What is branding? Mainly, what does it mean to your online business?
This subject came up this week while hiking with one of my good friends, who is losing her job. She’s been outsourced! We conversed about her focusing on her own business now and capitalizing on her talents. Like with anyone starting out with an online business and already knowing what niche they are going to be in, I asked her what are you going to do differently to stand out from the others. Why should anyone buy xyz from you?
Let’s just say our hiking pace picked up, and we tackled those hills rather easily, I think, while brainstorming some ideas.
She has homework to do.
And I got an idea for a blog post!
What Is Branding?
The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. (Business Dictionary)
A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. Seth Godin
Define Your Message And Mission
When we think of branding, most people think about name and logo. There is more to it than just that.
Just like any online business. Brainstorming and researching your industry should be the first thing you do once you have your business in mind. During this process you will need to define your brand. This is discovering who your market is and how are you going to serve them.
Doing your research and looking at other businesses similar to what you’ll be doing is a start. Look at what you like and dislike with how they present themselves. How could you do it differently while injecting your own ideas and personality into it? This is going to be your identity and your theme throughout your business.
Part of the process will be coming up with a profile of your target customer. This will help you identify their needs and how you can meet them. Some questions to ask yourself:
- Who is my ideal customer?
- What is the type of customer I’m trying to reach?
- What issues concern them?
- How am I going to alleviate those problems or concerns?
After your research and analysis you need to come up with your mission. How are you going to meet the needs of your customer? This can be defined in a mission statement or tagline. It can be a short sentence or two that clearly defines what you do and why you do it. To help with this you can ask yourself these 4 questions:
- What do I do?
- How do I do it?
- Whom do I do it for?
- What value am I bringing?
Now We Can Talk About The Name And Logo
Depending on your business, especially if you are running a blog and website, you may want to use your own name to promote your product. You can also come up with a name that really resonates with you that’s unique.
For instance, I like hiking the foothills near my home and love the California Live Oak tree, it’s so uniquely California and is so beautiful out on our semi-arid landscape. I came up with the name Live Oak and built my website theme around it. Love the colors in my theme too!
Also important is to make sure your business name isn’t trademarked which you can do at the US Patent and Trademark Office.
After you have the name you can consider a logo. If you want to make a logo yourself from scratch you could use something like Adobe Illustrator. Or you can outsource it using Fiverr, UpWork, Elance.
You could also try 99Designs, this way, you invite as many designers as are interested to submit ideas for your design, you then just select the one that you’re happiest with.
My logo is still something I may do later for my site. Right now I have an image I use on my website and social media that I absolutely love.
Attaching yourself to your brand visually might be a good idea as it helps build trust and puts a face to the business. You can have your name as your domain and also your photo on your website.
Not everyone will want to put themselves out there visually, but it will definitely make you memorable. I’m one of those that didn’t want to put myself out there, but here I am. My picture is out there on my website and social media. In my business as an Online Marketing Coach it certainly made sense. People want put a face to my business since I would be working directly with my potential customer.
Be Consistent
Once you have your online brand defined through your target audience, mission, name and logo comes the website design, marketing of your product and overall look and feel of your business, even down to the colors!
You want to be consistent on everything you put out to make sure your brand is aligned and recognizable. This will help you stay focused on who your customer is, so you can consistently provide the authority and value your brand brings and not create any confusion.
Lastly, be creative, have fun with it! Let your personality shine through!
If you’re interested in building, branding and managing your own online business right the first time, without the confusion of information overload, please click below for my coaching services.
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