by Daniel Janal
You're having the gang over on Sunday to watch the football game Your child needs braces. Which orthodontist does everyone in You want to sell your house. Which Realtor do you call? The answer is the same in each case: the one that has the best Realtors, dentists and restaurants all have brands. So does If you're involved in marketing in any way, shape of form, That's because if you asked 50 marketers to define "branding," So what are brands and why are they important to you? Brands make selling easier! Plain and simple. To understand branding, we need to understand what branding From my studies and research that includes hundreds of 1. A brand is not a logo, slogan, catchy saying, mission 2. A brand is about trust. You select a company because you When you travel along the highway and need a quick meal, do you People trust McDonalds. They will give up the chance for an That's because people buy on emotion and justify with logic. "Gee the local diner might be good, but it might take a long Is it any wonder why McDonald's is a multibillion-dollar Look at the best brands on the Internet: Yahoo, eBay and Amazon. In my seminars at Stanford and Berkeley, I always ask if people I then ask if people have telephones. Everyone raises their Good companies create good brands by creating trust. Do you need a lot of money to create trust? No way! Yet hundreds of companies have blown through more than a billion I attended a top-level seminar on branding and a venture However, in my seminar on branding at Stanford, I asked the No one could! And these are the very people who are in the industry, and are
on TV. Which pizza parlor do you call?
town go to?
brand. Branding is important because it makes sales easier!
every small business in the world. Sure, we think that only
Fortune 500 companies, like Coca Cola and Procter and Gamble
have brands. But that's not true. Every company has a brand
image. Whether the brand image is good or bad, or if it is well
known or invisible is up to you.
you've heard the term "branding" but you probably couldn't
define it. And if Regis asked you "Is that your final answer?"
you'd probably take your money and run rather than risk losing
your cash.
you'd get 50 different answers. Very few people agree on what
branding is, but they do agree that is important in building
sales and profits.
isn't.
interviews with top marketing managers at large and small
companies, I've come away with several conclusions:
statement or publicity campaign.
trust them and the companies have credibility. These are two
issues that are important to every company of every size.
stop at the local diner for a meal featuring the local cuisine-
or do you pull in to McDonald's because you know the fries are
always going to be the same?
innovative meal in favor of the trusted resource every time!
time and we're in a rush."
enterprise?
What do they all have in common? People trust them!
have bought books from Amazon. Most people raise their hands. I
then ask if anyone has ever had a problem with Amazon. In one
out of three seminars, one person out of hundreds will raise a
hand. But they quickly say that Amazon resolved the problem in
their favor, quickly and courteously.
hands. I ask if people have ever had a problem with their phone
company. Most people keep their hands up! You probably have the
same experience. Phone companies have bad reputations for
customer service.
dollars on TV ads during the Super Bowl and other major events
trying to build a brand image.
capitalist on the panel said a consumer company must spend $50
million dollars to build a brand identity today.
participants - all brand managers at major companies, to name 10
search engines, 10 consumer web sites, 3 pet supplies sites and
10 business-to-business web sites.
exposed to the millions of dollars of advertising to create
brands!
What does this mean? Buying your way to brand awareness does not work! The net is littered with those failures: Dr. Koop, Priceline's So, as a small company, you don't have to worry about not have a How do you create a great brand? That's where brand assets come The Internet has a treasure chest of tools to create brand When you build trust, you build a great brand. If you can do About the Author
Daniel Janal is an internationally-recognized speaker, Internet
grocery service and Boo.com stand out as highly publicized
failures.
treasure chest full of cash to buy a reputation - because it
doesn't work!
in to play. Brand assets are your slogans, advertising,
publicity, promotions, characters, spokes people, as well as
your customer service and sales people! These tools help create
a meaningful identity that creates an emotional bond with your
audience that compels them to take action - and provides the
logic that justifies their choices.
awareness, brand identity and brand loyalty including your
e-mail address, website name, signature file. You also need to
transmit your own personality and identity to create trust.
that, then you will build sales and create customers for life!
marketer and best-selling author of Branding on the Internet.
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