Your “brand” is the sum of everything that people think, feel, believe and ‘know’ about you, your product and your company
The visibility and respect that come from successful branding can increase the value of your business by Million$, but, too often brand building is the cause of frustration and ill-spent resources. Here are 4 things that every start-up entrepreneur or struggling artist, every corporate marketing manager, and every business owner should know about building your brand and the value it represents.
1. Your Reputation is Your Brand
Think about a familiar brand, and you’ll surely have some clear and distinct images – what the ownership experience would be like for you, what to expect of the product, and how you’ll be treated by the company that stands behind it.
To build your own valuable image – and the good reputation your brand represents – you must:
– Clearly and consistently communicate your promise to deliver products, performance and service that bring value and satisfaction to your customers
– Build and nurture your reputation for delivering all that you promise
2. Symbols of Your Brand
Logos and trademarks are the symbols of your brand, shorthand ways of assuring that you remain visible in a noisy and crowded marketplace. Create simple, easily recognized branding symbols, then use those symbols widely and consistently
3. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
– Identify and understand your target audience, the people you most need to attract
– Tailor the content and the look-and-feel of your message to the needs, expectations and sensibilities of this target audience.
– Select the mix of communications vehicles most likely to capture the ‘eyeballs’ of the people you need to influence most
4. Build a Branding Strategy That’s Right for YOU
Successful branding isn’t a cook-book process. It’s a long term investment in creativity and hard work, consistent attention, and patience – but the pay-off can add Million$ to the value of your company.
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Want to learn more? Check out
Your Brand Is Your Business: Creating Value in Your Brands and Branding Strategy at:
Barnes & Noble http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Your-Brand-Is-Your-Business/Bob-Brothers/e/2940011231759/?itm=1&USRI=bob+brothers
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BOB BROTHERS provides business insight, intelligence, and creative marketing strategies to entrepreneurs, business owners and corporate marketing leaders, at www.market-intel.com.
Brand building take its own sweet time and time is less in these competative market to wait for the brand to be build. Wellknown Customer buildup in the market can be the reference list for the Company Brand Value. How much time can be given to build a brand ?
Thank you for your comment, Chetan. You raise an excellent question about the value of branding in this day of shorter and shorter product life cycles. I would answer in 3 ways:
1. Every day, people in the marketplace are accumulating information, experience, and opinions about your product, your service, and your company. Every day, your company and product are building the reputation that is your ‘brand’ – images about your quality and service and reliability, about how you treat your customers and your community, about the value you promise to deliver and how well you live up to that promise. That reputation-building process goes on, whether you manage it or not. “Branding” means taking an active, purposeful role in creating your reputation.
2. Trade names, logos, and advertising phrases are important elements in branding – but much more important is how your product and your company actually perform. Do you actually deliver the performance and value that you promise? Remember the old saying that our mothers’ taught us: “Actions speak louder than words.”
3. For many products – perhaps most products, and especially for short life-cycle products – the reputation and ‘brand’ of the parent company is more valuable than the individual product brand. For example, the value of the SONY name far outlived the ‘Walkman’, and consumers tend to put their trust in any new product with the Sherwin Williams label.