This article is the 2nd of a series on Marketing and Branding. Its focus is on how to increase your probability of business success by branding.

The first article in this series discussed how marketing and branding is often the furthest from the mind of many ECE directors. With limited budgets and resources or as a non-profit entity, one might ask how can I or why would I divert limited resources to branding or marketing. However, the reality is whether your ECE business is profit or non-profit, large or small, it has to produce income to be successful and grow. Marketing and branding is an integral part of businesses success and growth. One can not rely alone on "...If you build it, they will come..."

In the previous article, a method of increasing one’s probability of success was to differentiate by providing a dramatic difference. Another way to differentiate is the use of branding. It’s an essential part of marketing. Many business owners confuse marketing with advertising and it happens a lot. Marketing encompasses all the activities that can help generate business and it includes branding. (Montoya, 2005, p 47).

Some people argue that it is not possible to brand a small business. However there are many examples of small businesses that became very successful due to branding. Starbucks is one company that used almost no advertising and over a period of ten years developed such a strong brand that the company went from one shop to hundreds. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand)

Let’s begin by exploring what a brand is and how it works for you.

A brand includes your name, logo, slogan, and/or a design scheme associated with your service or product. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the use of the product or service and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it. A brand often includes a logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, and sound, which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand)

One goal in brand recognition is the identification of a brand without the name of the company present. For example, when you see the Nike check mark or the McDonald’s arches, you know who the business is and what they offer. So basically it’s a short hand for communicating what you are about. It’s a packaging of your image. Even when you don’t have a brand, your business has an image; the collection of qualities that customers associate with you. So, why not put some thought into that image and manage it, instead of it being random.

If your business is part of an existing chain, your branding may already be done for you. However, if you are an independent business, you may not have developed a brand. Even individuals entrepreneurs can have a brand. Any business built around ideas and skills can benefit from a custom-crafted brand and once you create a compelling brand, business comes to you. (Montoya, 2005, p 3).

A brand takes your skills, personality and unique characteristics and packages them into a powerful identity that lifts you above the crowd of anonymous competitors. Once your branded, you’re no longer anonymous in your field, your business, your expertise and strengths are known.

(Montoya, 2005, p 2-16).

To be effective it must evoke that you are different (differentiation), that you are superior (that you are among the best at what you do) and that you are authentic (built on the truth of who you are). (Montoya, 2005, p 2-16).

The purpose of a brand is to produce a market response and that occurs at fours levels (Montoya, 2005, p 25-26):

• Awareness – Customer prospects can’t choose you if they don’t know you exist.

• Affinity – After multiple exposures to your product or service, some prospects begin to develop positive feelings toward your brand.

• Understanding – Eventually affinity leads to greater investigation. At this point, good marketing helps customers understand why you are right for them.

• Value Threshold – At some point the potential customer decides your product service has value and they want it.

While the development of a brand is unique to each business and the complete process is beyond the scope of this article here are some things to consider (Montoya, 2005, p 28):

• Branding has nothing to do with your budget
• Branding is about influencing perception
• Branding is about communicating value
• Branding works for you - it reduces the time spent marketing

So, here’s your challenge, ask your self: “Do I have a brand?”, “What is my brand?”, “Is it clearly communicated?”, “What are its elements: personality, appearance, competencies, and differentiation?”, and “Can it be improved?”

References:

Montoya, Peter (2005). The Brand Called You: The Ultimate Personal Branding Handbook to Transform Anyone into an Indispensable Brand. Personal Branding Press. ISBN 0967450667. 

Additional Reading:

Books on branding and marketing http://www.brandchannel.com/books.asp

Montoya, Peter (2002). The Personal Branding Phenomenon. Personal Branding Press. ISBN 0967450616. 

George Cheney, and Craig Carroll (1997). "The Person as Object in Discourses in and Around Organizations". Communication Research 24 (6): 593–630. 

Levine, Michael (2003). "The Celebrity brand", branded World: Adventures in Public Relations and the Creation of Superbrands. John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0471263664. 

Branding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand

Brandchannel (online exchange about branding) http://www.brandchannel.com/

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Contributed by Keith Engelhardt

Keith works for one of the nation’s top retail consulting firms that blends creative and strategic thinking within a multi-discipline business model, and that provides a singular approach that delivers remarkable results. For over twenty-five years, they have contributed to the success of some of the world’s leading retailers.