Branding tips so you, too, can increase customer/client interest and enthusiasm

You’ve heard (read) me saying it before, but it bears repeating. Branding isn’t what most people think it is. Sure, it includes fancy names, logos and websites, but beneath all of that, there’s something even bigger and more powerful. Done right, your brand is actually your customer creation formula. Done well, the entire company is reverse-engineered to marketplace needs and wants. When your brand is in the hands of an expert, it isn’t just your marketing that promotes company growth, but when the entire organization is properly aligned, its every word and deed serves in a virtuous circle of promise-making and promise-keeping.

As a Los Angeles brand strategist and copywriter, my job is to better connect you to the people who matter most to your success.

Branding’s holistic nature means that, by definition, it doesn’t readily lend itself to quick tip sheets and phoned-in work. You’ve got to want it more than that. And if you are looking to increase your organization’s strategic firepower and accelerate the pace of growth, sure, you can settle for fast and cheap. But is it reasonable to think results will somehow arrive disproportionately to the effort put forth? Nevertheless, it is my intent to be valuable in this blog post for you. So, what I want to do here is share with you some of the things I find myself thinking about when helping my fellow marketers crack their brand strategies.

8 Branding Tips Or, More Practically Speaking, the 8 Principles of Branding Your Organization Needs to Understand Now

1. Worry about aesthetics and marketing tactics only after you’ve arrived at a solid strategy for advancing both the near-term Sale and the company. This way, the wow that captivates and motivates is built into your very foundation; you get to experience the cumulative impact from every company action and sales initiative.
2. Don’t stop at standard benefits. Pay attention to the emotional benefits, experiential benefits and self-expressive benefits your brand enables.
3. Know how you’re different… meaningfully different!
4. Pay more attention to the why of your existence (see the Simon Sinek Ted Talk, if you haven’t already.)
5. Of course, be authentic. Your vision & values are immensely important, but it’s not only about you. What you really want to identify is the overlap between your beliefs and those of your various brand audiences.
6. Prioritize the big concepts and ideas your company is about over laundry lists, and let those core messages help you organize the rest of your Sale.
7. When expressing yourself, remember: if you can’t capture attention first, nothing else you have to say matters. Shoot for the moon. The bolder and brighter, the better.
8. Both in B2B and B2C, a little humor conveys a warmth and congeniality like nothing else can… except maybe for an earnest welcome mat, possibly featuring Ziggy. (Sorry, Ziggy.)

“Hey, who put Branding into my Business Development?”

I did. And I’m not sorry in the least. Because business moves fast, and when you’ve got a chance to accomplish multiple business objectives in one fell swoop, you take it. If you’ve got questions about your company’s pace of growth, your marketing or your brand, you call me. We chat. If you think there’s a fit between your goals and my message-centric branding™ approach, we agree to roll up our sleeves and get down to business. If not, we thank each other for our time and move on. Easy-peasy. Come to think of it, what is that I see right there? A phone!? Wow. Talk about kismet. You should really use that to call me right now.