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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Create a strong brand DNA--and watch it grow These days, customers want to have a deeply felt connection to the brands behind the products they're purchasing, which means that if you're starting a business, a strong brand DNA has got to be part of your creative process from day one. And it needs to be more than just an abstract idea: to give your brand life--and a bigger chance of surviving against the competition--you need to have a standout launch strategy and a set plan for growing your brand in a noisy marketplace. In Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies, Amy Will--who launched her first business at just 24-years-old and has been the brains behind four strong and buzzworthy brands--covers everything from crafting a powerful brand identity and planning that all-important launch to being prepared to scale up as you begin to take off. She reveals crucial lessons from her personal experience in launching five companies, as well as detailing case studies from some of the strongest brands out there, accompanied by insights and advice from successful founders and branding experts. * Stand out on social media * Create viral campaigns * Build on Customer Loyalty and LongevityDeal with the competition Whether you're thinking of starting a business or are already building up your market share, memorable brand identity will be the key to--and Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies one of the secrets of--your future standout success.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies®
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Published simultaneously in Canada
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Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Getting Started with Branding
Chapter 1: Wrapping Your Brain around Branding
Understanding What a Brand Is and Does
Recognizing Different Brand Types
Grasping Brand Architecture Basics
Knowing When to Brand
Stepping Through the Branding Process
Chapter 2: Creating and Financing Your Brand
Deciding What You’re Going to Brand
Identifying or Creating a Niche Market
Formalizing Your Brand As a Business … If You Haven’t Already
Financing Your Business/Brand
Chapter 3: Positioning and Defining Your Brand
Positioning Your Brand
Defining Your Brand Identity
Naming Your Brand
Chapter 4: Clarifying Your Branding Goals
Identifying Your Branding Goals/Objectives
Creating Your One-Year Branding Plan
Monitoring and Evaluating the Success of Your Branding Efforts
Chapter 5: Defining and Refining Your Customer Avatars
Discovering Who Your Target Customers Are
Describing Your Customer Avatars in Your Own Words
Redefining Your Customer Avatars As They Evolve
Putting Your Customer Avatars to Work
Part 2: Attending to Brand Fundamentals
Chapter 6: Creating a Brand Style Guide, Media Kit, and Templates
Creating a Brand Style Guide
Assembling and Using a Media Kit
Creating Your Own Branded Templates
Chapter 7: Building a Branded Website, App, and Email Account
Going It Alone or Hiring a Developer
Claiming Your Domain Name and Choosing a Hosting Service
Walking Through the Basics of Building a Website
Driving Traffic to Your Site
Using Web Analytics to Improve Your Online Branding Activities
Establishing a Branded Email Account
Launching a Branded App
Chapter 8: Writing Copy That Supports Your Brand Messaging
Exploring Types of Copy You Can Use to Promote Your Brand
Deciding Whether to Fly Solo or Hire a Copywriter
Creating an Editorial Calendar
Crafting Brand-Boosting Copy
Maximizing Your Reach with Search Engine Optimization
Chapter 9: Building Strategic Partnerships
Considering Potential Benefits and Risks of Strategic Partnerships
Finding and Selecting a Cobranding Partner
Developing and Delivering a Pitch for a Strategic Partnership
Agreeing on the Terms of Your Partnership
Steering Clear of Common Partnership Pitfalls
Chapter 10: Launching Your Brand
Planning Your Launch Campaign
Tapping the Power of the Press to Launch Your Brand
Improving Your Campaign’s Chances of Going Viral
Part 3: Building a Strong Brand Presence
Chapter 11: Creating In-Person Experiences
Creating a Pop-Up Shop
Getting Your Products into Stores
Taking Advantage of Marketing Event Opportunities
Chapter 12: Blogging, Podcasting, and YouTubing
Appreciating the Value of Content Marketing
Promoting Your Brand Via Podcasting
Blogging to Promote Your Brand
Building Brand Recognition with Online Videos
Monetizing Your Content
Chapter 13: Promoting Your Brand via Social Media
Getting Started with Branding on Social Media
Following the Rules of the Road
Harnessing the Power of Photos and Video
Teaming Up with Influencers
Saving Time and Effort with Social Media Management Tools
Chapter 14: Email Marketing
Becoming a Trusted Sender
Defining Your Objectives
Building a Quality Email List
Composing Effective Email Messages
Exploring Email Marketing Platforms (Free and Paid)
Tracking Results: Email Metrics
Chapter 15: Boosting Brand Awareness with Paid Advertising
Weighing the Pros and Cons of Paid Advertising
Getting Started with Paid Advertising
Working with Advertising Agencies
Tracking Results
Chapter 16: Building a Vibrant Community around Your Brand
Starting with a Sense of Purpose
Creating Safe Spaces
Stimulating Engagement
Empowering Your Community
Remaining Positive At All Times
Part 4: Feeding and Caring for Your Brand
Chapter 17: Scaling Your Brand Identity
Surveying Different Approaches to Scaling a Brand
Conducting a Brand Audit
Creating a Scaling Plan
Outsourcing Responsibilities to Lighten Your Load
Chapter 18: Building on Customer Loyalty and Longevity
Identifying Your Top Customers
Rewarding Customer Loyalty
Getting Customer Feedback
Encouraging Customers to Share Why They’re Loyal to Your Brand
Chapter 19: Dealing with Competition and Other Threats to Your Brand
Remaining Sensitive to the Changing Needs of Your Target Market
Keeping the Competition at Bay
Protecting Your Brand
Preventing and Recovering from Publicity Disasters
Part 5: The Part of Tens
Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Make Your Marketing Campaigns Go Viral
Plan for Phenomenal Success
Build Your Email List
Get Emotional
Compose a Catchy Campaign Slogan
Never Underestimate the Power of Visuals
Choose Media Outlets Strategically
Pitch Your Brand to the Media
Extend Your Reach with Promoted Posts on Social Media
Use Hashtags to Generate Buzz
Make Your Message Easy to Share
Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Distinguish Your Brand from the Competition
Offer Quality Products/Services
Deliver Exceptional Customer Service
Target a Price Point
Offer a Guarantee or Warranty (or Both)
Cash in on Your Good Looks: Design
Become a Disrupter
Create a Unique Brand Experience
Carve Out a Niche for Yourself
Build Community Around Your Brand
Be a Force for Good
Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Drive Customers to Your Website
Treat Your Website as Brand Central
Use SEO to Your Advantage
Deliver Content That’s Fresh, Relevant, and Valuable to Your Target Market
Promote Your Content on Social Media
Spread the Word via Email
Take Advantage of Guest Blogging
Engage with Your Visitors
Post Useful Content on Reddit
Recruit Influencers
Answer Questions on Quora
Index
About the Author
Advertisement Page
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 2
TABLE 2-1 Business/brand budget
List of Illustrations
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: Determine what makes your brand special.
FIGURE 3-2: A brand positioning map.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: Gather information about your target consumers.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: Building a custom color palette on Canva.
FIGURE 6-2: Canva’s logo maker.
FIGURE 6-3: Select a predesigned template.
FIGURE 6-4: Customize your template.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: Installing WordPress on Bluehost.
FIGURE 7-2: The WordPress dashboard.
FIGURE 7-3: A collection of featured themes in WordPress.
FIGURE 7-4: You can easily customize the Divi theme.
FIGURE 7-5: Creating a new web page in WordPress.
FIGURE 7-6: Add an image to a page or post.
FIGURE 7-7: Copy an embed code for a YouTube video.
FIGURE 7-8: You can create menus from the names of existing pages.
FIGURE 7-9: Copy the code in the Global Site Tag box.
FIGURE 7-10: Add the Google Analytics global site tag to your site's <head>.
FIGURE 7-11: Select your analytics account, property, and view.
FIGURE 7-12: Google Analytics displays site metrics.
FIGURE 7-13: Create a branded email account.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: A sample editorial schedule.
FIGURE 8-2: Use a keyword search tool to find common searched words and phrases...
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: Find the sweet spot where vision, goals, and target demographic ove...
FIGURE 9-2: A sample cobranding partner-pitch email template.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: A sample hit list.
Chapter 12
FIGURE 12-1: Create a schedule for your podcasts.
FIGURE 12-2: The Add a New Post page.
FIGURE 12-3: You can record video on your smartphone.
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13-1: Instagram story highlights.
FIGURE 13-2: My Linktree landing page for Girl Gang the Label.
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: Audience, purpose, and tone influence how content is presented.
Chapter 15
FIGURE 15-1: Google Ads PPC campaign types.
Chapter 18
FIGURE 18-1: Your request for feedback may contain a range of options to select...
FIGURE 18-2: A sample checkout page with a feedback call to action.
Chapter 21
FIGURE 21-1: Examine problems to discover opportunities.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Author
Dedication
Author’s Acknowledgments
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Introduction
These days, nearly everything is a brand — from large corporations to people, from products and services to government agencies, special-interest groups, and celebrities. Some organizations and people have more than one brand — a business brand, a product brand, and a personal brand, for example. Bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers have brands. And whether you’re aware or not, you have a brand too: your professional or personal reputation, which is all a brand really is.
People build and launch brands for all sorts of reasons: to sell products or services, build trust, advance their careers, promote a cause, gain exposure to new opportunities, and more. Launching & building a brand gives focus and clarity to everything you do, from defining the essence and purpose of what you’re promoting to deciding what you’ll do to promote it. As a result, everything you do to reinforce a positive brand image in the minds of others has greater impact.
I don’t know why you’re interested in launching & building a brand. My husband and I built and launched the Color Me Book brand to bring a cool product (a personalized coloring book) to market and profit from it. I launched my Girl Gang brand to promote women empowerment and connect with like-minded women. Whatever your reason is for launching & building a brand, you want to do it as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Welcome to Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies.
About This Book
Launching & building a brand isn’t easy. Some people seem naturally gifted at it. They’re outgoing and engaging. Their charisma is contagious, and whatever they choose to promote attracts an eager following.
The rest of us struggle. We don’t even know where to start. Launching & building a brand is so overwhelming that we freeze in our tracks.
Fortunately, with the right tools and guidance, anyone can build and launch their own brand. In this book, I provide the guidance you need, and I highlight numerous tools that simplify the process. To make branding even more accessible, I break my guidance into five parts:
Part 1
: Getting Started with Branding
introduces key topics covered in the book and guides you through the process of creating, defining, and financing your brand; clarifying your branding goals; and getting to know your audience — the people you’ll be trying to impress.
Part 2
: Attending to Brand Fundamentals
picks up where
Part 1
left off. In
Part 2
, you tackle the basics of getting your brand off the ground: creating a logo and style guide, building a branded website and email account, building strategic partnerships, and taking the first steps to launch your brand.
Part 3
: Building a Strong Brand Presence
explains what to do to increase brand recognition and awareness, including creating in-person experiences, blogging, podcasting, posting on social media, doing email marketing, buying advertising, and building community.
Part 4
: Feeding and Caring for Your Brand
covers everything you need to know to protect your brand and extend its reach. Here, you find out how to scale your brand, build on existing customer loyalty, and defend your brand against threats from the competition.
Part 5
: The Part of Tens
covers ten ways to make a marketing campaign go viral; ten ways to differentiate your brand from the competition; and ten ways to drive traffic to your website, blog, or other online properties.
You can’t get lost in this book, because everywhere you turn, you’ll find valuable information and advice.
Foolish Assumptions
In this data-driven age, all assumptions are foolish. After all, who needs to make assumptions when Google knows everything? But to keep this book focused on the right audience and ensure that it delivers the information and insight you need to grasp a topic as complex as branding, I felt compelled to make the following foolish assumptions about you:
You have a great idea for a brand but little to no idea about how to get started, or you have a brand that’s struggling to get traction.
You don’t have a college degree in marketing, and you’re not a self-educated marketing maven.
You want to brand the right way from the start and not waste time and money on a trial-by-error process.
You’re willing to invest time and effort developing marketing skills.
Other than those four foolish assumptions, I can honestly say that I can’t assume much more about you. For all I know, you could be a teenager or a septuagenarian, an intern or an executive, a work-at-home mom or dad, a doctor, a lawyer, rich, poor, or somewhere in between. You could be living in a beach house on the coast, a bungalow in a small town, or a studio apartment in a big city. Regardless of your demographic, I celebrate your interest in branding, your eagerness, and your can-do attitude. You’ll be rewarded handsomely as your brand goes viral!
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, icons in the margins highlight certain types of valuable information that call out for your attention. Here are the icons you’ll encounter and a brief description of each.
I want you to remember everything you read in this book, but if you can’t quite do that, remember the important points flagged with this icon.
I’ve been branding for myself and various employers for more than a decade, and I’ve picked up dozens of marketing shortcuts and tips along the way. In this book, I share those tips with you and flag them with this icon so you’ll be sure not to miss them.
You’ll find nothing dangerous about branding, but the process does have some pitfalls you’d be wise to avoid, and I use this icon to point them out.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the 300-plus pages of do-it-yourself branding advice delivered in this book, you have access to even more help and information online at Dummies.com, and that information isn’t limited to branding. You can dig up all sorts of interesting stuff on a wide variety of topics.
While you’re there, check out my Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies Cheat Sheet. No, I didn’t forget to put it in the book. Making it available online is just another clever marketing ploy by the For Dummies brand to sell more books — a teaser, a giveaway, which is a technique I discuss in the book.
Where to Go from Here
Where you go from here is up to you. I wrote this book to be used as a reference, so feel free to skip around, following where your curiosity leads. Every part, chapter, section, and subsection is a self-standing component, so you don’t have to tackle topics in some predetermined order.
If you’re new to branding, you may want to head to Chapter 1, which introduces branding and key topics covered in more detail in later chapters. If you’ve already launched your brand and are looking to improve brand recognition and awareness, head to Chapter 6. If you’re looking for branding tips and tricks, check out the chapters in Part 5.
If you’re in a hurry because you’re up against a deadline, or if you need urgent help dealing with a branding issue, turn to the table of contents (at the beginning of this book) or the index (at the end). Either will point you in the right direction.
Keep in mind that branding isn’t a linear process. You can start just about anywhere. What’s important is the collective impact of everything you do to promote your brand.
Part 1
Getting Started with Branding
IN THIS PART …
Get a quick primer on branding, including the purpose of branding, the different types of brands, what brand architecture is all about, deciding when creating a brand makes sense, and a bird’s-eye-view of the 10-step branding process.
Build a brand from the ground up, starting with deciding what you’re going to brand and identifying a market niche and moving on to the process of creating a business around your brand and securing the money to finance it.
Position and define your brand, which involves differentiating your brand from everything else already out there, deciding what your brand’s essence will be, and coming up with a clever, catchy name for your brand that also clearly describes it.
Identify your branding goals, build a plan to meet those goals, and measure the success of your branding activities, so you can make data-driven changes to your strategy and tactics.
Define your customer avatars (after, of course, figuring out what the heck a customer avatar is). It all starts with getting to know the people in your target market and then describing them as a group in 50 words or less.
Chapter 1
Wrapping Your Brain around Branding
IN THIS CHAPTER
Grasping the purpose of branding
Differentiating among brand types and why it matters
Getting up to speed on brand architecture
Recognizing when branding comes in handy
Getting a bird’s-eye view of the ten-step branding process
Because you’re reading this book, I can safely assume that you want to build and launch a brand. You already have a general idea of what that entails. You create something that people value: a business, product, service, worthy cause. Then you position it as being something unique so that people will do what you want them to do: buy your product, subscribe to your service, join your cause, listen to your podcast, vote for you, whatever your goal may be.
That’s what branding is all about, but to do it, you need to take a deeper dive, which is why you’re reading this book. In subsequent chapters, I take you on that deeper dive. In this chapter, I encourage you to wade in slowly, building overall understanding of branding so that when you encounter the more detailed topics, you’ll know how they fit into the overall picture.
Consider this chapter to be Branding Orientation Day. Here, I introduce you to the topic, explain some key concepts, and lead you through the ten-step process for building and launching a brand.
Understanding What a Brand Is and Does
A brand is a mental construct that identifies an entity (a business, product, service, organization, or person) as something special. As a mental construct, a brand is intangible; you can’t see, hear, touch, smell, or taste it. But it can have a powerful impact on how people perceive and feel about something, such as an organization, person, or product.
Although a brand itself is intangible, several tangible items contribute to creating a brand, including the following:
Brand name
Mission and values (for corporate or individual brands)
Personality
Distinctive features (quality, design, value)
Visual design elements (logo, color, typography, tagline, images, packaging)
Content (website, blog posts, social media, images, video, white papers)
Customer experience (location atmosphere, convenience, customer service)
All these elements and others contribute to the perception consumers have of the brand. Just think about one popular brand: Coca-Cola. Its brand name, red-and-white Spencerian script, and unique bottle shape are recognizable everywhere in the world and have been for more than a century. But although the company is built around soft drinks, its marketing focuses on selling happiness and camaraderie and on eliciting a strong emotional response from customers.
Creating a strong emotional bond with customers is the primary purpose of a brand. But a brand also serves other purposes, including the following:
Differentiating an organization, product, or person from any competitors
Building trust
Building loyalty
Establishing credibility
Motivating customers to take action (buy a product or service, join a cause, vote for a candidate, watch a video, and so on)
Building equity or value that can ultimately be sold
BRANDS VERSUS COMMODITIES
One way to think about what a brand is and does is to compare it with a commodity:
Commodities are indistinguishable goods and services that serve the same purpose regardless of who makes them, such as gasoline, batteries, dishwashing detergent, coffee beans, Internet bandwidth, and vacuum cleaners. Unless you have a good reason to buy one commodity instead of another, you buy the cheapest one.Brands are offerings that are different in some way that matters to customers or clients, such as Shell gasoline, Energizer batteries, Dawn dishwashing detergent, Starbucks coffee, Verizon Internet service, and Shark vacuum cleaners. You’re willing to pay more for your favorite brands because they’re different and better in your mind than the competition.If you’re not a brand, you’re a commodity, and if you’re a commodity, the only way you can compete in your market is to offer the lowest price.
Don’t confuse the purposes of branding with brand purpose. Brand purpose is the brand’s raison d’être. The brand purpose of Starbucks, for example, is to help facilitate human connections. And although Walmart is committed to charging low prices, its purpose is to help people provide better lives for their families. To define your brand’s purpose, answer the question “Why is my brand here?” When you define your brand’s purpose, you don’t need to be concerned too much about the competition; you just need to be sure that everything you do aligns with that purpose.
Recognizing Different Brand Types
One of the first choices you make when you decide to build and launch a brand is what to brand — your business, a specific product or service, or yourself. In this section, I describe the brand types you can build and explain how branding differs for each one.
Business or corporate brand
Small businesses to large corporations often brand themselves to
Differentiate themselves from competitors
Increase recognition among customers and clients, investors, suppliers, potential partners or associates, and other stakeholders
Build a strong positive reputation
Attract high-quality job applicants
Facilitate the introduction of new products
Generate press coverage
Charge a premium for offering something different and better
Increase the market value of the business
The focus of corporate branding is mostly on mission, values, relationships, and the business’s culture. Regardless of the size of the business, the goal is to position itself as a respected and valued member of the community — the industry or market in which it operates and the world overall.
Corporate brands are slow to build and slow to change. You’re building the brand the entire time you’re building the business. Every decision you make from the time you name the business contributes to the brand, including the suppliers you choose, the people you hire, the culture that develops within the company, how you interact with customers, and your choice of businesses to associate with.
Product brand
A product is anything that’s manufactured for sale to consumers. A product brand is the distinct value of a specific product in the minds of consumers; the product is different from and better in some way than something else the consumer could spend money on. The purpose of branding a product is to
Differentiate it from competing products
Make it easily recognizable
Increase loyalty among consumers
Compel consumers to pay more for the product
The focus of product branding is differentiation — making the product stand out in the marketplace. You build a product brand through product development, packaging, and messaging — everything that contributes to the consumer’s perception of the product.
Although corporate brands are slow to build and slow to change, new product brands can be developed quickly and often undergo rebranding.
Service brand
A service involves doing something for someone, so how can you possibly brand a service? Usually, you brand the service provider — the business or person providing the service. The purposes of creating a service are very similar to those for creating a business or personal brand:
Differentiating the service and service provider from competing services
Building credibility (demonstrating that the service provider is qualified)
Building trust (showing that the service provider is reputable and reliable)
Charging a premium for superior service
With a service brand, your efforts focus mostly on the following credibility- and trust-building activities:
Earning certifications, awards, and other credentials and then getting them in front of customers, such as posting them on your website and mentioning them in brochures
Presenting content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise, such as articles, blog posts, social media posts, photos, videos, podcasts, and white papers
Engaging with customers and prospects to answer questions and solve problems to further demonstrate your knowledge and expertise
Soliciting and posting testimonials or positive reviews from satisfied customers
Getting positive reviews from journalists, business organizations, and other trusted sources
Like corporate brands, service brands are slow to build and slow to change. Your brand continues to evolve as your service evolves. As you introduce new services or develop ways to provide the same services faster, more conveniently, or more affordably, your brand evolves.
Personal brand
A personal brand is one that develops around a person. You already have a personal brand: your reputation. People may know you as a sharp-dressing, punctual overachiever; a careless, fun-loving creative; a devoted parent and respected member of the community; or something else entirely. In a career or business, people develop personal brands to
Increase demand for a product or service they provide
Further their career
Expand their opportunities
Build credibility and trust
Establish themselves as thought leaders
With a personal brand, your efforts focus mostly on the following activities:
Discovering who you really are and finding your most attractive (and in-demand) traits, knowledge, and skills
Expressing, in a genuine way, who you are, what you do, and what makes you so special
Fake it till you make it doesn’t work; people will eventually see past the façade.
Being your best you — you are your business and your product, so you need to embrace learning and self-improvement
Building a strong portfolio, which may involve earning credentials, developing or gathering samples of your work, or soliciting customer testimonials or reviews — anything that demonstrates success in your field
Attending or speaking at industry events and other opportunities to get your name and face in front of people
Presenting content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise — articles, blog posts, social media posts, photos, videos, podcasts, white papers, and so on
Engaging with customers and prospects to answer questions and solve problems to further demonstrate your knowledge and expertise
You’re constantly developing your personal brand whenever you do anything that affects other people in any way. Whether you’re working as an employee or freelancer, launching your own website, posting content on your social media accounts, or driving through town, all your engagement with others contributes to your brand.
Other brand types
The brand types I’ve covered to this point are all business and commercial. Other brand types include the following:
P
ublic brand:
One owned by the government, such as the Internal Revenue Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Central Intelligence Agency
Nongovernmental organization brand:
One owned by a not-for-profit organization that isn’t affiliated with any government group, such as the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Anywhere, Ceres, and the American Heart Association (AHA)
Event brand:
One created to attract participants, attendees, and sponsors, such as Burning Man, NASCAR, the Olympics, and the Cannes Film Festival
Grasping Brand Architecture Basics
If you’re planning to create several related brands, you need to choose the brand architecture that establishes how they’re related. You have two options:
Branded house (monolithic)
consists of a master brand (usually, a company) with multiple subbrands (typically, divisions, product families, products, or services), all of which ride the coattails of the master brand. Virgin has several subbrands, including Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Comics, Virgin Wines, and Virgin Care.
House of brands (freestanding brands)
consists of several stand-alone companies, product families, products, or services, each with its own brand identity, none of which refers to the corporate brand. Proctor & Gamble has a wide variety of consumer brands, including Bounty, Charmin, Gillette, Puffs, and Tide.
Most organizations and people use branded house architecture because it offers the following benefits:
Easier and more affordable:
You build and manage a single brand.
Stronger:
Everything you offer reinforces a single brand. Another way to look at it is that you don’t have a bunch of separate brands that dilute the master corporate brand.
Increased brand equity:
A single brand generally has more equity built into it and is easier to sell. With multiple brands, a prospective buyer of the business may want some brands and not others, and will expect to pay less for the business as a result.
Here are a few situations in which the house-of-brands architecture may be the better choice:
You have deep pockets and a large corporation with diverse companies, divisions, or families of products or services.
You want to introduce a new product to the market that would dilute or clash with your existing brand’s identity. Suppose that an automobile manufacturer that built its brand around luxury vehicles decides to offer a line of economy vehicles. Selling economy vehicles would weaken the company’s reputation for designing and building luxury vehicles, so creating a stand-alone brand probably would be best.
You build or are planning to build a company by acquiring multiple stand-alone brands.
A key factor in successful branding is consistency, so if anything you’re introducing to the marketplace is inconsistent with your existing brand, consider creating a separate, stand-alone brand around it.
Knowing When to Brand
Do you really need to build a brand to accomplish your business, organization, or career goals? Well, not really, but building a brand will generally enable you to accomplish your goals faster and raise your level of achievement. In this section, I explain situations in which building a brand is always beneficial.
Whenever you do anything that affects others, you’re building a brand, regardless of whether you’re aware you’re doing it. A brand is simply the perception others have. The question isn’t really “Do I need a brand?” or “Should I build a brand?” The question is “Do I want more control of the brand being created?” When you make a conscious effort to build a brand, you’re making a decision to take a more deliberate role in influencing how people perceive your business, organization, products, services, or yourself.
Opening a new business
Whenever you open a new business, you’re creating a brand, so before you even name your business, give some serious thought to how you’re going to create a brand around it. Especially pay attention to the following tasks:
Identify your niche — what your business plans to do different and better than existing businesses in the same space (see
Chapter 2
)
Define your brand identity — your business’s vision, mission, and values, and what makes it special (see
Chapter 3
)
Clarify your branding goals, and establish ways to measure your progress toward achieving those goals (see
Chapter 4
)
When you create a business, you create a brand, so think about your business as a brand from the get-go. Branding shouldn’t be an afterthought. If you already have a business, though, it’s never too late to benefit from branding.
Promoting an existing business
People commonly launch successful businesses without branding even crossing their minds, especially freelancers and other sole proprietors or one-owner operations. Most of these same people eventually reach a plateau with their business, or they start to see that they’re losing business. For whatever reason, they realize that their business needs a boost and that they need to take a more active role in promoting it. They need a brand.
Creating a brand for an existing business is nearly the same as creating one for a new business. You’re essentially rebranding your business. You may keep the business name (so as not to confuse existing customers) or change the name to something that aligns more closely with your vision for the brand. But you perform the same first steps that you would for a new business: identify your niche, define your brand identity, and clarify your branding goals.
The initial steps in the branding process are about clarifying the vision you have for your brand. Subsequent steps focus on executing your vision. See “Stepping Through the Branding Process” later in this chapter for a step-by-step overview of branding.
Introducing a new product or service
If you have an existing business and are introducing a new offering, you probably don’t want to rebrand your business to accommodate it. But you do need to think about how your new offering fits in:
Decide whether to introduce the new product or service under your existing brand or a brand of its own. If the new product or service strengthens your existing brand, introducing it under your existing brand name is probably best. If it’s likely to weaken your existing brand, creating a separate brand is probably best. See the earlier section “
Grasping Brand Architecture Basics
.”
Identify your market niche for introducing the new product. How is the new product or service different from and better than what’s already available? If you decided to introduce it under your existing brand, how will it support and extend your brand?
If you’re introducing the product or service as its own brand, be sure to position and define that brand. See
Chapter 3
for details.
If a new product or service dilutes or clashes with your existing brand, create a new brand. Don’t try to expand your offerings with something that doesn’t fit.
Furthering your career
You don’t have to start a business to benefit from branding. Just about anyone in the workforce who’s looking to advance their career can benefit from creating and managing their own personal brand. As I mentioned previously, your reputation is part of your personal brand. You just need to be more active and intentional about the content you’re putting in front of potential employers and clients. Here are a few ways you can start to strengthen your personal brand:
Create your own website or blog, and post regularly to it to demonstrate your knowledge, expertise, commitment, and generosity. See Chapter 7 for guidance on creating a website or blog.
Unless you’re consciously building a career as a critic or political pundit, don’t post negative content or attack any person, group, or organization. Remain positive. As your parents probably advised, “If you can’t say something nice about a person, don’t say anything at all.”
Post a unique and engaging bio on your website or blog and all your social media profiles. See
Chapter 8
for information about writing copy that promotes your brand.
Include your website or blog address in all your social media profiles.
Create a LinkedIn account. LinkedIn is the best social networking platform for professionals.
Join and participate in popular online discussion forums (including those on LinkedIn) that are relevant to your industry or areas of expertise.
Post regularly on your favorite social media platforms.
Before posting anything on any social media platform, assume that a potential employer will read it. Ask yourself whether your post would impress that person or turn them off.
Solicit testimonials from people you’ve worked with or for to post on your website or blog and social media accounts.
Becoming an influencer or a celebrity
If you’re famous or influential (or want to be), building a strong personal brand is a key to your success. Your branding goal is to become popular — to have tens of thousands or even millions of followers on social media and to be in high demand due to your influence or celebrity status.
The key to building a personal brand to become famous is finding topics that resonate with large populations and that align with your own personality and goals, so that you can develop content that’s both genuine and engaging.
With a personal brand, charisma goes a long way. Think about the charismatic people you know. They’re confident, optimistic, approachable, engaging, and energetic; they tell great stories or jokes; they have strong convictions; they’re not afraid to take risks; and they live life to its fullest. Start with those qualities, and you’ll be well on your way to stardom.
Fundraising for a not-for-profit organization
People give an organization money only when they believe it’s going to a worthy cause and trust the organization to use the money wisely toward that cause, so having a strong brand is essential.
When you’re building a brand for a not-for-profit organization, focus on three areas:
Storytelling:
First and foremost, people need a compelling reason to donate to the organization. They need to believe that the organization will make the world a better place in a way that matters to them.
Credibility:
The organization must demonstrate that it uses money wisely to fulfill its mission. If money or projects are mismanaged, people will be reluctant to donate.
Transparency:
The organization must keep donors informed about where the money is going and about successful and unsuccessful projects. Transparency builds trust, and people won’t donate to an organization they don’t trust.
Raising capital for your business
Whether you’re trying to attract private investors or planning to take your company public, branding is an important first step. You need to build a brand to convince investors that they can expect a respectable return on their investment.
When you’re starting a new business, you’ll be recruiting private investors, who want to see the following:
Clearly defined products or services that have a reasonable expectation of selling well and generating a profit
A strong management team with a track record of success or at least the knowledge and expertise to start and run a successful business
A solid business plan, showing how the business will pursue success
A clear and compelling brand story
A culture of innovation to drive future growth
Only after you’ve created a highly successful and popular brand should you take your business public. Branding at this stage focuses on highlighting the company’s track record for success, its future ambitions (such as earnings and profits projections), its innovations, and its ability to execute planned initiatives.
Expanding into new markets
If you already have a brand and are planning to expand into new markets — in different regions of the country or in different countries — consider how your current brand will play in those locations and whether any adjustments need to be made. Certain colors might elicit different emotions depending on the culture, for example. You may need to hire a marketing firm in the location you’re expanding into to provide guidance on design elements and content.
Stepping Through the Branding Process
Although the approach to building and launching a brand differs depending on the brand type and purpose, the overall approach is pretty much the same and can be boiled down to ten steps. In this section, I lead you through the process. Subsequent chapters cover specific steps in greater detail.
Step 1: Creating something to brand
Before you can build a brand, you need to have something to brand or at least a concept for it: a business or other type of organization, a product or service, or yourself. This step involves the following activities (see Chapter 2 for details):
Deciding what to brand
Identifying a market niche
Formalizing your brand as a business (such as forming a limited liability company or corporation)
Coming up with the money to build your brand
Step 2: Positioning and defining your brand
This step involves clarifying in your own mind what your brand is, what it does, why it’s different, and why it’s better. It’s all about defining your brand identity in a way that differentiates your brand from competing brands or other products or services that may attract the attention of your target market. See Chapter 3 for details.
Step 3: Establishing your branding goals
In this step, you set goals for your brand, including the following:
Increasing brand awareness
Creating an emotional connection with customers and prospects
Differentiating your business, product, service, or self from the competition
Building credibility and trust
Increasing sales and profitability
This step also involves building a plan to meet your branding goals and deciding on ways to measure your progress toward achieving those goals. See Chapter 4 for details.
Step 4: Defining your brand’s customer avatar
A customer avatar is a fictional character that represents your target customers. Its purpose is to give you a sense of your audience that inspires you to create design elements and content that are likely to persuade customers to support and even promote your brand.
This step involves research and analysis to get to know the people who make up your target market, describing your avatar in your own words, and refining it to keep up with the times and any changes in your target market.
You can create more than one customer avatar to represent people from different market segments you’re trying to penetrate. But you want to avoid trying to be all things to all people and making an avatar so broad that your design and content have no measurable impact on anyone. See Chapter 5 for guidance on creating a customer avatar.
Step 5: Creating a brand style guide
One key factor in branding success is consistency. Every time someone encounters your brand, you have the opportunity to reinforce your brand identity in their mind. Think of your brand as being a catchy song that gets stuck in the listener’s head. A brand style guide is a rulebook that ensures consistency by governing everything that contributes to the look and feel of your brand, including the following:
Corporate guidelines, including mission statement, values, and targeted demographics
Colors
Typography (typeface, sizes, and spacing)
Logos
Imagery (photos, illustrations, and infographics)
Tone of voice (fun, professional, caring, and so on)
See Chapter 6 for guidance on creating a brand style guide.
Step 6: Building a branded website, app, and email account
Because so many people spend so much of their time on the Internet these days, creating a strong online presence has become an important part of branding. To begin to build an online presence, do the following things:
Claim a unique domain that reflects your brand, such as GirlGangtheLabel.com.
Build a website, blog, online store, or a hybrid of those three things in that domain. This site acts as your main hub. Then you can drive traffic to your main hub from other Internet sites, such as social media platforms and discussion forums.
Use the domain in your email address (such as
) to reinforce your brand in every outgoing email message.
(Optional) Create a branded app (or hire an app developer to do the work for you) that further reinforces your brand while making it easy for customers or clients to place orders and stay connected.
See Chapter 7 for details.
Step 7: Forming strategic partnerships
One of the most powerful ways to promote your brand is to form mutually beneficial partnerships with other brands, sort of like hitching your wagon to a star. If your brand is built around retail, getting your products into popular retail chains is one approach. I was able to persuade Nordstrom to carry my Girl Gang the Label fashion line, which was mutually beneficial. The partnership generated sales and revenue for both parties, increased my brand’s profile, and helped Nordstrom position itself as a hip place to shop.
Always be on the lookout for potential partnerships. Even if you’re flying solo or have a small business outside the retail space, you can find partnership opportunities to extend your brand’s reach and boost brand awareness. See Chapter 9 for details.
Step 8: Launching your brand
After building your brand, when you have all the pieces in place, you’re ready to launch it. This step involves scheduling the launch, preparing incentives to generate interest, getting press coverage, and making it easy for users to share your content with everyone they know. See Chapter 10 for guidance on executing a successful launch campaign.
At this stage in the branding process, your goal is to get your campaign to go viral. To achieve that goal, you need to do a big push in both traditional and social media channels — wherever the people in your target market go for information.
Step 9: Promoting your brand
Promoting your brand involves everything you do during and after your launch to extend your brand’s reach and strengthen brand awareness. It typically involves the following activities:
Content marketing — sharing content that subtly promotes your brand without explicitly doing so (see
Chapter 8
)
In-person experiences, such as events, pop-up stores, retail locations, and conferences (see
Chapter 11
)
Podcasting — sharing audio presentations and interviews (see
Chapter 12
)
Social media marketing (see
Chapter 13
)
Email marketing (see
Chapter 14
)
Advertising (see
Chapter 15
)
Step 10: Caring for and protecting your brand
Branding is a lifelong journey — the life of the brand, that is. As long as the brand is in existence, you need to care for it and protect it, which involves the following activities:
Auditing and scaling your brand to increase its reach while expanding brand awareness
Building on customer loyalty and longevity to transform customers into brand advocates
Protecting your brand from competitors and anyone who may try to steal your intellectual property
Attention spans are short these days. If you’re not putting something fresh in front of your target customers at least a couple of times a week, they’re going to forget about you.
Chapter 2
Creating and Financing Your Brand
IN THIS CHAPTER
Figuring out what you’re really branding
Narrowing your focus to increase your impact
Making your business/brand an official legal entity
Finding the financing to start and grow your business/brand
Branding assumes that you have something to brand — a business, a product, a service, or even yourself. You need something you can stick a label or hang a sign on. If you already have that something clear in your mind, you can safely skip this chapter. If your vision is still a little fuzzy around the edges, or if you could use some guidance on coming up with an idea or getting your idea off the ground, you’ve come to the right place.
In this chapter, I introduce you to the various entities you can brand, and I highlight some differences in the branding process for each type. I show you how to find or choose a niche that improves your chances of success. I explain how to register your business/brand and choose the right legal structure for it. Last but not least, I reveal a few ways to get other people to help finance what may be a risky venture.
Deciding What You’re Going to Brand
You can create a brand for just about anything — products and services, businesses and corporations, performers and groups (think Cirque du Soleil), celebrities and influencers, government entities (including nations) and nongovernment organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations, even places (I ♥ NY, for example). The four most commonly branded things are businesses, products, services, and individuals (personal branding).
Sometimes, the lines dividing these different brand types get a little blurry. When you are the business, for example, do you create a business brand or a personal brand? In this section, I introduce you to the four most common brand types so you can figure out what you’re branding and how that decision will affect your approach to branding.
Knowing what you’re branding is important because it gives you focus and guides you in deciding what to do to build your brand. The overall approach and specific activities differ, depending on whether you’re branding a business, a product, a service, or yourself.
Business or corporate brand
A business or corporate brand establishes and communicates an organization’s identity to all stakeholders, internal and external, including customers, investors, executives, managers, and staff. Corporate branding involves ensuring alignment of everything that goes into defining the organization’s identity, including the following:
Mission statement:
The organization’s overall purpose.
Vision statement:
How the organization plans to develop over time.
Values:
The beliefs, philosophies, and principles that guide the organization’s decisions and behaviors.
Core competencies:
The sets of resources and skills that enable an organization to deliver something special to the marketplace.
Value proposition:
What the company delivers to the market that drives consumer demand for it.
Workplace culture:
The way people within the organization generally think, behave, and interact. In a hierarchy, employees generally do what they’re told by their superiors, whereas in a more collaborative culture, everyone shares in decision-making and workplace management.
Business strategy:
The way an organization chooses to achieve its goals and remain competitive.
Business activities:
Daily operations, including marketing, sales, financing, customer service, and supply-chain management.
Affiliations:
Partnerships, associations, and relationships with other businesses and with consumers. An organization’s identity is defined by the company it keeps.
Brand story:
The narrative that relates the facts about a brand in a way that connects emotionally with people. (See
Chapter 8
for details on how to compose a brand story.)
Brand style:
Guidelines (see
Chapter 6
) that establish the brand’s look and feel.
Note that corporate branding isn’t covered in detail in this book, although some aspects of product, service, and personal branding (which are covered in this book) may apply to corporate branding as well.
Corporate branding is long-term with a broad scope. Unlike product branding, which uses a narrow pitch and often adjusts its message to target different sectors and customer demographics, corporate branding strives to create a universal appeal over the long haul with strict consistency.
Product brand
A product brand is a set of unique qualities — including design, packaging, and advertising — that makes a consumer good easily recognizable and special in the minds of consumers. Product branding entails the following activities:
Designing a recognizable and appealing logo (see
Chapter 6
)
Coming up with a clever, catchy brand name (see
Chapter 3
)
Establishing branding guidelines to ensure that all marketing has a consistent look and feel, and adjusting the guidelines to keep up with the times (see
Chapter 6
)
Researching the market to better understand customers and competing products (see
Chapter 3
)
Tailoring the message to appeal to different consumer demographics (see
Chapter 8
)
Differentiating your product from competing products (see “
Identifying or Creating a Niche Market
” later in this chapter)
Marketing/advertising via email, website, blog, social media accounts, podcasts, video, and so on (see
Chapters 7
,
12
, and
13
)
Service brand
A service brand is a set of unique qualities, including the service type and quality. How a service provider is marketed, sold, and delivered makes it trusted and valued in the minds of consumers. With product branding, you’re selling goods, whereas service branding is more about selling a relationship or an experience. Service branding involves being professional, likeable, and trustworthy at every touchpoint:
Marketing materials, including business cards and brochures (see
Chapter 10
)
Online marketing via email, website, blog, social media, podcasts, and video (see
Chapters 7
,
12
, and
13
)
Sales meetings with customers (see
Chapter 3
)
