if you are at the beginning of your business adventure, or if you’ve been running a business for many years – you’ll find this course useful in growing your understanding of the importance of branding, whether it’s at the start of your journey or not.

The course will be delivered through our online virtual learning platform with activities and video presentations. It is expected that this self-paced learning module will take 50 hours to complete and assessments can be linked to your idea or business. 

Programme 

Unit 1: Before We Begin

This unit covers how the learning will be delivered, getting used to using Blackboard, what we expect of you during the course and what the assessments look like.

Unit 2: Introduction to Branding

The goal of this week is to ensure that learners understand what branding is, recognise why it is crucial for businesses and identify key elements of successful brands.

Unit 3: Your Target Audience

This week we look at who your target audience are. Who are you trying to target and how will this affect your brand strategy?

Unit 4: Getting Started with your Business Strategy

A slight diversion to discuss Goal Setting and Business Strategy – two key elements we need to understand and appreciate before moving onto brand strategy.

Unit 5: Brand Perception and Authenticity

In this unit, I will look at 2 case studies to establish and understand how branding can make us reach or feel towards a business or organisation.

Unit 6: Defining your Brand

In this unit we will focus on the three Ps – purpose, promise and personality.

Unit 7: Other Branding Considerations

Before we can fully create our brand strategy, we need to explore some final considerations: name, logo, tagline, marketing strategy, website.

Unit 8: Creating Your Brand Strategy

It’s time to create that strategy – and pull together everything we’ve learned from Unit 2 onwards.

Learning Outcomes

1. You will learn the basic principles of branding – and learn what makes a
   successful brand
2. How to create a customer avatar for your business
3. Create your own brand strategy which will help your business and/or
   organisation

Assessments

1. What brands have made an impact for you, and why? Choose 3 brands,
   and post in the discussion board your reasons on why they have
   impacted on you and why. No more than 200 words per brand. (25%)
2. Who is your target audience – how do you think this affect your
   branding? 500 words (25%)
3. How will you define your brand? What are your 3 Ps (25%) No more than
   500 words, and to be placed in the Discussion Board – using clear
   headings: Your Purpose, Your Promise, Your Personality.
4. Create a brand strategy for your business (25%)

Reading Suggestions

Reading suggestions will be offered throughout the course. 

Entry Requirements

This course is for everyone. No previous experience is needed and there are no formal entry requirements.

What Do I Need?

As this is an online course, you would need the following:

• Internet access
• Access to a laptop or computer with a web camera and microphone; the use of headphones might also be of benefit
• Use of the Chrome web-browser where possible.