In the consumer product market we know that brand refers to how, for example, electronic manufacturers differentiate themselves (or try to differentiate themselves.) One car manufacturer may promote safety as its brand while another may promote its economical price.
And when it comes to personal brands, we may be clear about some elements of brand. For example, some dinner guests are known for never arriving on time, while others always knock on the door at the exact moment the invitation calls for.
When it comes to the online promotion of your book or business (whether online or offline business), the concept of brand may not be as clear. For example, there are many online book marketers. Can you think of which ones have individual brands that come to mind readily?
And this cyberspace universe of similar businesses is precisely why working to establish online a clear brand for you and your company is so important – you want to stand out from all the others.
One additional point I’d like to make here before going on about brand. In the past, with less resources easily at hand, we would often stick to one service provider for everything connected to that service. Nowadays we have many more options – we can pick from a menu, using several service providers to each provide a piece of the whole.
And often these several service providers promote each other’s services because these providers do understand the menu choice of today’s business world.
It’s this knowledge that makes it easier for us to establish our own brand. We no longer have to be THE internet marketer and spend thousands of dollars of ad revenue trying to convince everyone that one size fits all and we’re that one size.
We can now create and establish a brand to a specific niche market – and thanks to the Internet that niche market can be quite huge.
I just read a post on a private Yahoo blogging group to which I belong. The author said that the next time she promoted her horror novel she wasn’t going to promote it to the horror-reading audience because there were so many thousands of horror books out there. Instead, she was going to market to people interested in books about jinns, which is an important element in her horror novel.
I thought about this post comment – she realized she had to have a specific niche brand for her horror novel rather than get lost drowning in the general horror novel category. And I agree with her that I think she’ll have more big sales promoting to this much smaller but much more targeted market.
How do you go about figuring out your own brand?
One of the first steps is being realistic – setting aside what you’d LIKE to have as your brand but have no credentials, no knowledge in the field, and no easy way of getting that knowledge from what you enjoy knowing or doing and what you’re good at sharing with others.
Because a brand is really about what you share – what products and services you offer to help offers.
Sometimes you may be the last person to “get” your own brand
Often when I work with people on branding brainstorming, I discover that they themselves don’t recognize their own brand. In other words, they may actually already have a brand but they don’t realize it.
This happens frequently when people have several business interests and don’t see how they all connect. This may be because they are thinking of features – and each business interest has different features – instead of benefits to their target markets. And these benefits can often be grouped under one umbrella brand.
Caution: I don’t think of an umbrella brand as a main brand with subsets. I envision an umbrella brand as an overhead unifying theme from which all the businesses equally flow.
Let’s say Jane has a book editing business. She may also offer virtual book tours. What is the benefit in both cases: She is helping a book author garner positive exposure.
The book editing protects the author’s reputation because Jane corrects grammar, spelling and other errors before the book is self-published. The virtual book tour organization offers the author an online platform for exposure for the book.
What could the promotional tagline of Jane’s overall brand be? Perhaps something like:
Shining a positive spotlight on your book’s publication
And then Jane’s home page website copy (of course she has an effective website to promote her two business services) can explain that, by getting the book ready before publication and helping get the word out after publication, Jane’s company definitely helps shine a positive spotlight on your masterpiece.
Brainstorming about your own brand
It’s not easy to brainstorm by yourself. It’s best to toss ideas off other people, people who have an understanding of what will appeal to your target audiences.
What brand is most likely to compel your target audiences to say yes to your products or services?
An effective brand probably won’t pop into your mind in a quick 10-minute brainstorming session. You’ll need to think of some ideas, then mash those ideas around and see where they lead you.
And be flexible. Do not automatically say no to a branding idea. Take each idea as a “gift” to encourage more creative thinking. Just remember your brand if possible should offer benefits to your target markets. It’s all about them.
One final word of caution: Once you have a brand, make sure you protect it as the valuable asset it is. Before you say yes to any joint ventures or partnerships, consider carefully how the other person’s brand can impact your brand.
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