This seems to be a buzz word as of late in the online business world. So, are you working on "branding" your business name? What are you doing to acheive this?

I admit I've done this with my other online business, a boutique. I've gone to appropriate chat forums and talked about my products, listed them in directories, posted pictures on the internet of them, blogged about them and asked my happy customers to do the same (with mixed success). But I'm not sure how to go about it in my hosting/reselling. It seems like an almost invisible business.

Well keep in mind that marketing your products, and branding are two different things.

I should mention that branding is not something new or recent online.

Now, as for the process you've outlined, this falls into a marketing genre. However, branding is not about "selling product" so to speak. It's more about selling your name.

Branding is about making sure YOUR name is synonomous with the products you sell.

I can tell you right away, that unless you do something very unique, good branding within the hosting industry is going to be extremely difficult, because there is nothing unique about web hosting. Getting people to think of YOUR company anytime the phrase "web hosting" is mentioned will be difficult if not impossible, unless you offer something no one else does/can.

Even then, you won't be synonomous with "web hosting" you'll be synonomous for offering the "other" unique product/service.

Well, some level of branding does exist in the hosting industry. Take Rackspace for example, which often is given as the example of a "high end" hosting solutions provider.

Dan has provided a very good example. Keep iin mind that it will be very hard to knock Rackspace off of that thrown.

The best thing to do, if you truly want to create an effective branding campaign is to first sit down and do research. Determine products and services that you can combine with your hosting, that no one else does or can.

I could not agree more with Mark and following Dan example.

Branding overall is half the game. Its an extremely powerful tool, but you need to know how to use it properly. Web hosting is not an innovative niche, thus creating something out of ordinary is quite a challenge. There are 100s of companies dreaming up the same, who also have the budget to spend a lot on marketing. The goal here is to create a name for yourself using a particular service or product nobody else does and market it until the wheels fall off.

For example, when you think of a "soft drink" you thing of Coca Cola. They might not have invented the product per se, but they were the first to spend billions on marketing the association of "soft drink" with their company name.

Rackspace, as Dan mentioned, is known for their "high end" products. I believe previously their also coined the phrase "Fanatical support". I also remember "Rollover bandwidth" which I believe HostRocket introduced first and a lot of companies followed...

I get that it's not selling the product per se, it's encouraging name association (in my other business, making baby carriers, this is something I have worked hard at).

Do you think branding is coupled with marketing? Obviously, I don't have a marketing budget any where near Rackspace. Which is why I was thinking branding might help me out, if I can come up with low cost ways to do it. I like the idea of coupling it with a "unique" service; I think that is key. Now I just need to dream one up.

Yes, that is a trademark of theirs. Other competitors are following suit, with "Impressive Support" (Hivelocity) or "Heroic Support" (Liquidweb).