How to Market Your Business Through Branding

From your business cards to your entire marketing plan, the use of "branding" can give your business a personality and identity that generates profits. Best of all, branding is an effective marketing tool whether you are a large corporation or a mom 'n pop small business. Branding gives your company and your products a personality. It may involve a sound (the snap, crackle, pop of Rice Krispies), a slogan (Capital One’s “What’s in your wallet?”), a visual image (McDonald’s Golden Arches), a personality (the AFLAC duck), even a smell (the aroma of Cinnabon products in the mall). Here are the basics for branding your business and products.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Imagination and introspection
• Willingness to get out of the box and create branding that may not follow the rules, but promotes you, your business and your products and services.

1. Check out your current brand. What image are you projecting now? This is your current brand. Is it dull and unexciting? Why do your current customers come in? And how do they feel when they leave?
2. Focus on the little things, especially if you are a small company with a small budget. It doesn’t take much. Ask any Midwest Airlines customer about the company and he or she will likely coo about the freshly baked, piping hot, chocolate chip cookies served after lunch.
   
   You do not have to spend a fortune to make your company unique. Redesign your business cards and put your "elevator talk" on the back. Send out "Thank You" cards to customers and clients. Jazz up your web site. Sponsor a local event. Start building a culture, an image.
3. Differentiate yourself from the competition. Take a day trip and do a little research. Or just surf the internet to see what your competitors are doing. It will open your eyes. Learn from their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses.
4. Create a personality, a mythology, and a belief system for your company. Effective branding often involves a creation story. Consider two counter-culture guys who started making weirdly named ice cream flavors (Ben & Jerry’s) or a techie nerd called Bill Gates who started a multi-billion dollar computer company in his garage (Microsoft).

Tips & Warnings

• Properly done, branding makes people feel good about doing business with you. It doesn’t create customers. It creates a community of supporters. This becomes a culture. That’s why people pay $3.75 for a mug of coffee at a café with a warm ‘n fuzzy atmosphere rather than getting a cup of the same blend to-go for 75 cents at a diner with a neon “eats” sign in the window.
• The goal of branding is to give your customers a positive experience. Make them want to do business with your business; make sure they enjoy the experience; and make them want to come back. Ask yourself, “What can I do to make my customers’ experience different and more rewarding?”
• Part of my image is that of the country consultant who lives either on the shores of Lake Michigan or in the Caribbean, but with the ability to deliver top-draw (and top-drawer) marketing content from anywhere in the world.