Branding Your Business
Branding Your Business
Free Online Articles Directory
Why Submit Articles?
Top Authors
Top Articles
FAQ
AB Answers
0 && $.browser.msie ) {
var ie_version = parseInt($.browser.version);
if(ie_version Hello Guest
Login
Register
Hello
My Home
Sign Out
Email
Password
Remember me?
Lost Password?
Home Page > Advertising > Branding > Branding Your Business
Branding Your Business
Posted: Feb 24, 2009 |Comments: 0
| Views: 149
|
]]>
If you think only big corporate names need to think about things like brand names, think again. Your brand says a lot about you and your business, and that’s as true for a one person home-based operation as it is for a multinational conglomerate. In this article we look at how creating a strong brand for your business can help you set yourself apart from the pack and lay the right foundation for the future growth of your business.
WHAT IS A BRAND?
Your brand is more than just the logo on your letterhead and business cards or your business name. It is your corporate identity. An effective brand tells the world who you are, what you do and how you do it, while at the same time establishing your relevance to and credibility with your prospective customers.
Your brand is also something more ethereal. It is how your business is perceived by its customers. If your brand has a high perceived value, you enjoy many advantages over your competition, especially when it comes to pricing. Why do you think people are prepared to pay stupid money for items of clothing with the initials “CK” on them? Perceived value. Perceived value as a result of very effective brand promotion resulting in very high brand awareness.
Now, I’m not saying we all need to rush out and start creating brands that are going to be recognized the world over. Most of us simply don’t have the time or other resources necessary. What I am suggesting, however, is that it is possible for your brand to dominate your niche.
WHY DO I NEED TO CREATE MY OWN BRAND?
=> Differentiation
We touched on this in the previous section when we looked at what a brand is and how it can be used to increase the perceived value of your products and services. The main reason for creating your own brand is to differentiate yourself from your competition. New websites are a dime a dozen. So are home-based businesses. You need to constantly be looking for ways to set yourself apart from your competition. Your brand can do that for you.
=> More Effective, Efficient Marketing
Another good reason for creating your own brand is to make your sales force (even if that’s a sales force of one – you) more effective and efficient.
Imagine if you didn’t have to spend the first 50% of your time with a new prospect explaining who you are, what you do and how you do it. What if your brand had already communicated that for you? You can spend 100% of your time focusing on sales rather than educating your prospects about your business
Another benefit of branding is that the efforts you expend increasing your brand awareness through promoting and marketing your brand to your target market automatically transfers to your products and services. So, even when you’re advertising your brand, you’re indirectly also marketing your products and services.
HOW DO I CREATE MY OWN BRAND?
OK, so you’re convinced you need to create your own brand. Where on earth do you start?
We saw earlier that your brand needs to say who you are, what you do and how you do it. It needs to do all these things at the same time as establishing your relevance to and building credibilty with your prospective customers. Needless to say, it is absolutely essential, if you are to build your own brand, that *you yourself* have a firm grasp of who you are, what you do and how you do it. If not, you’re going to have the devil’s own time getting that message across to anyone else, let alone establishing your relevance and credibility.
=> Write A Mission Statement
So, let’s start by creating a mission statement. What is the mission of your business? Obviously you’re in business to make a profit. But making a profit is a byproduct of a successful business. Focus instead on how you choose to achieve that profit. What are your core values?
A good place to begin thinking about your mission is to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Put yourself in their target market. Let’s say your business is web hosting. If you’re in the market for a web host, what things are important to you? Different people will be looking for different benefits but you can bet that they want their website to be accessible to site visitors so reliability will be high on their list. Price is also likely to be high on the list as is 24/7 technical support. What about add-on features such as unlimited email aliases, cgi support and what-not? These things will be highly important to some and less important to others. So focus on the benefits that are likely to be highly relevant to the majority of your target market. Let’s settle for our purposes on reliability, price and technical support.
Your mission statement might read something like this: “I strive to earn a fair return on my investment of time and money by providing affordable webhosting with guaranteed 99% uptime and 24/7 telephone technical support”. That’s a pretty general statement and if you decide to focus on a particular niche of the webhosting market, such as small business, you may want to more narrowly focus on that group in your mission statement.Now that you’ve written your mission statement, you can begin thinking about creating a brand that reinforces and supports your mission. So, getting back to the fundamental questions of who you are, what you do and how you do it, you can now begin to think of your business in these terms. You’re a webhosting provider, you host websites of small businesses and you do that by offering cost-effective webhosting solutions, guaranteed 99% uptime and 24/7 telephone technical support.
When you create your brand, you need to keep the who, what and how firmly in mind but also use the brand to establish your relevance to your target market and build credibility with that market.
Let’s turn now to the nuts and bolts of creating your brand.
=> Describe What You Are Branding
List out your business’s key features and characteristics, your competitive advantages and anything else that sets you apart from your competition.
Using our webhosting example, you’ll focus primarily on the objectives from your mission statement namely, reliable, cost-effective webhosting solutions supported by 24/7 technical support.
=> Identify and Describe Your Target Market
Decide whether you want to target lthe entire webhosting community or only a segment of it such as small business websites. Describe your market.
=> List Names that Suggest the Key Elements from Your Mission Statement
The key elements from your mission statement were reliability, cost-effectiveness and customer service. List names that are suggestive of these elements. Let’s use Reliable Webhosting for our example. (I don’t claim to be a creative genius.)
Don’t limit yourself to real words, though. A coined name with no obvious meaning is a perfectly legitimate name provided it conveys something about your business. You will find coined names easier to trademark and secure domain names for too – a definite plus!
=> List Tag Lines that Reinforce Your Mission Statement
We’ll use: “Outstanding reliability and technical support at a price your small business can afford”. I know, I know. You can do much better, I’m sure.
HOW SHOULD I USE MY BRAND?
=> Create a Logo for Your Brand
Your logo is NOT your brand but your logo should allow your brand to be instantly recognized by those familiar with it. To this extent, your logo helps create and reinforce brand awareness.
The logo you create should be able to be used consistently in a variety of different media. It should be suitable for corporate letterhead and business cards, as well as for your website and corporate signage (if any). You do NOT want a confusing mishmash of logos and banners and heaven knows what else. Everything you produce needs to use the same, consistent style of logo so that, over time, your logo becomes synonymous with your brand. Instant recognition is what you’re going for here, so don’t dilute it by using several different logos for different purposes.
=> Consistent Usage of Company Name, Logo and Tag Line
Going back to our webhosting example, putting the brand name and tagline together, the physical manifestation of your brand will be:
RELIABLE WEBHOSTING Outstanding reliability and technical support at a price your small business can afford.
To establish brand awareness, this branding needs to be used consistently and frequently in everything your produce, whether that be letters to clients, business cards, brochures, quotations, invoices, advertising, promotion, on your website, on the front door of your principal place of business and on your products. And don’t forget to be consistent in your use of color schemes. These can be powerful brand reinforcers.
=> Marketing and Promotion of Your Brand
Once you’ve created your brand, you need to market and promote it, in addition to your products and services. This is how you establish your credibility and relevance to your target market. You can hopefully see why your brand needs to be suggestive of your mission statement. If, at the same time as you’re selling your products and services you also push your brand, your brand becomes synonymous with your products and services. And vice versa.
A properly descriptive brand and high brand awareness amongst your target market will allow you to more easily introduce a wider range of products and services when they’re developed without having to start by again selling who you are, what you do and how you do it first. Your brand has already presold YOU. Your job then is to sell your products and services.
Retrieved from “http://www.articlesbase.com/branding-articles/branding-your-business-786668.html”
(ArticlesBase SC #786668)
Liked this article? Click here to publish it on your website or blog, it’s free and easy!
Jose Carocho -
About the Author:
A place to find 1000s of Useful Finance Articles
A place to to Quickly and Easily Find Someone You Lost Track Of
Questions and Answers
Ask our experts your Branding related questions here…200 Characters left
If a party uses his own business name (name of the unit) and address printed on goods sold and unluckily that name is detected as Brand Name of other party , then SSI concession can be denied
I want to chose brand name for my new catering business how can i
Just wondering if I want to sell well know brand cosmetics do I need to register as a business in order to sell them on ebay and be able to purchase them from suppliers. Would love your help
]]>
Rate this Article
vote(s)
3 vote(s)
Feedback
RSS
Print
Email
Re-Publish
Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/branding-articles/branding-your-business-786668.html
Article Tags:
branding, business, branding your business
Latest Branding Articles
More from Jose Carocho
How to Avoid Common Franchise Mistakes
If you’ve grown your small business to the stage where you think you’d like to offer franchises to others, Dick Rennick has advice to help you expand your brand. Learn what is one of the most common mistakes that franchisers make.
(05:59)
Your Resume and Personal Brand
This video discusses the use of personal brands when resume writing. (01:13)
How to Treat Everyone like Goldfish in Business
I go into detail today about what I meant when i tweeted that you should treat everyone like goldfish, I hope you enjoy it. (02:55)
Business Branding and Marketing tips
Cambridge Who’s Who is excited to announce the launch of a new video learning series entitled the “Cambridge Who’s Who Professional Development Series.” Filled with practical tips and strategies, this innovative educational tool is for anyone who seeks career enhancement and/or business growth.
(05:35)
Every business has a brand – -whether or not you know it. What is branding and how is it determined? Carol Chapman and Suzanne Tulien of the Brand Ascension Group help you understand how to create – or improve – your firm’s brand in the marketplace.
(14:16)
How To Use Branding To Grow Your Business
Not only big companies or corporate names need to think about branding, this can also be applied to small businesses as well. Branding says a lot about you and your business, and this certainly true for a home-based, one person operation to a multinational company. This only means one thing, that having a good brand name or branding strategy can add a couple of figures to you sales…
By:
Wharton Business Foundationl
Business>
Small Businessl
Dec 09, 2009
lViews: 166
Using Business Branding in Entrepreneurial Endeavors
If you are an entrepreneur that has decided to dapple in your own world of business, you must utilize superb business branding strategies in order to really set yourself apart from the competition. In this article, we’ll explore different ways in which business branding can set you on the right path for enjoying success as an entrepreneur. Whether you have a unique service to offer the public, or whether you have developed a perfect new product, you must make business branding a priority.
By:
Silvia Pencakoval
Business>
Business Opportunitiesl
Aug 05, 2010
Business Guru outlines Business Guru Growth Strategies
International Business Guru Dr. Mark D. Yates Outlines Business Guru Growth Strategies utilised to turbo charge business branding & business growth & profits.
By:
Dr Mark Yatesl
Businessl
Aug 31, 2009
How do you brand yourself and your home business? This article has the answer.
By:
Scott Whaleyl
Business>
Home Businessl
Jul 28, 2009
E-smart24: Finding a good home based business branding strategy
As a home business owner, it is extremely important to find and implement a home based business branding strategy into your business plan.
By:
Vikram Kumarl
Business>
Home Businessl
May 02, 2009
Successful business branding is one of the most important aspects of any successful company or business venture, and it is certainly worthwhile considering the possible options available. One of the most crucial aspects of branding that needs to be considered is continuity. Today there are so many different ways to…
By:
Naz Daudl
Businessl
Apr 04, 2009
Why Your Business Brand Shouldn’t be an Exact Mirror Image of You
Customers and prospects are more concerned about their needs, their businesses, and their situations than they are about how good you are. What they want to know is how you’re going to help them. And if you’re a one-person business, they’re likely to be more concerned about the fact that you’re the only one there rather than being thrilled about your experience.
By:
Erin Ferreel
Businessl
Apr 30, 2008
lComments: 1
Business Branding and Moving Your Business Online
If you are currently enjoying success as a business owner in the tangible world, you may also consider reaping the benefits that moving your business online can present. Business branding is crucial to anyone in an industry of selling products or services. You must develop a name for yourself in your niche. As important as developing that brand is in the business world, the virtual world must also recognize your business brand. We are living in a very virtual world. Technology is changing a
By:
Silvia Pencakoval
Business>
Online Businessl
Aug 05, 2010
Let’s discuss some stuff you have to remember when planning a perfect marriage ceremony at the beach. You must always keep in mind that the weather may or may not cooperate, so you will have to plan for beach wedding an alternate way if the latter should happen.
By:
dressmanl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 16, 2010
What to Do If the Man Tells You That He Can’t Commit? Put These Steps Into Action Right Away
When a person tells you he cannot commit you assume that this can be a temporary thing and he will come back around. But, if he is still does not commit then you would like to search out out and address the problem. Maybe he’s scared or has some problems that need to be sorted out. Here is how you’ll handle the situation.
1st build a great relationship
You’ve got to hunt a commitment only when your relationship is on firm footing. If the relationship is new he can not want to commit and then go
By:
dodol
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Lions, and tigers, and domain squatters! Oh, my!
Below is the story of how I lost my domain name. There are many web hosting companies who try to take advantage of people who are unfamiliar with choosing and hosting a domain name.
By:
Charisse Louisl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Advertising spender in New year (31-12-10)
Lot’s of advertising spender will be come on New year festival in this new era. Peolple will enjoy new year with faceing many advertisement from various industry and also buy the branded product instead of product. Now a days Every festival are celebrating with various advetisement, various thoughts, various creative campaign, various new product launch with celebrity.
By:
Virag shahl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Best Catchy Slogans & Taglines For Small Business No Matter What Service Or Product You Offer
Due to the downturn in the economy, businesses in virtually every category are more competitive than ever. With many cash strapped businesses unable or unwilling to spend money on high profile marketing, nearly everyone is making sure they have their most basic branding elements in good shape. These elements include the logo and the “verbal logo” otherwise known as the slogan. So how do you get the best ad slogan or campaign slogan for your small business? Here’s our advice.
By:
thomasgalvinl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Sun Group Nano Kiosk and DIGITAL TAG are said to be the world’s smallest digital signage Kiosk
The Nano Kiosk desktop models are the perfect face-to-face advertising medium for high-traffic locations like sales and trade fair counters, customer desks, Restaurant, in the checkout area or in display windows. The crystal-clear displays give graphics and text messages a unique way to grabs the attention.
By:
sun groupl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Custom Labels for Personalizing Brand Visibility
Custom labels are of great importance today when there is tough competition for brand visibility. Know about their different types and their uses for maximum benefit in your business venture.
By:
Mike Bensonl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 15, 2010
Billboards Help Advertising Get Off the Couch
Savvy companies know that North America is also a mobile nation with both work and recreation activities. Advertising is moving with us, in the form of outdoor advertising mediums such as buildings, buses, and park benches. Billboard advertising has a long history dating back to the 1800′s, and today this advertising medium is still popular with outdoor advertisers from film studios to telecommunication empires to fortune five-hundred companies.
By:
jimwannopl
Advertising>
Brandingl
Dec 14, 2010
There are many home improvement projects that you can carry out to make your home a more comfortable space and to add to its value as property. These home improvement projects include remodeling the basement, kitchen, and bathrooms, and painting both the exteriors and interiors regularly.
By:
Jose Carochol
Home Improvementl
Feb 24, 2009
Get The Finance You Need With Uk Secured Homeowner Loan
Not every-one of us is born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Most of us live life as it comes. Our hard earned money provides us with the basic necessities and indulgences. Generally, we manage things with our finances but sometimes an emergency or once-in-a-lifetime opportunity sticks out its head like a sore thumb, demanding huge funding and putting our resources under strain. UK secured homeowner loan provides the much-needed finances with minimum possible overhead in such conditions.
By:
Jose Carochol
Computer Consulting Profit Secrets
Do you own or manage a computer consulting company? Are you having trouble growing your computer consulting company’s profits?
If so, then you must learn how to focus on your computer consulting firm’s profit and bottom line.
In this article, we’ll look at 7 profit secrets and strategies you can use in your computer consulting business, to ensure that you are able to balance your clients’ small business IT needs against your own computer consulting company’s profitability challenges.
By:
Jose Carochol
Computers>
Softwarel
Feb 24, 2009
lViews: 107
Advertising Business Opportunity Reaches New Levels
An Advertising business opportunity on the Internet is just exploding with possibilities. This is one of the most profitable endeavors available in the field of Internet advertising. If you have advertising experience and know even the basics of Internet, you have potential to start your own advertising business on the Internet.
By:
Jose Carochol
Advertisingl
Feb 24, 2009
10 Sales Tips For Small Business Owners
Running a business is easy compared to the act of selling. As a small business owner you started your business to deliver a superior product or service, not to become a salesperson. None-the-less you must master basic sales skills or risk losing your business due to lack of clients! Here are 1o tips to help you turn those inquiries into sales.
By:
Jose Carochol
Careersl
Feb 24, 2009
Distressing Acne And Its Probable Causes
If you are on your teenage years, pretty good chances that you have some acne. About 8 to 10 preteens and teens have acne along with many adults. It is but a common skin problem that is considered to be a normal part of puberty. Apparently, it does make teen or any individual uncomfortable and it doesn’t make it easier when you look in the mirror and see the big pimple on your face or chin. However, there is good news such as simple steps that will help you feel better about your face.
By:
Jose Carochol
Are You Guessing In The Dark When It Comes To E-Commerce?
In the early days, guessing was considered to be the smartest thing to do. After all, we needed to start somewhere and develop ourselves from scratch so we were ready to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Today, guessing is the least smart thing do. In fact, it can be the most expensive thing to do in terms of time, effort and maybe money
By:
Jose Carochol
Businessl
Feb 24, 2009
If you think only big corporate names need to think about things like brand names, think again. Your brand says a lot about you and your business, and that’s as true for a one person home-based operation as it is for a multinational conglomerate. In this article we look at how creating a strong brand for your business can help you set yourself apart from the pack and lay the right foundation for the future growth of your business.
By:
Jose Carochol
Advertising>
Brandingl
Feb 24, 2009
lViews: 149
Add new Comment
Your Name: *
Your Email:
Comment Body: *
Verification code:*
* Required fields
Submit
Your Articles Here
It’s Free and easy
Sign Up Today
Author Navigation
My Home
Publish Article
View/Edit Articles
View/Edit Q&A
Edit your Account
Manage Authors
Statistics Page
Personal RSS Builder
My Home
Edit your Account
Update Profile
View/Edit Q&A
Publish Article
Author Box
Jose Carocho has 18 articles online
Articles Categories
All Categories
Advertising
Arts & Entertainment
Automotive
Beauty
Business
Careers
Computers
Education
Finance
Food and Beverage
Health
Hobbies
Home and Family
Home Improvement
Internet
Law
Marketing
News and Society
Relationships
Self Improvement
Shopping
Spirituality
Sports and Fitness
Technology
Travel
Writing
Branding
Direct Mail
Graphic Design
Multimedia
Online Promotion
PPC Advertising
Prepress
Printing
]]>
Need Help?
Contact Us
FAQ
Submit Articles
Editorial Guidelines
Blog
Site Links
Recent Articles
Top Authors
Top Articles
Find Articles
Site Map
Webmasters
RSS Builder
RSS
Link to Us
Business Info
Advertising
Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2005-2010 Free Articles by ArticlesBase.com, All rights reserved.
A place to find 1000s of Useful Finance Articles
A place to to Quickly and Easily Find Someone You Lost Track Of