Strategies For Branding Success. Anne Thomas

      Strategies For Branding Success

      Give Your Brand the Competitive Edge to Succeed In Today's Challenging Economy

      by

      Anne Thomas

      Copyright 2011 Anne Thomas,

      All rights reserved.

      Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

       http://www.eBookIt.com

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0122-5

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      Chapter 1: Promoting Your Brand

      Remember the importance of branding. If you haven't already initiated a brand for your company, now might be just the time. Use these simple techniques in the promotion of your special brand

      Make your brand as unique as possible. Catch the eye of the public by creating something different- something that people have not yet seen. Instead of doing what has already been done, go the opposite direction and be creative. Don't forget the legal dangers of copyright infringement related to borrowing or stealing from another firm's design.

      Display stability. Take time in the development process to establish your brand and accomplish the look you really want. It's better to spend sufficient time in the beginning fine-tuning your design to the desired outcome, rather than to play with it after it's been revealed to the public. Changing your brand, and all that's involved with it, including colors, slogans, logos, and tag lines, doesn't support an image of reliability and long-lastingness

      Stability should be maintained with branding. If you have integrated a brand into your company's marketing, then use it all over the place. It should appear on all of your marketing materials, business cards, web site, and printed items. The same is true for your packaging. Your brand should appear on all of your products. .

      Give your brand away to the public with diverse promotional products. You can help your brand to saturate the consumer population by handing out precious, yet low-cost, items. Promotional products encourage possible customers to keep in mind your brand and your gift every time they are used. Consider useful devices such as letter openers, flashlights, first aid kits, and CD cases.

      Brands are an extremely effective marketing tool. When working with your concept, consider the above to ensure the development of an effective brand.

      Chapter 2: Personal Branding For Success

      One important part of branding is the image you yourself portray. Developing a likeable personal brand is essential for succeeding. If you want to rise to the top of your particular arena, you need to first be able to sell yourself to your potential customers. Think about it. Would you rather do business with a person who smiles and comes across as friendly or with one who snarls and ignores you? The first impression a potential customer receives is from you. Make it a good one. How can you accomplish this?

      One: Become an expert source.

      Two: Become a great communicator. Research shows communications skill is the top determinant for upward social and professional mobility.

      Three: Draft a marketing plan for yourself annually, and review it quarterly. Include specific goals, strategies, action steps, and a timetable.

      Four: Develop an 'elevator speech." Within the time that it takes an elevator to travel one floor - about 60-seconds - be able to deliver a succinct description of what you do, how you do it differently, and the benefit it provides.

      Five: Build your Rolodex. Make new business contacts and stay in touch with them. Most people with powerful brands have powerful friends.

      Six: Balance your individual style with clothing that will appeal to those you are trying to impress.

      Seven: Learn good business and social etiquette. Buy elegant personal stationery and send hand-written notes.

      Eight: Give something back. Giving your time, talent, and money to charitable causes is a brand-builder especially when it complements your brand strategy. Find a cause you are passionate about. Your personal brand is one of your greatest business assets. Put as much time and effort into it as you do in branding your product. In the end, if you can't sell yourself, you'll find it nearly impossible to sell your product.

      Chapter 3: Recognizing Target Market

      Achieving good sales is the ultimate target of any firm. Many criteria, such as competitive pricing, near perfect product, reaching out to correct audience and motivational advertising, are responsible for this and should be dealt with in marketing.

      First things first, all the efforts will go futile if the correct audience is not recognized. It is the major factor in getting abundant sales, because the right customers aren't targeted, they won't buy the product. The right customers are known as targeted customers or niche market, those who will be happy to buy products that fulfill their needs and is also less pricey.

      Small businesses shouldn't fear competition with large companies as they produce products considering a bigger spectrum, which sometimes won't be customer specific as the products are more generalized and they don't much care about the competition they might get from others. This gives an opportunity to the smaller firms to produce products, which can cater to the need of a section of people whose needs aren't met specifically by the large companies.

      Although it seems like a silly question, but firstly, a firm should understand who are the people they want to target. The success lies behind understanding this, which requires thorough research and analysis. Various factors must be considered. The age group is the first factor, whether the product will be useful to babies or children or teenagers or youngsters or middle aged or old. Sometimes there is a possibility that the product will cater to the needs of all age groups. Next thing to consider is gender. Marital status, occupation, ethnic background, health status, income status, education, hobbies, etc., are some of the factors that should also be pondered upon.

      After decided upon the customer group to be targeted, the benefits that can be provided by the product to this group should be jotted down. A thorough examination of the service or product should be done for this purpose. If there is sufficient time, a survey can be conducted on the current customers and pose them with questions like what they liked in the products they are using, anything discomfort they are facing, do they want anything to be changed to make the product better, etc.

      After making a list of all the benefits, thought should be applied to which of these benefits will actually help the targeted audience. Make a short list of the benefits that will be advantageous and send it to the marketing department. It can surely help in their marketing plan and can boost up sales.

      Internet has made reaching out to the targeted customers can be very easy. Search engines can be utilized to the maximum extent for this purpose. The thing to be exactly searched can be typed as a keyword or search phrase in the search engines and the results brought on the first three pages will be of great value. But lots of time and investment is involved in this process, as different keywords will fetch different search results. So efforts should be made to finally get what is desired.

      Next best thing is reaching out by newsletters and ezines. Many ezines are related to marketing, finance, shopping, Internet, etc. A number of ezines websites can be found in an ezines directory, which even contains the contact information, advertising price, etc. The list of ezines website sites should be cut down to which are relating to the target market and ad should be placed in the ones selected which should include all the product advantages if the ad allows that many words.

      Recognizing the target market is crucial to any successful advertising and sales campaign. Once it is recognized,