Branding Basics
by:
Les Goss
Branding is the process by which you try to become the 1st business a person thinks of once
they consider purchase
goods or services in your category. If you can "own" a word in the public's mind, you have a brobdingnagian competitive advantage.
Disapproval is the process by which you attempt to differentiate your business from your competitors. Simply as a brand wish allow your horse to be recognized among the rest of the herd, so too must your business’s brand set you apart. Tho'
your name and trademark
are important features of your brand, there’s a lot much to it than that.
You Must “Own” Your Category in the Minds of Your Customers
The absolute better way to create a brand is to invent a new product or service. Being 1st to market is a brobdingnagian advantage. Coca-Cola has turned its “secret formula” into a 70% market share of cola drinks worldwide.
However, most of us run businesses in categories filled with competitors. What’s the better way for us to create a strong brand?
The private secret lies in narrowing the focus of your business until you’ve created a new category you can be 1st in.
From Ford to BMW
Consider the automobile industry. Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile, but he was the 1st to combine it with an assembly line. That reduced his cost enough so that millions could afford a car. Being 1st with an cheap car allowed Ford to dominate the category, even as tho'
there were virtually
hundreds of car companies in the U.S. by 1910. That’s a powerful brand!
So how did different automobile manufacturers develop eminent brands? By creating new categories in the mind of the purchase
public. If you’re in the market for a “safe” car, Volvo is probably the 1st brand to pop into your mind. If you’re looking for the “ultimate drive machine,” BMW owns that category. Buyers purchasing
for a high-priced luxury car think Mercedes Benz.
Notice that none of these companies is trying to be all things to all people. They narrowed their focus until they had a new category they could be 1st in. Even as tho'
different car companies could do claims simply about the security of their cars, it’s unlikely they’re going to come after Volvo in the public’s mind. Volvo “owns” the safe car category.
Two Fast Food Examples
Once
Tom Monaghan in hand
a small dish
building near a college campus, he started asking his customers what changes they would-be like to see in his business. Did they want a higher quality pizza? No, the quality was fine. Did they want a cheaper pizza? No, the cost was fair. What they actually wanted was a dish
that came to them. Thus, Domino’s Dish
created the new category of dish
delivery, and even as tho'
others offer the same service, being 1st allows Domino’s to enjoy a dominant share of the market.
Little Caesars saw another opportunity. If they focused on take-out pizza, they could save money on delivery and a large restaurant. That would-be allow them to do money even as if they sold-out
two pizzas for the cost of one. Pizza. Pizza. Brilliant.
Apply These Ideas to Your Business
If you’re trying to grow your business, it power seem logical to expand your offerings, but that’s unlikely to be eminent in the long run. As these few examples have shown, it’s often better to narrow your focus until you’ve created a new category you can be 1st in. If you’re a specialist, folk wish regard you as much of an expert in your field than a generalist.
Let’s say you’re a photographer. If you live in a town or city of any size, you no doubt have lots of competition. Look about for the opportunities to separate yourself from the herd. Mayhap you could become best-known as the only one in town to call for action shots during kids’ athletic games. Or mayhap you specialize in soft-focus sepia-toned photos of parent and child. Fly fishermen. Bailiwick details. Even as tho'
you’ve narrowed your pool of prospects, you’ve as well eliminated most of your competition.
Our artist could expand her business patch maintaining focus by business a book, printing acknowledgement
cards and calendars, or teaching lessons, all in her specialized area.
She’ll cognize she’s created a powerful brand once
her name is the 1st one to pop onto a parent’s head once
they want a “hero shot” of their young football player.
Content First, Advertising Later
One of the great benefits of being 1st in a new category is that you become newsworthy. Newspapers and magazines, TV and radio are always looking for “something new under the sun.”
Remember Pet Rocks? This small outfit gained international coverage, all of it free, for their unique idea. Millions of Pet Rocks were sold-out
with virtually no advertising costs.
Advertising alone is seldom
enough to create a new brand, tho'
lots of businesses try that route. Remember the Super Bowl of a few years ago once
the media was filled with stories simply about the millions that were spent on 30-second ads? This was supposed to be the launching of several new dot com businesses and the figure of money spent to launch these brands was incredible. In spite of all that money and the creative efforts of Madison Avenue’s finest minds, those businesses unsuccessful
quickly and are all forgotten today.
A better path is the one followed by Google, the world’s most popular search engine. Google wasn’t the 1st search engine, but they created a new way to rating web sites that garnered them brobdingnagian amounts of free publicity. I’ve ne'er
seen an ad for Google, and yet simply just about everyone who has surfed the web has detected
of it. Simply this morning our local paper ran a large article simply about Google’s decision not to sell shares of stock in the institution yet. Much free publicity, which wish further boost the strength of their brand.
Conclusion
Focusing your business until you’ve created your own category is simply one step to disapproval your business. An fantabulous resource for learning much route to create a strong brand is the book, The 22 Changeless
Laws of Disapproval (http://www.zmoon.com/cgi-bin/pl.pl?branding22) by Al and Laura Ries. Next time I’ll have several specific ideas on how to brand yourself through your web site. Until then, stay focused!
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About the Author
Les Goss is President of ZebraMoon Design, Inc. To see a partial list of high-ranking web sites we've created for our clients, please visit our web site at http://www.zmoon.com. Sign up for our free account at http://www.zmoon.com/webdesigntips.html. You'll obtain two issues a month on topics that should help you stay a step ahead of your competition.
