Hey!
Guess what?
You have a brand, even if you don’t think you do.
That means you need to think about the ways that you can make the brand sing.
While I have written again and again about the power of your brand, it pays to repeat yourself from time to time.
So here are 10 ways that you can put your brand into the position to make it sing for you and sing for its supper.
1. Project and protect your public image:
You want your brand to have a consistency and an image about it that reflects the value you are trying to convey.
That’s why you need to understand value, sell that value, and protect yourself from anything that detracts from that value.
2. Brands should be simple:
Your brand shouldn’t try to do to much.
You get in trouble when you try to be everything to everyone.
The best brands are really, really simple and try to capture one word or phrase in their audiences’ mind.
3. You want to make your brand iconic in its own way:
You need to be an icon of something in your industry.
Are you the most powerful?
The most professional?
Whatever it is, you want to be something of standup quality.
4. Brands are about connecting!
Your brand needs to enable you to make a connection with your audience.
It should create an opportunity to have a meaningful relationship.
5. Consistency is king:
You know your mom used to tell you, “if you are going to do something, do it right.”
With your brand, if you are going to do something, do it consistently.
6. Your brand should create an experience for your fans
What do you want your fans to think?
To feel?
To remember?
7. Do you have the ability to build brands for life?
Brands have life cycles.
But you do have a tremendous opportunity to extend your brand affinity for the life of a customer?
Are you like the NY Mets or Chicago Cubs, something someone is born into?
8. Your brand will evolve
It better or it will wither and die.
9. Naming isn’t as important as feeling
The name should be memorable, but feeling is more important.
10. Great brands tell stories
Stories evoke emotions.
People buy because of emotion.