Collaborating with Marketing Teams as a Brand Manager

Like tea and toast, bread and butter, or Ant and Dec, branding and marketing strategy go hand in hand. In the modern retail sphere, brands are integral to customer engagement, competition in a saturated market, plus the overall management of a product line. 

It’s also how your items are perceived in the public eye, so making sure all branding and marketing activities are aligned is a simple – but sometimes overlooked – way of guaranteeing success and affinity for your products on the shelf.

So as a Brand Manager, it’s crucial to understand that branding and marketing have mutual interests. 

By managing brands effectively, awareness, measure, and brand equity are all increased, through the support of consistent branding initiatives. In all, collaborating well with a marketing team can help position your brand in the ether. From skyrocketing metrics to helping nail that brand voice, more hands make light work, right? 

But what if you don’t have internal marketing at your disposal? No sweat. The experts here at Tactical Solutions can help. 

In this guide, we’ll touch on:

• The benefits of brand management 
• Top tips and techniques for your strategies 
• How to harness a branding and marketing plan 
• Making use of marketing teams
• And finally, how Tactical Solutions can help!

Want to rake in that ROI? Don’t pit marketing and branding against each other in a bid for budget – use both and watch those numbers soar.

Want to get started? Get in touch and we’ll show you how it’s done.

How does brand management work? 

One of the main questions is: what does a brand manager do when it comes down to the day-to-day running of a business? 

Brand managers can actively influence: 

• Competition in markets 
• Customer engagement
• Management of a company and certain strategies 

When a company’s brand is strong in the market, its products will be differentiated from those of its competitors and it will create brand affinity for its products and services. 

But to keep brand presence fresh, it has to be carefully cultivated. That’s where a brand manager – and salient brand management strategy – comes in. 

A compelling brand management strategy increases brand awareness, measures and manages brand equity and creates initiatives that reinforce a consistent brand message. 

It also identifies and accommodates new product offerings, and effectively positions the brand no matter what is coming down the pipeline – making new product launches and resets bold and exciting. 

It takes years to establish a brand, but when it finally occurs, it has to still be maintained through innovation and creativity. 

Why does strong brand management matter? 

Standing out from the crowd: As the retail sector steadily grows – with 101 new businesses launched every hour in this year alone – strong brand management is key to being recognisable apart from their competitors.

Boosted sales: Buyers are choosy. Stronger brand loyalty is stoked through brand management, which gives you a better advantage over other competitors on the shelf. After all, the more consumers are psychologically attracted to a brand, they are more likely to choose it over a less favoured alternative. 

It also stacks up in CLV (Customer Lifetime Value). 

Premium Feelings, Premium Prices: The brand management of a company can be leveraged to your products if you’ve managed to create a tried, trusted and tested reputation with your target market. 

In other words, a company can charge a premium for its products if its brand evokes a strong connection with its consumers – so it pays to put your best foot forward. 

So – how do we put this into action? Scramble the boots on the ground, because that’s where field marketing teams come in. 

Making your branding and marketing work in harmony

Although on different teams, branding and marketing don’t have to be in an eternal fight over budget. In fact, we’d recommend quite the opposite – as they are two sides of the same coin. 

They are perfect collaborative partners, as both brand management and marketing (especially teams that are separate are responsible for influencing how external stakeholders perceive a company’s or product’s brand). 

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t slight changes, which come in handy when working in tandem. 

What’s the difference between branding and marketing?

Where Marketing Leads, Brand Management Often Trails Behind

If you’re launching a new product, you might not have a fully dedicated team on hand to help you steer that particular ship. That’s where an external marketing team can work wonders, assisting with the initial management and public perception during those crucial early stages. 

Using a variety of methods, such as planogram compliance, data collection and NPL tracking, they can keep an eye on the finer details while you look at the bigger picture.

They work on opposite ends of the scaling spectrum

While the brand management team tends to handle documents and the wider finalisations of the brand’s presence and overarching strategy. This plan is usually much more detailed than any initial plans laid out by the marketing team, who use more granular data to lay the foundations of a plan. From here, the brand management team can go on to collate details from other channels to ensure a broader, company-wide scope – with big and small cogs turning in harmony.

Internal and external viewpoints

While a company’s marketing department primarily focuses on external communications, such as public perception and public relations. While this has a hand in the overall ‘brand’, management is more likely to outline the strategy and internal buy-in – but on the other hand, marketing ties in external strategy and public acceptance of your products.

Collaborating as part of a strategy

We get it. Bringing in a marketing team – and one that’s from outside your usual remit – is nerve wracking. But never fear! The team at Tactical are dab hands at this sort of thing.

Here are our top tips for great strategies for you to use as part of your wider marketing and branding activities:

Establish The Baseline

Brand management often begins with the basics, and that means establishing a strong mission statement, logo, target audience, and vision statements. Though these are often created by the marketing team during the early days of a product, brand management can help to refine this further.

Leverage Software

Brand management must be cohesive across all media platforms and physical storefronts – which can be tricky, as modern retail often requires multiple channels, these days. That means it’s more important than ever to show a cohesive ‘front’ to customers, using data solutions to ensure everything is compliant and working well!

More on this shortly. 

Innovate, innovate, innovate 

Innovation is the key to success in brand management. Brand managers and marketing teams who work collaboratively, while keeping a lookout for new and innovative ways to maintain a brand’s quality, will be able to glean more authority with customers. 

Monitoring ways to speed up internal processes, such as stocking, compliance, and spot-checking their stores through data and retail audits are those that will stand the test of time. 

Not sure where to start? That’s where we can help.

Using Tactical Solutions to supercharge your shelves

Data-driven decisions are more than just a method – it is a complete solution for success in the fast-paced world of modern business. One thing is crystal clear for brand managers everywhere – that data is the backbone holding all your operations together.

Your strategy will benefit from laser-sharp precision through data-driven decision-making. Why? Because hard data fuels solid results, helping you orchestrate actions from wider-set strategies to field team activity. 

And the best part? We make it seamless. Our goal at Tactical Solutions is to help you take your business to the next level. 

As part of our analytical approach, we ensure that every brand we work with achieves success – so what are you waiting for? 

Ready to transform your brand with data-driven decision-making? Get in touch today.