I will share with you how to optimise your businesses with branding.
Every day and everywhere, we hear people talking about their “brand” and branding. Celebrities turned the term “brand” to a fad about two years ago and it is spreading like wild fire.

You hear about brands on the radio, watch and engage with them on your T.V. and digital devices, even wear them as a mark of your loyalty. Brands are ubiquitous and invisible all at the same time.

When talking with people about what I do I often get asked “What do you mean by brand development and management? What is that? A logo?” It can certainly include the logo as the visual identity or known face of a business’ brand and yet it is a whole lot more.

Branding is not for entrepreneurs alone! Personal branding is even more important than business branding! Why? Would you patronise a product you know or have heard that is produced by a serial murderer? Would you buy a book on marital bliss written by a man or woman without a stable family life?

Consumers have become more enlightened due to the amount of information available freely to them. They want more and demand it, they keep learning and want to know more. The days of believing your customers will believe just anything you tell them are over. Technology has made us all gurus even in fields we never heard of years back.

A lot of small business owners and new entrepreneurs also mistake branding for marketing. Branding is not marketing but you can get greater value by leveraging on the values created by the combined effect that branding and marketing can provide.

Branding is not Advertising. It is not just an exercise in advertising. If it were so, it would become an untrustworthy and ephemeral activity requiring a huge budget.

You can have a great brand without a huge advertising budget…even a shoe-string budget will do. Getting your brand to work for you and make its proper mark isn’t just about money or budget. Getting brands to work on a small budget is more than possible, it is the norm.

Good branding requires a lot of good thinking, it engages the brain without disengaging common sense, and does not discourage everyday lingo (language).