Branding: it’s a term that carries great weight in the world of advertising. Successful branding is best illustrated by the world’s most prominent corporations, but it’s no less important to the small business owner. Your Brand is your identity; it’s every single puzzle piece, fitted into the big picture of your company. From your name and logo to your business philosophy and corporate mission; from your advertising campaign message to your design elements; from your products and services; all that is owned, produced, stated, sold and marketed by your company falls under the broad heading of your Brand.
What exactly is a “brand?” The term probably originated at a time when when ours was a strictly agricultural society. Ranchers take a branding iron to their cattle, as a way to signify they OWN those cows. Likewise, modern corporations choose a logo to brand their name into the mind of the consumer. Every time you label an ad or website with your company logo; every time you take a political stance on behalf of your corporation, you’re putting your brand into effect. And if a brand indicates ownership, then it should be your ultimate mission to dominate, or own, your niche. Brand your company. Own the cow.
How do you determine your style of branding? Analyze your audience. Zero in on the group you’re trying to reach. Are they male, female, or both? What's the age group and economical level? What are their spending habits, their values? How do they TALK? What are they concerned about? What do they think they NEED? Where will their focus be in six months? And most importantly, how does your marketable product fit into the scheme? If you never really get to know your audience, you can read all the marketing how-to strategies in the world, and it isn't going to mean diddly-squat for your business. It isn’t going to help you build your brand.
What’s the next step? Always, always, always put yourself in their shoes. Jump right into their heads, if you can. Think of your audience during the business-plan conception process. How do they communicate? What do they find visually appealing? Are you marketing to senior citizens? Use bigger fonts, a nostalgic tone, and a morally forthright attitude. Is it the filthy, stinking rich whom you’re trying to attract? Save the Crazy Eddie shtick, because money is no object here. Every bit of energy used to promote your brand should be focused toward winning over your key customer.
There will be a time when you completely lose sight of who you’re trying to attract. This, in turn, dilutes the power of your brand. You’ll be in the middle of writing an ad, when suddenly your head is racing with potential buyer types. This happened to me once during my writing stint with a digital media company who sold Santa Claus greetings. In my sales letter, which went on for pages and pages, there was no limit to what Santa could do! He could praise tiny tots for using the potty. He could play matchmaker to a couple of young lovers. He could patch up an argument you had with Aunt Freida in Topeka. All of this was great, but it was really convoluting Who We Were as a company, and our Santa was becoming a Jack Frost of all trades. It was no good! So we went back to square one. And through simple words and a more narrow focus on our original audience of children, we finally captured the Magic of Christmas that we had originally intended to be Our Brand.
Reflect your brand in everything you do; from your website design, to your public relations, to how you go about selling your product. Once you’ve done this, the next step is to create Brand Awareness. This is achieved through consistency. You can dream up the most brilliant ad campaign on the planet, but if you’re not consistent about putting it in place, you’ll never establish brand recognizability.
If the tone of your company is “fun, light and noncontroversial”, steer clear of anti-war demonstrations. If Arial is your font of choice, then don’t go switching it up mid-campaign and putting out affiliate program materials using Tahoma. If tongue-in-cheek humor is how you attract attention, don’t line your website borders with super-mushy personal ads. Ask yourself: will this resonate with my key customer? And use your logo and company tagline wherever possible—in your email correspondence, on your website, as your letterhead, on your business cards, in your advertising and on your product packaging. Remind people of who you are. Burn your brand into their minds.
To some extent, branding is following the herd... emulating respected companies that capture what you’d like to be known for. Still, a wise entrepreneur must never forget that today's success story is tomorrow's dot-com that went under. "What sold" for someone else may not work for your company. Just because Joe Baloney made millions selling with a bilingual circus clown doesn't mean that will work for you... or that anyone's even going to find it remotely interesting in six months. The market changes like the tide, depending on what direction society is going in. Where they were before, which way they're headed, and wherever it's likely they'll end up... socially, economically, ethically, politically, culturally, intellectually, psychologically, philosophically.
How will you know that you’ve branded successfully? When people start listening to you. Not just hearing what you say, but letting you call the shots. You’ll know it when people start imitating you, too. You’ll start seeing knock-offs of your products and your company image. This may flatter you or it may annoy you, but when it happens, it’s your cue to lead the pack in a new direction. That's how to stay on top of the Branding Game.
The day that you find yourself functioning as a real, live spokesman for a group of individuals, is the day you’ve achieved Brand Recognition. The day that you make the front page news headlines is the day you’ve become a household name. But a word to the wise: once your brand achieves true power, someone will try and take you down. Remind them that you own this cow.
Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
About the author:
Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with nine years' industry experience. Her current focus is web content and web marketing for a multitude of products and services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for big-name companies like Toys"R"Us. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.comfor rates and samples.
Branding used to be a fancy business word, but it is
becoming more and more used in everyday business meetings. Finally! For
decades, big corporations have used in-house, very well paid brand
managers - someone in charge of managing everything that relates to the
brand, including design, package and partnerships. You've heard
enthusiastic talks about branding, but you are still not sure if you
should get a brand management plan going for your business.
Do you need one? Any company with the intention and
potential to become or to remain a top competitor in its field needs to
develop a sound branding strategy. And that's where the brand agency comes
in. If you have a small or medium size business, you may not be able to
pay a high salary for a full-time brand manager. If that is your case, you
can benefit from working with a brand agency, and gain access to brand
management consultants, plus an entire creative team available to work in
various projects - from graphic design to web design, Internet marketing,
advertising, media planning. Instead of working with multiple vendors that
are unaware of your branding needs, you work with one single partner
dedicated to create a stronger, more valuable brand.
Can I fire my marketing team? No! Some people think a
brand agency would do away with marketing jobs. In fact, your brand agency
would not replace your marketing department, but work with your marketing
and sales people to provide them the tools they need to market your
services more successfully, while advancing your business image.
How much does it cost? Working with a branding agency is
surprisingly affordable. Think of this: how much it would cost, per year,
to have an in-house creative department, plus a well-paid brand manager?
That could easily cost your business $200K and more in payroll, equipment
and lease expenses. With an experienced branding agency you only pay a
small fraction of the costs of maintaining such a high-level team, but you
still have full-time assistance. Besides, a branding agency can save you
thousands of dollars a year in printing and production costs, through its
suppliers and partners.
To measure how strong your brand is copy and paste:
(http://brandidentityguru.com/bightml/brandmasterpiece.html). Then click
"Take the brand strength test". This is a short survey that measures the
strength of any company's brand. It's a great tool to see where you are
today.
Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru (http://www.brandidentityguru.com),
a leading brand consulting and market research firm located in Easton,
Massachusetts, USA, near Boston.
Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and
product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and
brand valuation. Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott
White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech,
manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications,
banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service
businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.
Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial,
Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Simon (America's
largest shopping mall manager) and many others, including numerous
emerging growth companies. Scott White is a very enthusiastic speaker and
has the gift of being able to explain the principles of branding in a
compelling and entertaining manner so that people at all levels can
understand.
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