Branding For Dummies. Chiaravalle Bill

resources may be the way to go. (Flip to Chapter 12 for more on public relations.)

      ✔ Brand identity (logo) designers: If you need help only with logo development or refinement, hire a graphic designer who specializes in brand identity who has a proven track record and a portfolio of success. Ask to see samples to be sure the caliber of design matches up with your expectations. Then use the advice in Chapter 8 as you manage the logo-development process.

      ✔ Advertising agencies: Some ad agencies specialize in brand development. Others focus on creation of print, broadcast, or interactive advertising. Yet others are known for award-winning packaging, and even for their public-relations departments. Chapter 13 includes guidance for determining your needs, locating the right resources, and working with the professionals you hire.

      

When interviewing professionals, ask to see case studies to determine whether those you’re considering have the experience you seek. Many companies present themselves as brand developers when, in fact, they handle only one aspect of the branding process, such as logo development or brand advertising.

      

When selecting a firm, use these 3 Cs to help determine if they are right for you:

      ✔ Are they competent? In other words, do they have the experience?

      ✔ Is the chemistry right? Do they get us?

      ✔ Do their compensation needs fit within our budget?

       Gulp! How much does it cost?

      Branding budgets run the gamut depending on whether you’re building a brand that will face only moderate competition in a small geographic region or a brand that aims to elbow out major competitors in the global marketplace. What’s more, budgets vary depending on whether you can reach your market through digital communications and social media or whether you need to invest in traditional media and marketing channels.

       A glance at branding budgets

      Table 1-1 shows a lineup of the major tasks involved in brand development along with the range of price tags involved. Brace yourself: The high-end figures are apt to cause heart palpitations.

      Table 1-1 Professional Brand-Development Fees

      As Table 1-1 verifies, there’s a huge range between the low-end costs involved to build a professional brand that competes on a local or regional level and the high-end costs involved to build a powerful brand that can flex its muscle nationally or internationally.

      

As you start tallying up the costs to your business, avoid the temptation to strike out certain line items that you think you can handle on your own without incurring outside costs. Businesses that start with do-it-yourself logos and presentation materials achieve false savings. They economize on the front end, for sure, but they also cost themselves the benefit of a strong, competitive, professional first impression.

      If your goal is to build a brand that you can grow, leverage, and even sell in the future, invest the money required to get off to a good start. By the time you amortize your start-up expenses, the cost will be minimal in comparison to the value received.

       In lieu of big bucks …

      

In case you’re clinging to your billfold or balance sheet, shaking your head and wondering how you can build a brand on your kind of budget, remember this truth: In essence, your business is your brand and your brand is your business.

      If you don’t have the budget to develop the most powerful brand identity, triple or quadruple your efforts to design and deliver the most consistent brand experience. Follow these suggestions:

      ✔

Spend extra time and effort to define your brand and what it stands for so that everyone in your organization knows exactly the promise you’re making and keeping. Defining your brand involves creating your mission and vision statements, defining your brand promise, developing your brand definition and core brand message, and deciding on the brand character or personality that you’ll put forth with every brand communication. Chapter 6 covers these tasks.

      ✔ Develop a brand experience that never fails or fluctuates. If you can’t have the most dazzling brand identity and presentation, aim instead to have the most amazing and amazingly consistent brand encounters. Chapters 13 and 14 help you deliver a brand experience that never lets consumers down and never leaves them wondering what you stand for.

      When people choose your offerings, what they really buy into is your brand. How well you define and deliver your brand determines the ultimate value and success of your business. View branding not as an expense but as an investment that delivers value over the long haul.

Pop Quiz: Are You Ready to Brand?

      Is branding the right next step? If you answer “yes” to a good many of the following questions, you have good reason to turn the page and get started!

      ✔ Are you launching a business, product, or personal effort that will benefit from a clear identity and high awareness?

      ✔ Have you been in business for a while but feel you lack consumer awareness and understanding about who you are and what you stand for?

      ✔ Do you worry that prospects don’t know your name or the distinct benefits you offer?

      ✔ Do you feel that people in your own organization are unclear about how to explain your offerings, your distinctions, your target market, and how you excel over competitors?

      ✔ When you study your marketing materials, personal presentations, and the ways that people encounter you or your business, do you see inconsistencies in the look, message, and personality being presented?

      ✔ Is the leader of your organization prepared to devote time, staff, energy, and dollars to develop, launch, and grow a brand?

      And the final question is “Can you think of even one reason why people should choose your offering over competing solutions?” If so, turn the page and start building your brand!

Chapter 2

      Why, What, How, and When to Brand

       In This Chapter

      ▶ Branding products, businesses, nonprofits, and even yourself

      ▶ Following the branding process, step by step

      ▶ Seizing the best moment to brand or rebrand

      More than 5,000 branding books and millions of branding websites give proof to the fact that brands are a hot topic surrounded by a deluge of information – and confusion. To clear up the facts, here are a few easy definitions.

      

A brand is the essence and idea of what you stand for. It starts with a vision and grows into a promise that’s reinforced every time people come into contact with you or any facet your business or organization.

      Branding is the process of positioning, packaging, and presenting the vision and idea of your brand so that others understand and believe what you stand for and the promise you invariably make and keep.

      Branding isn’t a veneer that you slap on (usually in the form of a new logo) to mask or transform a product offering. Treating branding like some skin-deep solution is like putting lipstick