Branding for Profits copyright 2002 Pavel LenshinGeneral meaning of
Brand is quite abstract. In short, brand is image of your product, if we speak about product branding and/or image of your company if we deal with corporate branding or, in case with one man business, brand of personality.
Since majority of online venture start-ups are represented by small businesses, that are 101% online and life cycle of digital products is relatively short, it is wise to unite these branding terms into one e-business brand, that reflects market’s viewpoint on your business as an unique entity. This viewpoint exists in peoples’ minds whether they are your competitors, clients, partners, friends or your own employees. That is why your brand is psychological by its nature, what creates new challenges as well as additional potential.
Strong brand in mind of a person generates honoring feeling to your company/product or you as a company’s “face”.
Poor brand may represent negative impression about your product or be result of an absence of that impression, and I should say that it is much more advantageous to offer a new brand to market, then try to do something with bad image. Since we are dealing with psychology, it is clear that good image and reputation is very hard to build, but it is even harder to restore.
If you want to reach heart of you customers’ “likes” you need to:
* Offer maximum quality no matter what you offer or do. * Deliver pleasure. * Be innovative. * Address to people’s emotions. * Evoke desire and interest. * Provoke active response. * Build trust by repeated contacts as a foundation of long-term relations.
FACTORS that would STIMULATE and REINFORCE your BRANDING:
---1. Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is number one passive “brander” for your business, where you go UP (Unique Proposition) straight road of successful branding or making your way through a very deep forest of competing with other already established brands.
Suppose you have created new proposition, new kind of service and if you have named it, for instance, “WebSky”, then all people would call it “WebSky”, not “A service that offers you 1. … 2. … 3…. and provides 1… 2…. 3….” It would have a neutral brand from very beginning, no need to create, imagine or popularize it among hundreds of others.
Windows is a TM and great Brand for Operation System of well-know software giant. Don’t you think about what makes us pronounce “Windows” instead of “Operational system” or “OS”? The answer is simple – Windows occupies more then 60% of OS market. Microsoft’s OS in informational society plays same role that would have played some imaginable Oil Monopoly in former industrial society. Hopefully there is no oil monopoly but there is a monopoly of software “fuel” which is used by majority of computer systems.
The idea behind Microsoft is also true with McDonalds, Coca Cola or Mercedes-Benz and it is on surface – they are monopolies or, at least, oligopolies in their respective markets with their respective strong USPs and therefore strong brands.
So let us summarize this important fact – more unique your market offer is, more unique, easy to remember and easy to associate with your brand will be.
---2. The second thing is size of your business in terms of financial capacity and market share. Very few people pointing to that fact, but its effect on your brand shouldn’ t be underestimated. No matter what product you offer to online market, it will surely lose brand war, if your marketing budget is $00.00 and your whole business is located on some unknown unstable hosting as a result of funds deficit.
