Web Site Marketing
Strategies: Business Building Articles
Your Company's
Branding
It
wasn't all that long ago that the term "branding"
was used to describe scarring an animal to denote
ownership. Oh how times have changed.
Branding is now the hot BUZZ word to
describe, in essence, marketing or advertising
messages that work at conveying what you do in
your business to the casual observer. The thinking
goes that if you effectively "brand" your
messages, that consumers will be better able to
recognize your ads as belonging to you and will
then be more likely to do business with you.
SERIOUSLY! Do you think I could make this
stuff up?
Let
me "de-mystify" the branding process for those of
you who wish to be enlightened.
Branding is not something you choose to do to your
business. It's something that your CUSTOMERS
do to you. Just as the unsuspecting calf is
branded by searing metal pressed into it's flesh,
so is your business branded by your customers.
That's right. Branding is not an "inside
out" process, though it is a process that begins
deep within your company. Instead,
branding is the process through
which you imprint what it is your company is about
upon the minds of your target audience.
Because branding is an ongoing
activity, it occurs constantly. Every
interaction between your business and your
customer (or potential customer) is building your
brand, whether you like it or not.
With that perspective on branding, it's easy to
see that the task at hand is to control your
customer's perceptions of your company as much as
is possible.
With this perspective, you may
suddenly realize that the surely angst ridden teen
who is running your cash register after school is
helping to building your brand. Nancy, in accounts
receivable is also building your brand as are your
technicians who go out into the field.
Every time someone you employ
has contact with other people, they are in fact
helping to build your brand. If this doesn't
frighten you, nothing will.
The "experts" want you to
believe that branding is something you can buy.
Can you blame them? It's much easier to say,
"Run your ads here and be sure to use use the
right colors and font faces in those ads," than to
look beyond the ads at the business behind the
ads.
Advertisements are simply
invitations to your business. Invitations to
strangers asking them to do business with you.
Implementing a methodical identity program (a.k.a.
branding program) will allow you to determine
exactly how you want to portray your company or
product to the outside world. However, what
happens once those customers do business with you
will, in the end, determine your company's
"brand."
In the end, your brand is merely
the way you are perceived by your customers.
Branding is merely
identifying the image you want to portray to
outsiders. Your goal should be to make
certain that brand accurately reflects what your
business does. Once you've done that, then
you can determine what promises you should make
for your business to deliver.
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