If you think branding is about flashy logos, being trendy and unquantifiable results, you are dead wrong. Branding is about winning, producing tangible results and reaching both your personal and corporate goals. Here are a few qualifiers on which you can measure your brands success and see those results.
#1 Branding is about owning your space in the marketplace and being the #1 brand whether you are a consumer product or a service company. Winning in your space means you will be the most frequently sought out brand in your industry.
#2 Branding is about quantifiable results which allow you to see an actual increase in the number of leads generated, greater number of overall sales, increasing revenue and ultimately more profit towards the bottom line. These results are not just for the company, they’re for your entire executive team who will also help you to reach your personal goals.
#3 Branding is about winning the hearts and minds of your employees. I call this Internal Branding. It is so important to have everyone within your company understand your brand, your position, your value proposition and how to make it a great brand experience for your customers. Communicating the brand message to the marketing team, the sales department and the operations team will help your company deliver on the brand promise and produce results.
#4 Branding is about gaining market share, expanding into new markets and regions, and increasing your brand recognition both locally and globally. This includes introducing new product lines, expanding service areas and allowing you and your company to grow as experts in your field.
#5 Branding is about being the go-to resource and the expert in your space. As an expert you will be the one the media calls on for information regarding your industry. Your company will be the one they follow and write about. Winning also means staying ahead of your competition and having other companies strive to emulate your brand and be like your company.
Beyond the look and feel, branding is about winning and producing results, it’s about branding and positioning the company and yourself to reach your bigger picture goals and objectives. A strong brand has the ability to help your company get to the next level, raise capital for growth, go public, and maybe even get acquired so you sail off into the sunset….
Not many of you know, but Michael Doyle participates in various speaking engagements all around Colorado. As a brand strategist, Michael speaks on a variety of topics including: Building Brands that Drive Revenue, 10 Steps to Building an Effective Brand, How does your Brand Stack up? A Holistic Approach to Measuring a Brand and Maximizing your Brand through Social Media Marketing.
In an effort to get the word out, Brand Iron is excited to announce the launch of a new site promoting Michael’s excellent speaking capabilities. This new site gives us more opportunity to feature Michael and how he has been shaping successful brands on national, regional and local levels for more than 20 years. Go to www.michaeldoyletalks.com to see what Michael is about and what his speaking expertise can do for you or your brand.
To learn more about Michael Doyle, Brand Iron and scheduling him as a guest speaker, please visit www.BrandIron.net or give our team a call at 303.534.1901.
Call me crazy, but I must admit I’m a sucker for political ads. Not only do I like to see how candidates position themselves, but how they position their opponent.
We are in the thick of election season, and it is getting ugly. We see ad after ad of candidates attacking each other and all I can really think is, who is their right mind would want to put themselves in a position to get bludgeoned, attacked, smeared and investigated on television, in blogs, in the paper and on flyers.
Let’s face reality: it is strategic branding at its finest. Planning, punching, counter-attacking, and going after your opponents, while positioning yourself to get the “mother load” of undecided votes.
What was once just a dance around the ring has turned into a full-on blood bath. With just a few short weeks until Election Day, we will find out the inevitable decision- which candidate will be victorious, and which one will be left picking themself up off the mat, wondering, “What the hell happened!?!”
A quick note: From time to time I will be writing about some brands I consider to be bold and who stand out for various reasons.
1] Southwest Airlines – Talk about being bold, unique and different. They have a strong business plan; they connect with their customers; have happy employees; are picking up market share, kicking their competitors’ butt and producing good results in a very tough market.
2] Mac – Here is another great example of a company that has clearly defined its own brand, [young, hip, easy to use, putting a young and friendly face with a computer] while going after and negatively defining its competitor, PC, [older, overweight, geeky, out of touch, unreliable, full of bugs and so on]. Talk about pro-actively defining and managing your brand.
3] Fox News – News has always been news. It was never right or wrong, left or right. As Sargent Friday, from the television series, Dragnet, used to say “just that facts ma’am”. Love them or hate them, Fox News came in seized the opportunity to redefine news as we know it. They must have felt that news had become one-sided and it was time for a new source of news that is “fair and balanced”. Fox has become the clear leader in cable news. Even in our office both parties are represented. We don’t ask which political representation they are affiliated with. We don’t have to, they just ask which news do you watch?
So today’s lesson: make your brand bold, effective and the results will follow.
