Branding

Even if your business is relatively small, and you never expect your product or service to become a household name, your marketing efforts should still be understood as a form of business branding. What Exactly is Branding? There's much unnecessary confusion about this term (and plenty of unnecessary jargon), but the basic concept is quite simple: A brand is not your company's logotype, color scheme, or corporate identity, or even your company's product or service. A brand is simply the public's perception (or "gut feeling") about your product/service/organization.

Brand identity is the combined effect of visual elements in your marketing materials. A basic brand identity kit consists of a logo, business card, letterhead, and branded envelope. This basic set of materials can be extended to include a website, brochure, folder, flyer, or any other professionally designed pieces. A successful brand identity is built around the following 9 key characteristics:

1. Corporate identity. Corporate identity is a company’s visual presence, which involves the corporate logo and design strategy for corporate marketing collateral. Corporate identity does not encapsulate brand identity, which is best defined as the soul of your company. However, a corporate identity may, and often does, reflect a brand identity. But some ad agencies, marketing companies and graphic design agencies would have you believe that brand identity is the same thing as corporate identity and that changing a logo or design strategy will change the brand identity.

One fundamental law of branding is that the power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope; the narrower the focus of a brand, the more memorable and powerful it will become. Hence the astonishing success of companies like Starbucks (the first coffee shop which specialized in coffee), Subway (the first delicatessen to feature just one kind of sandwich), Victoria's Secret (the first women's clothing chain to specialize in lingerie) and Toys "R" Us (a chain which eliminated children's clothing and children's furniture to concentrate solely on toys).

Branding is perhaps the most important facet of any business--beyond product, distribution, pricing, or location. A company's brand is its definition in the world, the name that identifies it to itself and the marketplace. A model may be beautiful, but without a name, she's just "that girl in that picture." Where would Norma Jean be without Marilyn Monroe, or who would imagine Coca-Cola as just a soft-drink manufacturer? A brand provides a concrete descriptor to customers and competitors alike, a name for a product or service to distinguish it from anything else.

Personal Branding 101: How to make the right branding decisions for your new business Inevitably, at some point for freelancers who target corporate decision-makers, the question comes up: "Should I create a company name?"

Creating a brand is one of the most important things that you'll do in the establishment of your small business. But defining what "brand" means can be a tricky task. There are so many different approaches to branding a business and so many elements of a brand. The most accurate definition I know is: A brand is the collection of perceptions that your customer has about your business. Here's another definition from Wikipedia that goes a little more in-depth into all of the facets of a brand:

One important question for many businesses is what makes a corporate branding strategy successful? Whether a company is looking to create its own brand or to make it over, ensuring success is a top most goal. A powerful corporate brand serves to create confidence in your business and your product and service offerings. This confidence should not only be felt by the business owner or the management team but should also be present among employees and, more importantly,