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Reflect your brand in everything you do; from your website design, to your public relations, to how you go about selling your product. Once you’ve done this,
next step is to create Brand Awareness. This is achieved through consistency. You can dream up most brilliant ad campaign on planet, but if you’re not consistent about putting it in place, you’ll never establish brand recognizability.
If tone of your company is “fun, light and noncontroversial”, steer clear of anti-war demonstrations. If Arial is your font of choice, then don’t go switching it up mid-campaign and putting out affiliate program materials using Tahoma. If tongue-in-cheek humor is how you attract attention, don’t line your website borders with super-mushy personal ads. Ask yourself: will this resonate with my key customer? And use your logo and company tagline wherever possible—in your email correspondence, on your website, as your letterhead, on your business cards, in your advertising and on your product packaging. Remind people of who you are. Burn your brand into their minds.
To some extent, branding is following herd... emulating respected companies that capture what you’d like to be known for. Still, a wise entrepreneur must never forget that today's success story is tomorrow's dot-com that went under. "What sold" for someone else may not work for your company. Just because Joe Baloney made millions selling with a bilingual circus clown doesn't mean that will work for you... or that anyone's even going to find it remotely interesting in six months. The market changes like tide, depending on what direction society is going in. Where they were before, which way they're headed, and wherever it's likely they'll end up... socially, economically, ethically, politically, culturally, intellectually, psychologically, philosophically.
How will you know that you’ve branded successfully? When people start listening to you. Not just hearing what you say, but letting you call shots. You’ll know it when people start imitating you, too. You’ll start seeing knock-offs of your products and your company image. This may flatter you or it may annoy you, but when it happens, it’s your cue to lead pack in a new direction. That's how to stay on top of Branding Game.
The day that you find yourself functioning as a real, live spokesman for a group of individuals, is day you’ve achieved Brand Recognition. The day that you make front page news headlines is day you’ve become a household name. But a word to wise: once your brand achieves true power, someone will try and take you down. Remind them that you own this cow.
Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with nine years' industry experience. Her current focus is web content and web marketing for a multitude of products and services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for big-name companies like Toys"R"Us. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for rates and samples.
