What is Branding Anyway?

 My belief: if you follow good marketing practices, your branding will emerge automatically from the process. It’s the end result of all those little choices, decisions and pieces of research that have enabled you to start or build a business that really works.

It’s easy to lose ourselves in the moment and think about things in terms that are far too abstract. Branding isn’t something that you can force like this though. You can’t really come up with a brand that exists in isolation from your day-to-day business. Branding is created by the presentation of your product or service, the advertising and marketing, every detail in your website.

 Your brand is the voice of your business

Good branding will tell your audience everything you need them to know in the blink of an eye, meaning that you don’t have to be there in-person to earn every sale. If your business can’t do this then you don’t really have a business, which is why your brand can’t exist in isolation. Branding really is the voice of your business.

 Good brands combine creativity and consistency

One of the real key points about branding is that, when it’s done correctly, it should act as a unifying presence across all aspects of your business. It arises out of consistent choices and small refinements you carry out week after week. You can lay the groundwork for consistent branding with a few key choices like fonts, colors and tone of voice, but it mostly arises out of consistent choices and actions.

 Brands streamline and amplify your offering

The purpose of your brand is not to win some form of award for artistic creativity but to showcase what you have to offer to your audience. It should show passersby and browsers what you can do, why they need you, and how easy you are to do business with. And if you’re in more refined spaces like the luxury market or personal development industry, your brand needs to have an aspirational element to it as well.

 Why am I stressing these points to you when all you want is a simple explanation of what branding is? Because I want you to see that it’s not some fancy abstract concept talked about by creatives — it’s the natural result of common sense marketing done the right way.

 If you’d like more direction to get to this point, I’m just a call or click away. Marketing101Essentials@gmail.com