You Are Your Own Brand
My second post is up on the The Small Business Marketing Guide. This one is about branding your small business.
Large corporate businesses have one advantage over small businesses: they have more people and resources. Because they’re such vast collections of individuals, and it can be difficult for consumers to understand an organization that large, branding has been developed to control how consumers feel about a company and its products and services.
A brand is a collections of symbols and mental associations connected with a company or product. When defining a company’s brand, marketers seek to develop and align the consumers’ expectations, creating the impression that a product has certain qualities that make it unique or special.
In a small business, your brand doesn’t have to be a collection of symbols because you, the small business entrepreneur, are the brand. What you do and say reflects on all aspects of your business. You humanize your business in a way that corporate brand marketers could only dream about.
Curt on March 24th, 2009 1:03 pm
Marketing a small or home-based business is perfect for reading a new books on marketing and doing it yourself.
Mike Miller on March 24th, 2009 10:27 pm
And that us the exact reason why people should start using Video Resumes and use web sites like http://www.mayomann.com or http://www.visualcv.com to get a professional image and a good Job.
Mike
Shawn on March 25th, 2009 12:42 am
Dane,
It finally dawned on me when we were starting our own business that what I was really marketing was me. Sure we have a brand name, the name of our blog that tells folks what we do, but more important, I think, is the photo of my wife and I on the About Our Team page, the mom and pop of this mom and pop organization. I’m a real believer in marketing yourself and that personal relationships drive business. It’s hard to have a personal relationship with a brand name.
Tom on March 25th, 2009 7:41 am
I agree.You need to get people to trust you and to do this you need to open up and build your brand.Only then you are building a business.
aromahand on March 25th, 2009 7:57 am
i agree!
great post, once again…
brad
betry on March 25th, 2009 10:37 am
i agree!
nice post
Jaclyn on March 27th, 2009 12:35 pm
I agree with shawn, ultimately when you are opening your own business, you at the heart of it all are not promoting or marketing your business, your promoting and marketing yourself really. your investor’s, customers, etc want to know that YOU have what it takes to truly get your business and product off the ground and running, that YOU yourself has what it takes to keep your company going during hard times.
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