Branding – It’s one of the most spoken, yet least understood elements of marketing.  If someone who has never studied marketing asks you what branding means, what would you say?

It is the perception?  The gut feeling?  The impression about you?  All of the answers are correct and they’re all intuitive.   A subjective feeling of how others observe you becomes your brand.

Mashable’s Dan Schwabel takes this subject a step further.  He challenges you to establish a brand online and maintain it, particularly with the use of Social Networking tools.

Here is the summary of what Dan has to say.

“To know if you’ve discovered your brand, you need to make this equation equal.  Your self-impression = How people perceive you”.

Then gives what he calls ”Personal Branding Toolkit” with list of things you can use to highlight brand.

Speaking of online presence, Schwabel reminds us

“Don’t be fooled by the myth that if you build it, they will come. Unless you’re the luckiest person on earth,  you’ll have to actually communicate everything you’ve created to others”.

Then in the following article, he goes on to talk about how to maintain a brand once you establish it.

Schwabel mentions,

“…what others say about your brand (especially if they are respected and well-known) is more impactful than what you say about yourself”.

There are two main parts to brand maintenance that matter: online “spring cleaning” and careful listening.

“Online ’spring cleaning’: As your brand grows, you must ensure that all the online assets that you have control of grow in the same respect”.

“Careful listening: People are going to be talking about you in various places, such as Twitter, blogs, social networks and more. You need to keep track of what they are saying, so that you can respond accordingly”.

In summary, Schwabel says

“It all starts with you. You can make anything happen and now, with these social tools, it’s easier to accomplish more in less time. People that can help you accomplish your dreams are at your fingertips.  It’s up to you to figure out what you want to do and surround yourself with the people that can help in your personal branding conquest”.

Every morning, I listen to the radio like all other drivers on the road.

Then I noticed something what I’ve always known.  It doesn’t matter what city I live, all car dealers blast the same radio ads.

It can’t be truer.  They all sound the same and want to be number dealership in ____ state.  But what does “being a No. 1 car dealership” mean to a consumer?

Nothing.

It doesn’t mean when I visit that dealership, I know I am going to get the fairest deal.  It doesn’t mean I am going to be treated fairly.  It doesn’t mean that I am going to experience anything different than when I visit other dealerships (with the exception of dealership like CarMax).

In fact, all I am getting is the name of that dealership and by so doing, hopefully I will make a visit there instead of the one next to it.

Car dealerships do this for a few reasons.  Mainly, this is why — they look at what others do in their industry.  When you have been in the same line of business so long, it’s hard to change the way things you do in one industry.

But, there is a problem — if all you’re doing is the same as what everybody else is doing in the same industry, it’s going to be difficult to always achieve the “No. 1″ market share.

Pretty soon, the market will sort out the irrelevant ads from the superior brands.

What’s the solution there?

You can borrow ideas from outside your industry.  In fact, you can bring different, unique, superior concepts from other industries and innovate to suit your industry.

This way, you can be the first one to introduce that concept to your industry and become the authority figure when it comes to that particular concept — how refreshing would it be?

Then if that concept is truly consumer centric, if it clearly articulates “What’s in it for me”?  It will outperform “We are number one dealership in ____ state” ads by 100 times.

by jhf

Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity recently published an interesting post.  Chris first paraphrased from something he heard what the Applebee’s restaurant CEO said.

“What people want and what they say they want are different.”  I can’t argue with that, either.

However, what’s also important to note is what a business thinks people want and what people actually want are different.  The difficult part is to find what’s suitable for the most majority of your market.

For example, a website owner decides to publish video squeeze page. but a visitor wants to read the content instead of watching it.

How about Volvo or Porsche adding their stylish and sexy product line in addition to their safe and fast cars?  The companies want to add them, but do their customers really want that?

Only the time will tell.  But to keep its defining attributes, companies need to keep something aligned.  That “something” is anything exclusive about the brand.  So if Volvo adds something stylish, it also needs to be safe.  If Porsche adds something new, it must be sporty also.

Imagine a horse – without showing you the picture of a horse, can you describe what a horse look like?

Think of HUMMER.  Without looking at the picture, can you imagine what a HUMMER look like?

OK, try thinking about Buick, Suzuki, Isuzu, Oldsmobile… are there defining attributes to these brands?

Rarely.

And if there aren’t defining attributes to strike your imagination, no matter “how long” they’ve been around, people still can’t make connection.  In fact, when there is no connection being made between the market and a product, there is no brand for that company.

It’s not even easy to be the “cheapest” because only ONE company is allowed to do while everyone else has to use branding.  Sometimes a business has to give up large portion of market and look for somewhere else to compete in order to stand out.

In the 1980s, Subaru competed against Toyota, Nissan and Honda with sedan lines and they failed.  In the late 1990s, they decided to ditch the big market and focused on “All Wheel Drive” segment of the industry and they dominated it — a new brand was born.  They’ve always been around, but in the minds of consumers, it was a new (and much more respected) Subaru.

Sometimes, what a business thinks what their customers want and what people actually want are different.  In Internet Marketing, it’s easy to be “all knowing” marketer, but don’t want to be the SEOArticleMarketingPPCVideo guy/girl.  It’s better to have a focus while giving up something seemingly hard to do.