Branding is vitally important to any business. It is more than just a logo, but that is part of it.
Your branding lets people know what your business is about. It is your promise to your customers and potential customers about the quality of your products and services. It is a statement about what your brand stands for.
Branding also promotes recognition of your company. Certain phrases, music, symbols are so tied with companies that you when you see or hear them you think of the company (even when their name is not said). For instance, the double arches (aka McDonald’s) have inundated our society. Now, close your eyes and think about the tune that plays at the end of their commercials. Chances are, you know the tune I am talking about. If you heard it without seeing the McDonald’s logo, you could likely make a connection. That is branding.
Likewise, if you hear some say, “Just Do it,” for any reason at all, Nike comes to mind. The phrase is part of their branding. In their case, choosing a phrase that is common enough to get said by people when they are not even talking about Nike, has made their brand more recognizable, and more profitable.
Walgreens is another company that has nailed it in the branding department. Since the later part of the 1980’s they have promoted their pharmacy side in their logo by including a pestle and mortar. But, that is just one aspect of what they offer now. In 2012, they introduced a new slogan, “At the corner of Happy and Healthy.” Adding this new slogan to their branding and requiring employees to greet customers with “Be healthy,” solidifies that Walgreens is about good health. That’s branding.
But another aspect of branding can be described as “word on the street,” how people who have used your product or services are describing how good (or bad) your product and services are. Likely, these people are influenced by their perception of you at many levels (i.e. customer service, how good your website looks, how much they liked the design of your product, etc.). A good example of this kind of branding at work is Intuit. In 1983, Scott Cook and Tom Proulx founded Intuit. Over the following 30 years they have cemented their place as the go to software for business accounting and taxes. They had a great origin story and happy users. Around 2004/2005 Microsoft decided to create a product to compete against QuickBooks. They had previously tried to buy out Intuit, but were turned down. Does anyone remember the name of Microsoft’s software? Intuit’s branding was so powerful they did not even need to fight Microsoft, one of the biggest software companies in the world, branding won the fight before it even started.
Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to go over the basics of building your branding, and the importance of evolving your branding as your company grows and changes. Stay Tuned.
And as always… Good Luck and Good Sales.
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