Are You Branding on a Budget?

First of all, WELCOME TO THE BLOG! I am not yelling at you, just excited that you are here!


As we discuss branding it is important for people to truly grasp the nature of branding and what it really is. Branding in a simple definition is using a combination of elements, name, sign, symbol, message, phrase, tag line etc., to identify a product or service.

Branding is one of those key parts of a business that is extremely important to focus on, but rather difficult to track the results. Unless you have lots of money to hire a focus groups or  a teams of experts to measure the effect of every change that you make to your image, you are left with one set of tools (the same tools as everyone else), the commonly accepted practices of the self employed masses. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If you know where to look for assistance and what to look for, you can excel far past your competition and create an image with much more focus and detail.  Here are some ideas that I use regularly to gain information about what is working and where I should focus my attention.

1. The single largest source of branding information comes from watching the 'celebrities' of the industry; the people who are branding themselves very well.  Like I said before, unless you have the budget for expert advice and opinions branding can be difficult to track. So what do you do? You go to the people who do have the resources and look at what they are doing. I look at their online content i,e, website arrangement, video content, design stylization, wording etc. My goal is not to copy word for word, my goal is to get ideas of what is working to implement into my material.

2. Article search. You would not believe how detailed you can make your google searches these days. You can get answers to almost any question that you may have, and they are good and credible answers. There is a wealth spring of excellent information out there regarding branding that you can search our very simply using the popular search engines. **Note: There are a lot of sites whose sole purpose is to lead you down winding path, telling you that you need their product to succeed. Be careful of what you purchase. A good majority of information can be obtained free simply by searching for it. You should not have to buy basic information.

3. Ask! The single most helpful tool that I have implemented into my efforts over the years is the art of asking questions and listening to answers. One of the greatest things about life is that as you get older and more wealthy to start to really love helping others. I have found amazing mentors for various aspects of my business that have been willing to help simply because they have reached a point in life where they want to share the information that they have gained. Now don't get me wrong, there are some grumps out there who wont give up their precious information, but with a little persistence you should be able to find someone willing to give you a little (or a lot) of free information. All you have to do is ask.

Start here and move forward. A dollar saved while you are in start up phase (or growth phase) is extremely valuable. Good luck and let me know if I can help you with anything!

Scott