Branding – how important is it to your business?

I think most businesses would love to have the kind of brand awareness that Coke, Pepsi, Hershey, Xerox, Kleenex, GoDaddy and Monster enjoy. If you look closely at most successful businesses, you’ll probably discover an entrepreneur that evolved over time, developing a specific impression in their client’s minds when they thought of their company, product or service. If you want something copied, do you Xerox it, or do you Konica it? Could you Xerox a document on a Konica? And is there another word that comfortably compares to Kleenex?

Is it possible to mold the perception of your service or product?

How do you get someone to link ‘ownership” of your brand? If I thought ‘domain name,’ would GoDaddy stand apart from Enom or Namecheap? If I asked my wife this question, she’d say Enom and Namecheap ‘WHO?” But she saw GoDaddy’s SuperBowl commercial, and now automatically links domain names to them. She’s transferred ownership in her mind to GoDaddy. I think deliberately carving your niche is one of the most important marketing strategies you should develop, to influence how your clients and prospects think of your business. But what happens when someone has already branded your niche?

Internalizing your Brand

What is the core focus of your business? I know in the image solutions industry, service revenue draws the lion’s share of profit, whereas sales may only pull ten percent. Great service drives sales. If your support department went an extra 1% in every interaction with your clients, could they evolve from simply satisfied clients – to Raving Fans? Branding is a team effort. It starts and ends with every interaction you have with prospects and clients.

Promote a Consistent Message

Branding encompasses reinforcing everything from your logo to your mission statement. It has to build personality. It has to tell the same story consistently in order to strengthen it in your clients and prospects minds. I think this directly relates to short and long term memory. I’ve always heard short term memory transfers to long term memory the sixth time around. Don’t know how true that is. If I’m not interested, I’ll forget your name in the same conversation. LOL. Direct marketing organizations have validated the success of branding though, and one can’t argue the success of companies like Energizer or Heinz, or thousands similar to them.

Branding works better than competing on price alone

Again, what is the core focus of your business? Is it colocation or shared hosting? Do you offer everything under the sun? Where is the best return on your investment (ROI)? By focusing on your core product or service, you’ll maximize interactions with your clients and prospects – building customer loyalty.

It’s All About Choice

Is your brand memorable? Or is your business just another commodity? In the hosting industry, competition is formidable. What are prospective clients searching for? I suspect price drives a large percentage of searches. This is where a strong brand will unify your efforts, be memorable, be a value-add, build loyalty and attract your best clients. Branding helps make that choice be your business.

- Steve

Time & money.. And likely more passion than you've ever had for ANYTHING. Although much of us dream of establishing ourselves to this extent, let's face it: None of us here are. Not to say we can't be, but if I owned a brand like "coke" I honestly wouldn't be here.

Start with a good name. Then a 5-10 year plan.

I wonder how many of us actually have a plan to grow to that size. In other words, how many not only think BIG, but also plan BIG?

Most of us think(or hope) big, but BIG doesn't just happen. I've watched many companies grow to reasonable sizes(500k+ annual), but beyond that I think you need not only quite a bit of capital, but something like a 10+ year plan. Key phrase is "I think", because I haven't been there quite yet.

Branding is and should be an important part of any business - more so in Hosting where there are hundreds of template based sites and nothing visual or emotional to differentiate one company from the other. The web hosts that successfully position themselves now will see more success. A few good books to consider: Brand Simple, Marketing Management-Kotler.

Thanks for the book references!

I didn't notice until just now that your avatar is from your website as well. That's a great example of branding.

Using a company image as an avatar in forums is great in branding. Not only are you promoting your company, but you're encouraging brand awareness.