The most valuable asset of any business is its brand. It’s an intangible asset as it can’t be directly turned into cash and sadly some businesses fail to treat it with the value it deserves. Sad, because your brand carries great weight and influence. Treat your brand well and your brand will treat you well back. It is your most valuable asset.
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Bill Slawski recently asked the question what kind of personality does your website have?
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You never get a second chance at a first impression
I’ve never cared for the above quote. The implication is that you get one and only one chance at success and that’s hardly true. Your first impression is the most important impression only until you make your second impression, which is the most important until you make your third. As Seth Godin pointed out a few weeks ago, it’s your last impression that matters most. I agree your last impression counts more, but I think there’s more to how the impressions you leave affect you and your brand.
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Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.
–Tom Peters
There is no better marketing strategy than branding. If you can build a strong brand people will search specifically for you when they are looking to buy what you offer. Your new products will launch with the trust and credibility your brand has acquired over time. A lack of trust is one of the biggest barriers to selling online. Brand establishes that trust instantly.
Do you understand the importance of brand?
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The following guest post was written by Stephen Da Cambra.
If you are at all familiar with The Van Blog, you will know that Steven has many insights into branding. The opening paragraph of his recent blog 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Brand echoes one of the first things he said to me about branding:
“You are your brand. Your brand is you. Wherever your go, there is your brand. Every action you take, every word you speak, every impression you leave, affects how others view your brand.”
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“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again. ”
–Vincent Van Gogh
With all the talk I’ve been doing lately about branding you’d think my own branding strategy was perfect. Not so. I thought I’d poke fun at myself and tell you about a branding error I make, especially since it’s a common one you might make as well.
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“No matter where you go, there you are.”
– unknown
You are your brand. Your brand is you. Wherever your go, there is your brand. Every action you take, every word you speak, every impression you leave, affects how others view your brand.
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You spend months answering questions at LinkedIn or building friends at MySpace. Your reputation grows as you share your knowledge and you build your brand with each community. Then you set up a store on eBay and no one knows who you are. You sigh thinking about all the work you’ll need to do yet again to brand yourself with a new group of people and wonder if you have the energy for it. If TrustPlus has its way you won’t need to rebuild your brand on another site. You’ll be able to bring it with you instantly.
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A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
–Jeff Bezos
Whether you realize it or not everything you do goes toward building a brand. It might be your personal brand, your brand as a blogger, or your corporate brand, but every action you take and every word you say impacts your brand to someone. For a few weeks I’ve been participating in a discussion about branding for small business. Too many individuals and small business owners think brand is something that’s out of their reach, that it costs too much, and that it’s only for big business. Wrong. Everything you do goes toward building your brand and you need to be conscious of how the things you do will reflect on your brand.
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“A brand is the sum of all feelings, thoughts and recognitions – positive and negative – that people in the target audience have about a company, a product or service.”
Steve McNamara, AdCracker.Com
I think there’s a misconception that it takes a lot of money to build a brand. Chris Garret has a series of posts about branding your blog, which he continues to add to and I encourage you to read. (Chris how about a dedicated page where we can find links to all the posts in the series?) Today’s post, Your Successful Brand reminded me of some conversations I’ve had with people who assumed that only rich companies could build a brand. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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