A Branding Beginning

Marketing and advertising agencies tell us that we’re supposed “brand,” we even feel the rightness of branding in our bones. After all, who wouldn’t want a name like Nike, Kleenex, or Starbucks to call their own? But folks in business often find that branding is expensive and know that it doesn’t always produce the immediate results a “low low price sale” will.

Yet this is the exact moment when spending energy building a brand will allow your company to leap forward over the competition as the economy begins to turn around.The good news is that you don’t have to take the traditional approach of spending lots of money in order to identify and build your brand. You have all the tools you need available to you at little or no cost.

First don’t be fooled that you need some high priced, large study, marketing testing set of words before you can begin to brand yourself. Let’s face it — you know what your company is about. You know what it stands for. You know what values you held when you created it. You know why you believed the business would be successful.

You know what your brand is about! No one knows it better than you!

That’s more than half the battle. Once you know what your brand is about, and you can articulate it to someone. Then you have to figure out a 3-7 word phrase that evokes what your business is about. This phrase need to resonate with and create a gut level feeling for your audience. Admittedly, this is a bit difficult to do on your own. If you need the assistance, this is where a marketing agency can help you cut hours and weeks out of the processes. The important thing to remember here is that you are in control. You decide how much you want to spend with the agency. Just ask them to give you half a dozen of the best options they can come up with, within your budget. That should get you close enough to be able to find the catch phrase/tag line you think will work best for your business.

Remember you know your brand best. If it doesn’t work for you, it won’t work for your customers. Don’t be afraid to reject all the ideas that the marketing firm came up with. If they aren’t right — they aren’t right.