Branding Your Business - Take It From The Pros.....
Last Update: May 26, 2012
After participating in Jay's latest WAbinar, I realized that the branding of your sties plays as big of a role in the success of your business as it does for many of the well known offline brands. But for some, me included, coming up with ideas on how to brand your business can seem quite daunting, especially if this happens to be your first attempt at creating a business online.

In order to help those who may find themselves a bit lost in this realm, I found this great article in the April edition of Entrepreneur magazine entitled "Branding's Big Guns". While you do not need to try to incorporate all the tips of the top businesses in your own business, I found it to be a great resource that can help the rest of us start brainstorming on how we can differentiate ourselves from the rest.

You can find the article here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223125

I welcome your feedback/opinions as well.
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Sielke Premium
Jennifer, very interesting article. I've read the comments you've gotten so far as well and I think its all relative. For many of my sites they don't need branding of any kind. Think of a micro-niche site selling a certain shoe, why would that site need branding? The shoe is the brand period, its not even your shoe! Now what Jay was talking about was authority sites where say you are a shoe reviewer and thats your thing. Then yes you want to build a brand. The most important point of being an authority site is having return visitors. Regardless of everything, when someone wants to buy a shoe and he or she thinks about your site first and foremost..well you've just been classified as an authority site. To achieve this, you'll need to build your brand, your identity. Sure it can start with a logo but the way you write, the way your site looks, the way you present your content, even the frequency of your posts becomes part of your websites "brand". You want your visitors to feel familiar and recognize your website as if it were apart of their family (okay thats a little weird). Anyway, thats the way I see it.
BIS Premium
Thanks Jennifer. This was an interesting article to read. Thanks for sharing.
Deezdz Premium
I wonder if your still learning the ropes in IM, if branding is not putting the cart before the horse.

The article mentions Nike, Starbucks, Apple etc, but none of these companies branded themselves BEFORE they had a fabulous product/service and new exactly what they were doing.

I guess I'm just trying to say, at this stage, I feel branding my business is premature because I'm still learning as I go. I haven't watched Jay's WAbinar yet, maybe he has some great advice that will change my point of view.
BIS Premium
Hi Dee

I slightly diagree with you. Apple did brand themselves very early on. It was always Steve Job's idea that they would produce technologically high quality items with a beautiful design. - That's branding.

Whatever sort of products your are selling you still want to brand yourself. After all these big companies are learning too and they have changed over the years. Their service nor their products has stayed the same.

We are no different. You will decided what sort of customer service your offer, how you will respond to clients, how often you will promote particular products. There is for instant a chef on facebook who provides breakfast menu ideas five days a wekk - that's part of his branding.

I haven't listened to Jay's webinar yet either - but I am sure it is packed full of useful advice. I can't imagine for a moment that he's going to say wait until you feel established to establish your brand.

Beverley
Deezdz Premium
Maybe my definition of "branding" is askew and I need to watch Jay's WAbinar. Of course customer service and how you conduct everyday business is key right from the start, but when I think of branding I think logos, catch phrases, advertising, advertising and more advertising.
smokeywins Premium
My interpretation in terms of branding is to at a minimum have a streamlined logo for each site, early on, so as you build a following they will begin to identify new content that comes from you as opposed to others that may try to "copy" your ideas and steal your traffic.

Any any stage we can brand ourselves, but it doesn't mean you have to choose one thing and stick with it, but the key is to not change your logo/image every few months as you build your following as it can confuse the heck out of your visitors.

The key is to start small, come up with a unique logo, and maybe a tagline that makes your site unique, even if you are promoting the same thing as a hundred other people. Emphasizing your uniqueness will make you stand out from the pack and ultimately get you results.
RozcoRoc Premium
Considering branding in terms of logos, catch phrases, advertisement, etc.. is like considering marketing as being only advertising. While it is very important to have that, there are many other components to consider!

For example, when you think of Nike, do you only think of their logo and their "Just Do It" slogan? Or do you also consider the quality of the product?

Is your brand going to come up if asked about quality? Every aspect of your business/website/product is essentially part of your brand strategy! This is why it is important to carefully plan before you start.

Brand Knowledge = Brand Recognition + Brand Recall

If your logo comes up, will they know what you're about?

If your industry/niche comes up, are they going to name you?

For the first question, your logo becomes very important but for the second question, what you are all about is even more important that what you advertise or what your logo looks like.

.I feel like I went all over the place with that! Let me know if I'm not clear hehe

Alex
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