The Importance Of Business Branding
Written by Monika Mundell · April 1, 2008
Branding is all around us in many forms and faces. Whether you are shopping, watching TV or browsing the Internet, everywhere we go these days we are directly influenced in our decision making process by the effects of branding.
Most people aren’t even aware that their minds are gently (or in some instances aggressively) influenced by clever marketing. They end up buying this and that because something they heard or saw stuck with them. It could be a tingle that keeps playing every time you switch on the radio, or that huge electrical store who annoys you with their repetitive ads.
I’m sure you’ve had your own fair share of getting annoyed at some of these ads, but when you think about it, we often tend to drift toward exactly those businesses we always get annoyed about when we need something in particular.
This is due to a combination of smart marketing and business branding.
It starts with the look
We too can achieve this by branding our name or business name all over the Internet. So how do we do this without spending thousands of dollars like the big corporations do?
It’s easy. We use a blog. My preferred choice is the WordPress platform because it is the perfect content management software (CMS) to design a WordPress blog that actually looks like a website.
This site can be your very own branding tool and with a bit of money invested ($100-$500+) you will be able to get a unique site that is your face for the world to see.
First impressions always count, whether we meet someone in person or see their works on the Internet and those initial seconds can be the difference between a long term contract or no work at all.
Regardless of the business you own, you need a proper portal (portfolio) in which to represent yourself. While this might be a given for some, many business owners oversee this most important point.
Your vision counts
Try to find a designer who can take your vision and put this into reality with a custom made theme. I recently did a total make over on my Portfolio site and ended up paying under $300. This was well worth the investment because since the changeover I already gained 3 new clients!
In effect the theme has already paid for itself several times over.
Regardless whether you are working for yourself in a one man/woman show, or are the CEO of a huge corporation, if you have a web presence, you need branding!
Here is what you’ll need to consider before contacting your designer:
- What color scheme do I want for my site (a mixture of 2-3 main colors work best)
- What kind of navigation do I need (traditional blog design, newspaper design, simple page with no sidebars)
- How do I portray myself? Is it more with a direct approach, or more subtle with occasional hints at who I really am?
- Do I want my photograph, a logo, a slogan or all of these combined on the site
- What is my maximum budget?
- Is the site going to be stationary (set) or will I actually use it to blog on too?
The more you can work with your designer in regards to the final result, the better he/she can work with you. It really pays to contemplate these things before you rush into any decision as your site/blog will be your online business portal (portfolio) for a long time to come.
Make it last.
Conclusion
Branding my name from early on into my business has helped me to gain recognition from top Internet marketers. Using a professional design has furthered this to catapult me into a bigger league now and this is being reflected by the new clients I attract.
In my next post I will actually go into the second stage of branding and what you can do as a blogger, business owner to draw traffic to your site. This is something that can be done by anybody, irrespective of money or time.
As long as you are aware that one of these commodities will need to be invested, you will be fine.
If you have questions, or like to know how you can get your own theme, feel free to comment below.
My name is Monika Mundell, and I’m the author of Freelance Writing. Learn more from me there.
This was a great post Monika and I really liked looking over your portfolio site. I think that is a pretty nice use of the Revolution theme as a foundation and that the monochromatic color scheme fits so nicely for your site.
As a sometimes designer, I did want to bring up what I consider the most important thing I want to hear from my clients—what is the goal? What exactly is going to determine the success of the website.
I believe that each and every design element should ideally reinforce the mission of the website. It doesn’t always work out that way in practice, but it is what you strive for. Sometimes clients come to me and their goals are a bit fuzzy.
As for colors, one site that is fun to browse is Adobe’s kuler.adobe.com. There you can see palettes that designers have created/voted/commented on. You can even download the palette and email it to your designer for their opinion.
I wholeheartedly agree that its often best to stay with a reduced color palettes—the more colors in play the more complicated the design issues are generally, which usually translates to greater cost.
Mark,
Thanks for stopping by. I agree that Monika’s post is excellent.
While I agree that more colors complicate things, sometimes I personally like to see more colors, because I like color. However, my wife often says I should only use 2-3 main colors in my sites. It makes sense, but I still enjoy a lot of bright vibrant colors. And yes that does mean that the design of this blog doesn’t reflect my personality, but it is professional looking which is what I was going for.
@ Mark: thank you for the nice comment. I actually wanted a black and white theme design because nobody else has one. Just like colors are important, so is uniqueness and I think my designers pulled it off nicely.
I love Brian’s blog designs anyway, they lend themselves so great to blogs of all kinds. I will also look at the site you suggested.
You also raised some good pointers there, so thank you for adding to the post.
@ George: I also like colors but I have learned that trying to mix too many would only make a site look like a kaleidoscope and not professional enough. You’ve done well enough with this color scheme. Looks like your wife had you in control there.
Hello Monika.
Nice post; kep at it. I have over the past months been writing “marketing posts” not for IT marketing but for our punters. You may find them of help. TheBaldchemist.
Standing out amid a massive chorus of competitors is the challenge for any brand. The number of sales pitches one receives on a daily basis is staggering and increasingly ineffective.
Emotional Association
To create a positive emotional association with your product or service.The mere mention of your brand, product or service can stir up wants and desires. Needless to say, that’s powerful.
To create a brand promise that creates such emotional connections it should be:
Delivered Promises
When these promises are delivered and compared to the brands competitors then the punters begin to position your brand in their minds.
What is required in the modern sense of positioning is in depth research of your target audience; to glean a more precis understanding of positioning.
That gives companies a much better understanding of the punter perception of the brand.
Brand Position (as opposed to positioning) is:
The entire collection of thoughts a punter has in their mind about the professional services firm, service or product on offer from you.
Positioning
Positioning is hard work. It is not entirely the domain of a branding, ad agency or media company even though some believe it is.
It is the domain of the CEO and the executive team to align the corporate mission, core values and structure to one that supports punters, connects with them and creates client evangelists.
Open Wallets
Positioning is not what you do to a product; positioning is what you do to the mind of the punter. Win your punters hearts and minds and you will find open wallets.
Take care and get as much joy as you can from everyday. The baldchemist
@ Balchemist: thanks for a great comment. Your comment alone is as good as my post if not better.
I agree that evoking an emotion is the cruncher when it comes to marketing online in general.
I think people who understand the intricacies of human psychology are perhaps the best marketers out there.
Great point you made there on the positioning too.
Hi Monika,
Very informative article there.
I definitely agree-business branding is so important to your marketing efforts. You want to be unique – and definitely remembered.
I’m looking forward to your next article on the second stage of branding!
Kyrie Bridgewater
@ Kyrie: thank you for your kind words. I just posted my draft with the follow up, so it shouldn’t be too long until it’s live. Hope you will enjoy this one too.
[...] last weeks post I talked about The Importance of Business Branding and how branding can help you to get more business and higher paying jobs. This week I wanted to [...]