Build Your Business With Strong Brands . Not a Mountain of Cash

You're having the gang over on Sunday to watch the football (hockey, baseball, etc.) game. Which pizza maker do you call?

Your child needs braces. Which orthodontist does everyone in town go to?

You want to sell your house. Which realtor do you call?

The answer is the same in each case: the one that has the best brand. Branding is important because it makes sales easier!

Realtors, dentists and restaurants all have brands. So does every small business in the world. Sure, we think that only Fortune 500 companies, like Coca Cola and Procter and Gamble have brands. But that's not true. Every company has a brand image. Whether the brand image is good or bad, or if it is well known or invisible is up to you.

If you're involved in marketing in any way, shape or form, you've heard the term "branding" but you probably couldn't define it. And if Regis asked you, "Is that your final answer?" you'd probably take your money and run rather than risk losing your cash.

That's because if you asked 50 marketers to define "branding," you'd get 50 different answers. Very few people agree on what branding is, but they agree that it is important in building sales and profits.

So what are brands and why are they important to you?

Brands make selling easier! Plain and simple.

To understand what branding is, we need to understand what branding isn't .

From my studies, along with research that includes hundreds of interviews with top marketing managers at large and small companies, I've come to several conclusions:

1. A brand is not a logo, slogan, catchy saying, mission statement or publicity campaign.
   
2. A brand is about trust. You select a company because you trust them and the companies have credibility. These are two issues that are important to every company of every size.

When you travel along the highway and need a quick meal, do you stop at the local diner for a meal featuring the local cuisine- or do you pull in to McDonalds because you know the fries are always going to be the same?

People trust McDonalds. They will give up the chance for an innovative meal in favour of the trusted resource every time!

And that's because people buy on emotion and justify with logic.

"Gee the local diner might be good, but it might take a long time and we're in a rush."

Is it any wonder why McDonalds is a multibillion-dollar enterprise?

Look at the best brands on the Internet: Yahoo, eBay and Amazon. What do they all have in common? People trust them!

I always ask my seminar attendees if they have ever bought books from Amazon. Most of them respond that they have. I then ask if anyone has had any problems dealing with Amazon. In one out of three seminars, only one person out of hundreds will raise a hand. But they quickly say that Amazon resolved the problem in their favour, quickly and courteously.

I then ask if people have telephones. Everyone raises their hands. I ask if anyone has ever had a problem with their phone company. Most people keep their hands up! You probably have the same experience. They then go on to state that the problems were often not well resolved. Phone companies have well-earned reputations for poor customer service.

Good companies create good brands by creating trust.

Do you need a lot of money to create trust?

No way! Yet hundreds of companies have blown through millions, even billion of dollars on TV ads during the Super Bowl, and other major events, trying to build a brand image.

I attended a top-level seminar on branding and a venture capitalist on the panel said authoritatively that a consumer company has to spend $50 million dollars, or more to build a brand identity today.

However, in a recent seminar on branding, I asked the participants, all of them brand managers from major companies, to name 10 search engines, 10 consumer web sites, 3 pet supplies sites and 10 business-to-business web sites.

Not one could!

And these are the very people who are in the industry, and are exposed to the millions of dollars of advertising to allegedly create brands!

What does this mean?

Buying your way to brand awareness does not work!

The 'net' is littered with those failures: Dr. Koop, Priceline's grocery service, and Boo.com stand out as highly publicized failures.

So, as a small company, you don't have to worry about not having a treasure chest full of cash to buy a reputation because it doesn't work!

How do you create a great brand? That's where brand assets come in to play. Brand 'assets' include your slogans, advertising, publicity, promotions, characters, spokespeople, as well as your customer service and sales people. These tools help create a meaningful identity that creates an emotional bond with your audience that compels them to take action while providing the logic that helps them to justify their choices.

The Internet provides a treasure chest of tools to help create brand awareness, brand identity, and brand loyalty, including your e-mail address, website name, and signature file. You also need to build in and transmit your own personality & identity to create trust.

When you build trust, you build a great brand. If you can do that, then you will build sales and create customers for life!

© Daniel Janal