Let’s face it, marketing can be hard! In each marketing blog post, we hope you’ll find the information you need for your business marketing success.
Can Branding Come Naturally?
I think marketers spend so much time carefully considering and crafting brands that sometimes we forget that the very best branding is born out of the instant the organization was created by its founders. The best brands are created in the moment that the founder decides to start the business. To do something different or…
Branding Your Business in 5 Steps
Thinking about branding your business? Are you worried it will be too hard and too difficult? There’s no reason it needs to be either difficult or hard. What are you waiting for? You can create a world-class brand in just 5 easy steps. 1. Create your branding vision The first thing to do is to decide what…
150th Finding Brand Post and a Big Announcement!
Can you believe it? This is the 150th post of the Finding Brand blog! What a ride it’s been. When I started the Finding Brand Blog, it was with the intention of demystifying marketing and branding. I think this blog has been successful in that endeavor. And throughout the years, you’ve shared with me what…
Tips for Using Evernote in Marketing
You know how it goes, you find a great article online that has a great fact or tidbit in it. Later that week (or month) you are talking about just that article with a colleague and you want to send them the article…but here’s the rub. You have to find that article again. With so…
A Declaration of Passion
I have talked a lot throughout this blog about the power of a manifesto, why they are important, and how to draft them. However, I was talking with a client this week and I described it, for the first time, as a “Declaration of Passion.” Moreover, in that moment, the somewhat nebulous concept became clear and…
Top 15 Finding Brand Blog Posts in 2012
I have a confession to make, somehow I blinked and January was G-O-N-E! Has that ever happened to you? I had intended to do another recap of the most popular blog posts on the Finding Brand Blog in early January. But, it appears that ship has sailed. So, a month late, here’s the annual recap…
Annual Strategic Marketing Plan Template
Ever look around madly for the ideal Annual Strategic Marketing Plan Template? I know I have — more times than I care to admit. Some are too involved for most companies (literally, there are 625 page books written on the topic). Others worry more about tactics than strategies. Some forget the most important part —…
Why You Need a Brand Narrative
For thousands of years, humans have utilized stories provide context, meaning, and raison d’être in our lives. Our world is constructed of personal, community, institutional, and political narratives. Think for a moment, about the power narrative has played in your life today. Chances are pretty high that upon arriving at work this morning, you met…
Trends for Marketing in 2020
It’s hard as marketers to get far enough out of the day to day to observe trends materializing to influence our ability to do our jobs, much less think about marketing in 2020. But the difficulty not withstanding, the future of our brands depends on it. As often as possible, we must get out of…
4 Critical Components to Successful Brand Management
Brand Management can cause all but the most serious marketing professionals to blanch. Mostly because the phrase “Brand Management” sounds like an obscure, highly technical body of knowledge. To make matters worse, the normal online resources for learning about a concept do a poor job explaining what it is. But the reality is that successful…
Your Brand is About Emotion
I know I’ve talked about it in the past, but it bears repeating, your brand is entirely about evoking an emotional response…we buy from brands we like. In fact, if your brand invokes anything less than passion, you’re missing the mark and that means you’re missing opportunity. While I work with, and talk about, this…
The Secret to a Great Brand is Just One Thing
Know what the secret to a great brand is? One thing – just one thing. Focusing on one thing when branding for nonprofits is admittedly the hardest part of creating an amazing brand. The trick, as Jack Palance in “City Slickers” reveal, is figuring out what your “One Thing” is. It’s going to take discipline…
The Year in Review
A BIG Thank You from all of us at Paradux Media for subscribing to our e-mails and for actually clicking on it… 🙂 2011 was a record breaking year for us on ‘The Pond.’ We doubled the size of our Paradux work family and increased the size of our client family. We’ve had clients that…
Writing the Brand Manifesto and Brand Tagline for the Brand Book
Now that you’ve had the opportunity spend some time getting acquainted with your Brand for your Brand Book, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and write (or include) your Brand Manifesto and Tagline. (If you’ve been following Finding Brand for awhile now, you might recall me addressing manifestos before in The Secret Sauce.) The…
Cause Marketing for Brands
How many times has a news story broken that reveals a profound injustice? Too often I’d argue. If you’re not an Auburn fan (or you don’t know one) you may not have heard about the poisoning of the trees at Toomer’s Corner by someone claiming to be an Alabama Fan. These trees were more than a…
Your Brand is Your Story
An easy way to think of your brand is to understand that it is the story of your business. It’s about the history of your business, it’s about you as a protagonist, it’s about the evils you battle in this world, and it’s about the gang of people you hang out with and why. How you…
Selling Your Brand Internally
One of the most important places to spend time and energy “selling” your brand is internally. There is no audience that is more important to have completely understand and believe your brand position. The reason should be obvious, of your staff doesn’t believe in your brand position, they cannot support it. Therefore, it is critical…
Branding Consistently
The hardest part about branding is keeping tight control on your branding consistency — always using the same logo, sticking with your tag line, maintaining your presence in the media, sticking with YOUR plan. The reason that branding consistently is hard is that it’s so much easier, and often faster, to get things done and…
Unexpected Branding Opportunities
In any business, there are the expected branding opportunities, television commercials, radio, signs in the store, and even employee shirts. But some unexpected branding opportunities give you a chance to make your brand stand out. The first thing to consider is what your brand manifesto requires. Is it fun, innovative, brash, friendly, kind, or in your…