Promoting Your Brand

You may not have the budget to employ a high powered marketing firm for your company. But there are some steps you can take to get started promoting your brand that won't cost you a lot of money. First, you must be clear about what your brand is, and what you want it to be. Only you can determine what you want your brand to be. But only your customers can tell you what your brand really is.

Perhaps you have built your business around great customer service, or the very best quality merchandise. You want your customers to think of you in those term, helpful service or top quality. But it is not enough to claim great service or top quality. Everybody already does that, so it won’t set your brand apart. Instead, focus in on a specific of that product or service. Ideally, the specific also conveys a benefit to the customer.

There’s a plumbing company that advertises its staff as the “smell good” plumbers. Now that is getting specific! Chances are, you may not want to go there. But you can hone in on something that will resonate with potential clients. A dentist who minimizes discomfort for his patients may claim “You’ll always leave with a smile.” A pizza restaurant that believes it has the best tasting product could boast “a taste of old Napoli in every bite.”

In each case, the brand, revealed by the specific attributes, is aimed at the consumer you need to attract. And, in each case, it allows for multiple means of expression. The pizza with a taste of “old Napoli” comes in a box adorned with colors or scenes of Naples. Similarly, the restaurant is decorated and plays background music to evoke the same theme. Ads or flyers convey the same message. Likewise the dentist, who wants you to leave with a smile, decorates his office, trains his employees, and manages the conduct of his practice to elicit a smile or good feeling from every patient. His office will be cheerful, maybe even a little whimsical, and his ads will be full of smiling testimonials.

“Okay,” I hear you say, “but I manufacture submersible water pumps. What can I do?” Start with who is buying your pumps and why. What is it that makes your pump successful in the market? Maybe it’s reliability. If so, build your brand around the reliability of the product. It becomes the pump that “will never let you down,” or “just won’t quit.” Associate it with the most reliable things you can think of – “the Acme Pump, as reliable as tomorrow’s sunrise.” You might put a bright, golden sun in the background in your marketing collateral. You could also stress a benefit that is very important to your customer – “You’ll never get a call-back with an Acme Pump!” What is important is that your materials evoke your brand – whatever it is – and stress the benefit. Of course, developing those materials, brochures, ads, web pages, or whatever, may take professional assistance. But having a clear central message already spelled out, will save you time and money in the development of your marketing materials.

How do you know if your branding is successful? Well, as I said at the beginning, only your customers can tell you that. And that would be the subject of another post.