Summers winding down – is your business ready to get back to school? I’m officially declaring August 31 “Back to Branding School Day.” We’ve got connected folks all over the social media sphere promoting this day and offering some goodies. Myself including….read on!
To celebrate the rolling success of Branding Basics for Small Business, I’m offering a little contest. Best answer receives a free signed copy of the branding book to help them craft a strong brand strategy for themselves, stand out and attract rabid fans. Here’s what Midwest Book Review had to say:
What makes your business unique, something that stands out from the pack? “Branding Basics For Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget” is a guide to branding and how it can literally be the deciding factor on the success of business. Brands make connections with customers, keep your product in mind, attract employees, and keep a business strong. “Branding Basics for Small Business” is a wise and recommended read, not to be missed by any small business.”
To win, answer this question in the comments: What is the best piece of branding advice or branding lesson you have learned and why? If there is story behind this, please share. Sharing such lessons helps us all learn how to build better businesses. You don’t even have to be a business owner but perhaps a marketing professional or corporate employee.
Best answer wins a book! Enter by midnight PST on Wed, Sept 1, 2010.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
The best lesson I have learned is that branding is a continuous process. There´s no such thing as a static brand. Brands, like people, develop, change, grow, struggle and rest….I think those businesses that work on their branding strategy continuously are better off!
It´s probably why it is called branding instead of “branded”.
Best lesson. You need to build your own personal brand. Everything you say and do is a reflection of your brand.
Great answers! I’m sure there are more folks out there who can share a snippet of branding wisdom – or a lesson learned? The more backstory, the better.
One of the best branding lessons I’ve learned is that who a target audience actually is in numbers and who they are as people can be very different pictures. For example – people might be drawn to the adventurous lifestyle that a product HINTS to, and yet only ever really admire that kind of life and not usually actually live it. Think of those who purchase tricked out laptops and mostly end up surfing the web, or sports cars with off-road capabilities even though they live in the city, or designer stiletto Jimmy Choo shoes without an occasion to where them. People declare their interests, identity, hopes, dreams and aspirations through which brands and products they choose. People may also willing to purchase something they find less attractive (unattractive design, price, convenience, etc.) due to the positive social or environmental practices of the company who makes it. It’s important to look in depth at what motivates the target audience, not just their basic demographics.
By understanding what motivates your target audience, you can build a brand that is both authentic to your company, and speaks the language your target audience is receptive to. Strong brands must acknowledge both the company and the target audience as complicated and whole personalities.
Alicia, this is brilliant! Fantastics lesson to share about the emotional buying drivers behind the scenes. People buy things because they connect to a vision of themselves or aspire to be something. And that can often reveal more than the demographics show. I also love what you said about being authentic AND appealing to your target audience. That is the golden ticket: can what you truly deliver actually meet the needs of those you target? If not, one of those two elements needs to change.
So many thoughts…so little time…Branding is something we communicate to people who are not listening. In other words, don’t become bored with your own message because you have said, done, projected or repeated it 1000+ times. Your public has not actually HEARD it twice yet and will not act until the message is heard many times and internalized.
Great one Len….your point is spot on about consistency and repetition. You need to get your message in front of people multiple times to make it sense. You may feel like you are repeating yourself or be “bored” with it internaly, but one always has to remember they are not the only business vying for that consumer’s attention! Also remeber, though, that brand is what you communicate to your loyal fans as well – not just new prospects. And they need to clearly and consistently have the brand promise reinforced in their own communications and experiences with the business as well – this turns them into rabid fans and loyal evangelists.
People are tired of being “sold,” but they never tire of being loved. Just seeing someone else supposedly in the act of “loving” or “being loved” is a massive attention-magnet, the proverbial campfire in the dark woods, that draws one in from the cold night. Who can resist?
People are drawn to energy. Marketers forget that consumers are people: emotional creatures, and not particularly rational. Constant “sales offers” are numbing, unconvincing, and destroy brand value. Lazy!
BTW: Parenting well is the ultimate love-branding. Carefully executed, it is the longest term sales work I have ever done, and the most rewarding. As a parent, you are a brand, whether one realizes it, or not.
Comment by Suzette Sommer — May 6, 2010
Great one “consumers are people.” I used to beat my head against the wall in B2B marketing trying to make people take a chance and show some brand personality. After all, even though we would sell the businesses, it’s PEOPLE who make the buying the decision. Thanks Suzette!
A brand that has no clear target market cannot focus its efforts and resources. A client had at least nine distinct vertical markets. The same product was used in very different ways by each market. The CEO despised personas and even wanted “the average person on the street” to be one of the markets. He insisted on finding ways to target all of these markets, being “nimble” as “opportunities” arose to do something in each field. The very frustrated marketing manager referred to it as “dartboard marketing.” I guess that CEO’s attitude leads to another key learning: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Sometimes when control is more important to the decision-maker than the health of the company, you just have to move on.
Great one Gary – thank you! This frustrates me to no end. If your company is as big as Microsoft and you can afford to market effectively and set up salespeople and operations for 20 different audience segments, great. More power to you. Most companies try to be all things to all people and can’t do any of it effectively. I call this “skipping a stone across the water” in my branding book. You might make a tiny, one-time splash many many times, but you’ll never get deep traction in any one area. People not only need to see and hear a messagign at least 5-7 times to remember it, they need more exposure to get to purchase. And they have different information needs at each stage. If you’re trying to hit 20 audiences only once or twice, you may as well not waste the money hitting them at all.
Trying to market to the “average person on the street” is pointless. This person does not exist and is just an unrealistic composite not based on any real needs or wants. I advice cliehnts to pick 2 or 3 personas and flesh them out completely. Now you know where you are aiming on the datboard. And if others outside of that “persona” fall into the net, then great: take their check! But figure out where you will focus your time and money on reaching the people most likely to buy. The rest is just gravy.
Good one Gary.