Build,Your,Business,with,Stron marketing Build Your Business with Strong Brands - not a Mountain of

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You're having the gang over on Sunday to watch the footballgame on TV. Which pizza parlor do you call? Your child needs braces. Which orthodontist does everyonein town go to? You want to sell your house. Which Realtor do you call? The answer is the same in each case: the one that has thebest brand. Branding is important because it makes saleseasier! Realtors, dentists and restaurants all have brands. So doesevery small business in the world. Sure, we think that onlyFortune 500 companies, like Coca Cola and Procter andGamble have brands. But that's not true. Every company hasa brand image. Whether the brand image is good or bad, orif it is well known or invisible is up to you. If you're involved in marketing in any way, shape of form,you've heard the term "branding" but you probably couldn'tdefine it. And if Regis asked you "Is that your finalanswer?" you'd probably take your money and run rather thanrisk losing your cash. That's because if you asked 50 marketers to define"branding," you'd get 50 different answers. Very few peopleagree on what branding is, but they do agree that isimportant in building sales and profits. 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 brandingisn't. >From my studies and research that includes hundreds ofinterviews with top marketing managers at large and smallcompanies, I've come away with several conclusions: 1. A brand is not a logo, slogan, catchy saying, missionstatement or publicity campaign. 2. A brand is about trust. You select a company because you trust them and the companies have credibility. These aretwo issues that are important to every company of everysize. When you travel along the highway and need a quick meal, doyou stop at the local diner for a meal featuring the localcuisine- or do you pull in to McDonald's because you knowthe fries are always going to be the same? People trust McDonalds. They will give up the chance for aninnovative meal in favor of the trusted resource everytime! That's because people buy on emotion and justify withlogic. "Gee the local diner might be good, but it might take along time and we're in a rush." Is it any wonder why McDonald's is a multibillion-dollarenterprise? Look at the best brands on the Internet: Yahoo, eBay andAmazon. What do they all have in common? People trust them! In my seminars at Stanford and Berkeley, I always ask ifpeople have bought books from Amazon. Most people raisetheir hands. I then ask if anyone has ever had a problemwith Amazon. In one out of three seminars, one person outof hundreds will raise a hand. But they quickly say thatAmazon resolved the problem in their favor, quickly andcourteously. I then ask if people have telephones. Everyone raises theirhands. I ask if people have ever had a problem with theirphone company. Most people keep their hands up! Youprobably have the same experience. Phone companies have badreputations for customer service. 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 abillion dollars on TV ads during the Super Bowl and othermajor events trying to build a brand image. I attended a top-level seminar on branding and a venturecapitalist on the panel said a consumer company must spend$50 million dollars to build a brand identity today. However, in my seminar on branding at Stanford, I asked theparticipants - all brand managers at major companies, toname 10 search engines, 10 consumer web sites, 3 petsupplies sites and 10 business-to-business web sites. No one could! And these are the very people who are in the industry, andare exposed to the millions of dollars of advertising tocreate 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 grocery service and Boo.com stand out as highlypublicized failures. So, as a small company, you don't have to worry about nothave a treasure chest full of cash to buy a reputation -because it doesn't work! How do you create a great brand? That's where brand assetscome in to play. Brand assets are your slogans,advertising, publicity, promotions, characters, spokespeople, as well as your customer service and sales people!These tools help create a meaningful identity that createsan emotional bond with your audience that compels them totake action - and provides the logic that justifies theirchoices. The Internet has a treasure chest of tools to create brandawareness, brand identity and brand loyalty including youre-mail address, website name, signature file. You also needto transmit your own personality and identity to createtrust. When you build trust, you build a great brand. If you cando that, then you will build sales and create customers forlife! Article Tags: Brand Image, Companies Have