Whenever we hear the word “Brand” an image of McDonalds, IBM, Coca-Cola, HP and dozens of other mega-giants pops into our minds. Why is that?
Branding has become one of the most if not THE most essential part of advertising (both on and off line).
When it comes to branding, consistency is crucial. You need to be unchanging throughout your marketing campaigns in order to establish a powerful brand. If you’re going to be using different words, images and slogans – you’re going to drive your customers nuts. People need to associate your company, product or service with something unique. That’s what branding provides – instant association and value perception of your services.
There’s a reason why the mega-brands are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising each year. They want their brand (logo and name) to be engrained into our minds. That way we instantly recognize and emphasize certain brands and offers amongst hundreds of propositions we get presented with each day.
In order to establish a successful, long term, rock solid brand you need to be consistent. When I was just starting out with my blog I have overlooked this principle which led to a huge setback. I was changing slogans every week, trying to find one that worked best. Of course, eventually I realized that I should spend at least half the time I was spending on branding on content creation, but that “Aha!” moment came later on.
Damage was done and it took me months to recover.
My point being is that you need to be consistent with your branding. Develop a slogan, logo, and business name. But whatever you do – be consistent. Don’t go switching your business’s face every other week, stick with it and see where it takes you.
I have compiled a list of guidelines you need to follow in order to keep your brand consistent throughout any online marketing campaign.
1. Consistent Username. Be consistent about choosing usernames when registering at different social networks. Your profile ID is your Name in the online world. Keep that in mind when signing up on forums, social networking websites, article directories, etc. This includes keeping the same spacing, CAPSLOCK, Capitalized Letters and formatting.
2. Consistent Image. Chances are that if you register at a membership site – you’re going to have an ability to upload an image. You can upload either your personal photo or your business logo. Choose a single image you’re going to use to use and stick with it (note that some sites have size and resolution limitations so keep different size images just in case).
3. Consistent Design. It is worth investing some time or money (or both) into creating a branded design for your Blog, Twitter and MySpace. Some services aren’t yet compatible with this particular option, but I believe it won’t be long now before most of the social networks hop on the locomotive to the background fairy land (if that makes any sense at all to you ).
4. Email and Forum Signatures. Every forum and nearly every email service allows you to add a signature file whenever you send out an email or post a thread on message boards. This is probably one of the most effective ways to build a brand. If you’re spending time on forums and interacting via email then it is definitely worth investing some time in creating a decent signature file.
5. Get Out There. One of the most effective ways the mega-giants do branding is by forcing their ads on the majority of TV channels. You need to do the same in order to create some presence for your brand. Get on Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, etc and start expanding your audience. You have to get some exposure and initial presence to get the branding snowball rolling downhill.
6. Don’t Over Do It. Remember to not to overwhelm yourself by the number of sites you’re going to use for branding. There is only so much time in a day and you need to spend it wisely. Choose 4-5 main sites and connect them if possible. If not, find ways to be as efficient as possible with your branding!
The results of branding aren’t nearly as fast as any other kind of advertising, but it sure is as crucial as it gets. Marketing without branding is the same as urinating against the wind – you’ll get your shoes wet no matter how hard you’ll try.
Got interesting branding experience, funny stories or questions? Leave a comment!
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Valuable thoughts and advices. I read your topic with great interest.
Hey very nice blog!!