Amy Will - Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies

A business or corporate brand establishes and communicates an organization’s identity to all stakeholders, internal and external, including customers, investors, executives, managers, and staff. Corporate branding involves ensuring alignment of everything that goes into defining the organization’s identity, including the following:

Mission statement: The organization’s overall purpose.

Vision statement: How the organization plans to develop over time.

Values: The beliefs, philosophies, and principles that guide the organization’s decisions and behaviors.

Core competencies: The sets of resources and skills that enable an organization to deliver something special to the marketplace.

Value proposition: What the company delivers to the market that drives consumer demand for it.

Workplace culture: The way people within the organization generally think, behave, and interact. In a hierarchy, employees generally do what they’re told by their superiors, whereas in a more collaborative culture, everyone shares in decision-making and workplace management.

Business strategy: The way an organization chooses to achieve its goals and remain competitive.

Business activities: Daily operations, including marketing, sales, financing, customer service, and supply-chain management.

Affiliations: Partnerships, associations, and relationships with other businesses and with consumers. An organization’s identity is defined by the company it keeps.

Brand story: The narrative that relates the facts about a brand in a way that connects emotionally with people. (See Chapter 8for details on how to compose a brand story.)

Brand style: Guidelines (see Chapter 6) that establish the brand’s look and feel.

Note that corporate branding isn’t covered in detail in this book, although some aspects of product, service, and personal branding (which are covered in this book) may apply to corporate branding as well.

Corporate branding is long-term with a broad scope. Unlike product branding, which uses a narrow pitch and often adjusts its message to target different sectors and customer demographics, corporate branding strives to create a universal appeal over the long haul with strict consistency.

A product brand is a set of unique qualities — including design, packaging, and advertising — that makes a consumer good easily recognizable and special in the minds of consumers. Product branding entails the following activities:

Designing a recognizable and appealing logo (see Chapter 6)

Coming up with a clever, catchy brand name (see Chapter 3)

Establishing branding guidelines to ensure that all marketing has a consistent look and feel, and adjusting the guidelines to keep up with the times (see Chapter 6)

Researching the market to better understand customers and competing products (see Chapter 3)

Tailoring the message to appeal to different consumer demographics (see Chapter 8)

Differentiating your product from competing products (see “ Identifying or Creating a Niche Market” later in this chapter)

Marketing/advertising via email, website, blog, social media accounts, podcasts, video, and so on (see Chapters 7, 12, and 13)

A service brand is a set of unique qualities, including the service type and quality. How a service provider is marketed, sold, and delivered makes it trusted and valued in the minds of consumers. With product branding, you’re selling goods, whereas service branding is more about selling a relationship or an experience. Service branding involves being professional, likeable, and trustworthy at every touchpoint:

Marketing materials, including business cards and brochures (see Chapter 10)

Online marketing via email, website, blog, social media, podcasts, and video (see Chapters 7, 12, and 13)

Sales meetings with customers (see Chapter 3)

Service calls and other forms of service delivery (see Chapter 3)

The bottom line is that customers will choose the service provider they know, like, and trust most, so service branding needs to focus on informing prospective customers while instilling trust and likeability.

A personal brand is a person’s unique combination of skills, expertise, personality, and values that defines their identity and reputation in the minds of clients, partners, and associates and is used to advance their career. A strong personal brand positions someone as an expert in a specific field or industry or as an authority on a topic of interest. Personal branding is often used to launch a person’s career as a coach, trainer, speaker, consultant, author, actor, influencer, and so on. In a way, a personal brand is a business, product, and service brand all rolled into one with a personal touch.

Effective personal branding requires the following:

Knowledge, skills, or expertise: Be good at what you do.

Value: Commit to delivering value in everything from the content you use to market yourself to the products and services you deliver or recommend.

Creativity and originality: To differentiate yourself from the competition, offer something unique.

Authenticity: Be real, not phony.

Exposure: Blog, podcast, post YouTube videos, join relevant social media communities, and make yourself available for interviews.

Consistency: Find your niche (as explained in the next section), stick with it, and make sure that all your personal branding efforts are aligned.

To create your own personal brand, follow these steps:

1 Conduct a self-assessment to get to know who you are and what you can offer of value to others.

2 Decide who and what you want to be associated with (other brands, businesses, people, products, and services).

3 Identify and get to know your target market.Who’s your audience? Who’s likely to follow you and why?

4 Follow established leaders in the field you’re focused on.Find out what they offer of value and how they differentiate themselves. How can you differentiate yourself from them?

5 Network with others in your industry.Get involved in the communities where established leaders and your future followers hang out, keeping a low profile at first to get a feel for the culture and norms. Be careful not to step on anyone’s toes as you begin to network, at least until you get a feel for the community and people get to know and accept you.

6 Start to put yourself out there via blog posts, podcasts, social media, video, and so on.

One of the biggies in branding is differentiation — the process of identifying or creating and then promoting the unique characteristics of your business, product, service, or yourself. You need to figure out what’s different, special, and better about what you bring to the market.

An effective approach to differentiation is going small. Instead of trying to be everything to everybody, aim to be something special to a small segment of your market. Identify or create a niche — a narrow opening or unique opportunity in the broader market you’re pursuing. Narrowing your focus increases your impact while (counterintuitively) expanding, not limiting, your opportunities. It enables your brand to stand out in the global marketplace, which is crowded with competitors vying for consumers’ attention.