What is branding?

In my last article, I explained that your brand is how your customers, prospects, friends and family view you. So where does branding fit into the picture?

Branding is about trying to shape the impressions people have about you and your company. It’s not about manipulating people. People are much too smart for that to work and no advertising or branding campaign can help you if you are a nasty person or unethical company.

Instead, it’s about understanding who you are at your core and explaining clearly why people should do business with you (or have a romantic relationship or be friends with you on a personal level.) It’s about making sure that every interaction people have with you is consistent with that core message.

Branding Is More Than “Getting Your Name Out”
When most people think about branding, they think of “getting their name out.” They then try a little of everything like sending postcards, newsletters and sales letters, advertising, getting publicity, building a website, and doing search engine marketing. They generally do it sporadically, to different audiences so they can reach as diverse a group as possible, and get poor results. They then throw their hands up in frustration after squandering lots of money and conclude that marketing doesn’t work.

Instead of thinking about generating “awareness” about your services, think of branding as a process. Branding is the process of educating your prospect about who you are and what makes you unique. You have to start somewhere, so initially, you must:

1. Determine who your target audience is
2. Uncover what benefit they want most when purchasing a product or service like yours
3. Clearly explain reasons why your product or service is uniquely capable of solving their problem
4. Describe how your product or service differs from all the other solutions out there
5. Reach the same target audience on a frequent basis

In other words, branding is about telling your prospects who you are, what you do, and why they should care enough to contact you to learn more about how you can help them.

Branding Requires Focus
Branding is not about reaching as many people as you can. It’s about reaching a select group of people who probably have a need for your service and giving them compelling reasons why you can help them. Those reasons why must be specific and address the problems and concerns of the people you are talking to. They must make a clear distinction why your products and services are different from your competitors. And you must reach them several times.

It can take upwards of 5-7 points of contact for someone to remember you and your company. It can take longer before they start to buy into why you are uniquely qualified to help them solve their problems AND that their problems are causing them so much pain that they should take action now.

Branding Requires Repetition
Even if your prospect sees your advertisement or reads your direct mail piece and thinks “Yes, this real estate agent can help me!” you’re still only half way there. They must then actually do something - like call you. Even if the person is extremely interested in what you offer, things come up. They might place your letter on their desk and forget about it, or write down your phone number and lose it, or accidentally throw out. If that’s the last time you communicate with them, you’ve lost a prospect.

But the next time they see your mailing or advertisement, it will trigger their memory and they’ll be more likely to take action this time. How many “renew your subscription” letters do you receive from magazines before you actually write a check? If you’re like me, you need that stern warning “this is your last issue unless you renew your subscription right now.”

In personal branding, you are the product being branded. People tend to buy from those they like and trust, so personal branding is about demonstrating your best qualities, characteristics and strengths and letting people know more about you. It’s about building relationships with people by keeping in touch over a period of time with information that is timely and relevant to your prospects’ needs. And it’s about demonstrating that you are who you say you are - and that everything you do is consistent with that core message.