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Branding, The How’s, What’s And Why’s

Your business brand says a lot about you and your business.  If you create a strong brand image, it will elevate you above your peers and provide a good model for your product and service development as well as a sound foundation from which to expand your business.

So what is Branding?

Many people think that having a logo and maybe a short description of their services is all they need to set up their brand.  This is not so.  Your brand encompasses all that your business does, from first contact with your potential customers through to how your products are defined and sold.

Your brand is what defines and describes your business.  Look at any two different companies that compete in the same market and look at how people recognize and remember them.

For example look at Rolls Royce and Toyota - they both sell cars but each company is known for a different reason.  Someone looking for a car on a budget would not go to Rolls Royce - yet both sell their cars on reliability.

Clearly more people would aspire to purchase a Rolls Royce, but many also be happy to purchase a Toyota.

Look again at the perceived value of a brand.  Why is the iPod the desired MP3 product when other brands have similar properties and reliabilities?  People perceive the ipod to be superior and are willing to pay more for the pleasure of owning one.  Indeed many people would not consider any other purchase.  This is clever branding by Apple who marketed their product as being very desirable to certain markets.

I Don't Have that Kind of Money - So Why do I Need to Create my Own Brand?

The main reason, has to be to differentiate yourself, but it also makes the promotion of your company and development of your products so much easier.  There are thousands of new businesses and many times more web sites.  You need to:

• Set yourself apart from the competition

• Make yourself memorable so that people will either look for your business or choose you above your competitors.

• When introducing your business to a new customer, your brand should go before you and communicate much of what you want to say.

Your products are easier to define and design, if you center them around your brand definition.  For example we have PowerPacks that include everything you need to set up a specific type of business.  Thus we sell The AdSense PowerPack, The Affiliate PowerPack and The Entrepreneur PowerPack.  Thus we take this concept and produce the products to fit this brand image.  We are known for our PowerPacks which helps with our sales. See them at www.clikks.com

So How Do We Create Our Own Brand Then?

You brand must say:

• Who you are
• What you do
• How you do it
• What the benefits of using your business are

You brand MUST establish your company and build your credibility with your prospective customers.

In order to be able to do this you must first be able to describe what you want your business and products say, so start with your Mission Statement or Elevator Statement.

1. The Mission Statement - this is what you want your business to be or do as it operates.  You need to be realistic and focused.  Being profitable is not a mission statement, but deciding what you want to do to be profitable is.
2. The Elevator Statement - This is 1-4 sentences that you would use to describe your business, in the time that it takes to travel in an elevator - or a few minutes.  It is used when meeting new people who ask "and what do you do?" or as an introduction when networking.

So What Should Be Described Within My Brand?

First of all, pretend that you are one of your target customers and list 5 things that they will be seeking from your product.  These items would encompass a short definition of one of more of the following:

• Price
• Quality
• Service
• Support
• Components of the product
• Scarcity or availability
• How and when delivered
• Accessibility
• Security

I am sure that you can think of a few more that relate to your business.

So now define who, what and where you are in these terms and you should come up with something like this.

" We provide some of the hottest business and marketing informational products on the internet and all of our products are of the highest quality.  Many of them we write ourselves or we scour the internet and read every ebook that we sell, to ensure that they will be useful to you as well as good value."

This is the mission statement of our informational product part of our business - selling under the brand name Clikks.com

We have defined what we are selling, to whom and established our credibility as well as providing an easy to remember and catchy brand name.

Is That All Then?

Not quite - you now need to be be recognized by your customers.  Here is where you tag line and logo come into play.

My tag line - what's that.

Well if you become as well known as Nike it can be something very short like "Just Do It" - but that is a few years and few $million down the road.  Your tag line is a short description of what you do.

Something like "Information and Services for the Serious Entrepreneur" which explains what we sell and to whom.  It also differentiates us from the many less that appropriate sellers of business information.

Now you need a logo - it does not need repeating that this should also reflect your brand.  If you are saying you are modern and efficient - you don't want an old fashioned, messy looking logo.  It should always reflect your brand and be simple and recognizable. You should include it on:

• all your communications

• your web site

• your products

• your give aways

• your marketing materials and adverts

Yes, Got All Of That - Any Last Suggestions?

Be consistent with your brand promotion - don't keep changing it as people are more likely to remember things the more they see them.

Regular marketing enables you to establish your credibility and relevance to your target market.

Remember your brand allows you to pre-sell your company and products as well as ease the introduction of new products as you become more established.

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© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru LLC

Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites www.BizGuru.us and www.Clikks.com – which contains all her informational products. With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.   

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
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