BRANDING…Don’t be in a hurry

“Your brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not years.”

The secret to branding success is consistency. Brand building is a slow and hard undertaking. Once you select a brand then it should be used in all your marketing material. Your product or service may undergo changes, but your brand should remain the same.

A few brands and slogans that are consistent are: BMW the Ultimate Driving Machine: Coca-Cola  It’s the real thing

A brand cannot get into the mind unless it stands for something. In my opinion, your logo combined with your tag line makes up the brand. In my case, I am branding BizQuack with the tag line “No small business left behind –Believe-Belong-Succeed.” I still need to remember to include the combination logo and tag line on all my marketing material.

A successful branding program is based on the concept of singularity. It creates in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no product/service on the market quite like your product. Your target market will try to assign one brand name to a specific product/service. Your brand will become stronger because it has a narrow focus. Your brand cannot be everything to everybody.

The process of building a brand is more effectively achieved through publicity, not advertising. I have often spoken about the importance of differentiation of your product/service from the rest of the market. If you are different than what is currently in the market place, then you are the first brand to establish a new category. In all my research, the first brand in a category most often retains its leadership position. Being first also becomes a newsworthy item.

When you talk about your business, you should stake a claim. As an example, in the case of BizQuack, we are the leading small business support system in the United States. The word leading is the one that established credentials for our company.

Remember, the key to engaging and inspiring your target is to make your brand stand for something bigger than its products or services, to make it share a cultural relativity that connects on a deeper level.

Rise up and attack the day with enthusiasm!