You’re really excited about your concept for a new product or service. But do you have a potential brand in the making? Unfortunately, it’s a question too many small-business owners ask far too late, or never ask at all—not a good idea in a world full of savvy consumers and big companies that have mastered the branding game. Great brands are all around us, and it’s no accident they make us think of certain things. Think FedEx, and think overnight delivery. Apple Computer brings to mind cutting-edge products and now, music and must-have phones and devices.
Even celebrities are brands. Would you describe Bradley Cooper the same way you would Jack Nicholson? Their differences—charming vs. gruff, refined vs. rough and rugged—helped to define their particular acting “brands” and let the public get a grasp on their personas. Corporate brands are no different. They have their own “personalities.”
tip
Make your company’s website more than just a boring online brochure by adding an e-newsletter, message board, a monthly podcast from the founder—anything that conveys your brand’s personality and humanizes your company in the eyes of potential customers. People want to know who they’re buying from, especially if it’s a new company.
We like to categorize everything, whether we’re talking about people, printers, or pizza places. Test this theory yourself. What draws you to one local business instead of another selling a similar product? One local restaurant might strike you as cute and inviting; another might make you lose your appetite without setting a foot inside—even though both restaurants serve the same type of food. You’re not alone if you find yourself categorizing each business you pass.
As a startup entrepreneur, you’ll be branding whether you’re even trying. If you don’t have a clear idea of what your new company is about, your potential customers will decide on their own—a risky move for a new company without many, or any, customers. You’ll need to have a branding strategy in place before you hang up your shingle. However, before we start strategizing, let’s answer the most basic question of all.
What Is Branding, Exactly?
Branding is a very misunderstood term. Many people think of branding as just advertising or a really cool-looking logo, but it’s much more complex—and much more exciting, too.
Branding is your company’s foundation. Branding is more than an element of marketing, and it’s not just about awareness, a trademark, or a logo. Branding is your company’s reason for being, the synchronization of everything about your company that leads to consistency for you as the owner, your employees, and your potential customers. Branding meshes your marketing, public relations, business plan, packaging, pricing, customers, and employees (the last element is often the most overlooked; read “In the Loop” on page 452 for more on this).
Branding creates value. If done right, branding makes the buyer trust and believe your product is somehow better than those of your competitors. Generally, the more distinctive you can make your brand, the less likely the customer will be willing to use another company’s product or service, even if yours is slightly more expensive. “Branding is the reason why people perceive you as the only solution to their problem,” says Rob Frankel, a branding expert and author of The Revenge of Brand X: How to Build a Big Time Brand on the Web or Anywhere Else. “Once you clearly can articulate your brand, people have a way of evangelizing your brand.”
Branding clarifies your message. You have less money to spend on advertising and marketing as a startup entrepreneur, and good branding can help you direct your money more effectively. “The more distinct and clear your brand, the harder your advertising works,” Frankel says. “Instead of having to run your ads eight or nine times, you only have to run them three times.”
Branding is a promise. At the end of the day, branding is the simple, steady promise you make to every customer who walks through your door—today, tomorrow, and ten years from now. Your company’s ads and brochures might say you offer speedy, friendly service, but if customers find your service slow and surly, they’ll walk out the door feeling betrayed. In their eyes, you promised something that you didn’t deliver, and no amount of advertising will ever make up for the gap between what your company says and what it does. Branding creates the consistency that allows you to deliver on your promise over and over again.
“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
—GABRIELLE “COCO” CHANEL, FOUNDER OF CHANEL INC.
Building a Branding Strategy
Your business plan should include a branding strategy. This is your written plan for how you’ll apply your brand strategically throughout the company over time.
At its core, a good branding strategy lists the one or two most important elements of your product or service, describes your company’s ultimate purpose in the world, and defines your target customer. The result is a blueprint for what’s most important to your company and to your customer.
Don’t worry; creating a branding strategy isn’t nearly as scary or as complicated as it sounds. Here’s how:
Step one. Set yourself apart. Why should people buy from you instead of the same kind of business across town? Think about the intangible qualities of your product or service, using adjectives from “friendly” to “fast” and every word in between. Your goal is to own a position in the customer’s mind so they think of you differently than the competition. “Powerful brands will own a word—like Volvo [owns] safety,” says Laura Ries, an Atlanta marketing consultant and co-author of The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand. Which word will your company own? A new hair salon might focus on the adjective “convenient” and stay open a few hours later in the evening for customers who work late—something no other local salon might do. How will you be different from the competition? The answers are valuable assets that constitute the basis of your brand.
Step two. Know your target customer. Once you’ve defined your product or service, think about your target customer. You’ve probably already gathered demographic information about the market you’re entering, but think about the actual customers who will walk through your door. Who is this person, and what is the one thing he or she ultimately wants from your product or service? After all, the customer is buying it for a reason. What will your customer demand from you?
Step three. Develop a personality. How will you show customers every day what you’re all about? A lot of small companies write mission statements that say the company will “value” customers and strive for “excellent customer service.” Unfortunately, these words are all talk, and no action. Dig deeper and think about how you’ll fulfill your brand’s promise and provide value and service to the people you serve. If you promise quick service, for example, what will “quick” mean inside your company? And how will you make sure service stays speedy? Along the way, you’re laying the foundation of your hiring strategy and how future employees will be expected to interact with customers. You’re also creating the template for your advertising and marketing strategy.
Your branding strategy doesn’t need to be more than one page long at most. It can even be as short as one paragraph. It all depends on your product or service and your industry. The important thing is that you answer these questions before you open your doors.
In the Loop
Many companies large and small stumble when it comes to incorporating employees into their branding strategies. But to the customer making a purchase, your employee is the company. Your employees can make or break your entire brand, so don’t ever forget them. Here are a few tips:
Hire based on brand strategy. Communicating your brand through your employees starts with making the right hires. Look to your brand strategy for help. If your focus is on customer service, employees should be friendly, unflappable, and motivated, right? Give new hires a copy of your brand strategy, and talk about it.
Set expectations. How do you expect employees to treat customers? Make sure they understand what’s required. Reward employees who do an exceptional job or go above and beyond the call of duty.
Communicate, then communicate some more. Keeping employees clued in requires ongoing communication about the company’s branding efforts through meetings, posters, training, etc. Never, ever assume employees can read your mind.
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A lot of new companies try to be everything to everyone, but this strategy will make it impossible to communicate your brand. Instead, identify your most likely customer and build your brand on what this person wants.
Bringing It All Together
Congratulations—you’ve written your branding strategy. Now you’ll have to manage your fledgling brand. This is when the fun really begins. Remember, FedEx was once a startup with an idea it had to get off the ground, too. Here are some tips:
Keep ads brand-focused. Keep your promotional blitzes narrowly focused on your chief promise to potential customers. For example, a new bakery might see the warmth of its fresh bread as its greatest brand-building asset. Keep your message simple and consistent so people get the same message every time they see your name and logo.
Be consistent. Filter every business proposition through a branding filter. How does this opportunity help build the company’s brand? How does this opportunity fit our branding strategy? These questions will keep you focused and put you in front of people who fit your product or service.
Shed the deadweight. Good businesses are willing to change their brands but are careful not to lose sight of their original customer base and branding message. Consider Starbucks, which changed the way it made lattes to speed up the process. “You have to give up something to build a brand,” Ries says. “Good brands constantly get rid of things that don’t work.”
Many Happy Returns?
It can be hard to put a dollar figure on what you’re getting in return for your investment in branding. Branders talk about this dilemma in terms of “brand equity”: The dollar value your brand generates over decades in terms of the demand it drives and the customer loyalty it creates. Coca-Cola’s brand equity, for example, is estimated in the billions of dollars.
Think about conducting a simple “brand audit” at least once a year. This means looking at how your product or service is marketed and branded (your marketing messages, etc.), analyzing your brand positioning (i.e., asking customers what they think of your brand), and then comparing the two (your branding efforts vs. customer perceptions) to see how well the two connect.
A simple customer survey with questions like “When you think about our company and our product, what words come to mind?” can tell you volumes about the strengths and weaknesses of your branding. A new coffee shop owner, for example, might think she serves the best coffee in town, while convenience or ambience—say, the type of music played over the sound system—turns out to be as much, or more, of a selling point from the customer’s perspective. A brand audit will help keep you on track and help you build on what you already do well.
Read All About It
Luckily, there are tons of books on the topic of branding. Here are just a few of them, along with a major trade magazine:
The Business of Brands. Written by Jon Miller and David Muir and published by John Wiley & Sons, this book discusses creating value around a brand as well as brand strategy.
Brandweek. This trade magazine is a good source of news and information about branding trends. Visit brandweek.com to subscribe.
Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands. This John Wiley & Sons book by Alina Wheeler discusses branding fundamentals and also provides a number of case studies.
Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. Written by Marc Gobé, this book delves into creating a strong brand personality, among other things.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand. This Harper Business book by Al Ries and Laura Ries includes tips for branding as well as numerous examples of how successful companies have built their brands.
There’s a lot of work that goes into launching and building a world-class brand, but it pays off. Nike once ran its business out of the back of a car, but now it’s a global brand worth billions of dollars. Think of your fledgling brand as a baby you have to nurture, guide, and shape every day so it grows up to be dependable, hardworking, and respectable in your customers’ eyes. One day your company’s brand will make you proud. But you’ll have to invest the time, energy, and thought it takes to make that happen.
Figure 29.1. Branding Checklist