Building Your Brand

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.

Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.

It becomes part of their thinking and part of their lives.

· Delivers the message clearly

· Confirms your credibility

· Connects your target prospects emotionally

· Motivates the buyer

· Concretes User Loyalty

Build trust in your brand – Do what you say you are going to do and be consistent about it.

Participate in local business events but do not just show up and be a face in the crowd.

-Be a sponsor

-Organize the event

-Join the committee

Building Your Brand Takes Time. The average consumer will not take action until they have been hit with a targeted message 7-11 times. When you are a well branded product or service like Starbucks or Coca Cola, the consumer tends to purchase this product more often partly because these brands are targeting the consumer more than the competitors.

Let’s Focus on Two Important Elements of Branding.

The first one is differentiating yourself from your competitors. This tends to get a little confusing because we see success at one place, so the natural tendency is to imitate or duplicate it. In marketing, how can you differentiate yourself? I don’t want to get into your service or product because in our hearts, we all feel we have the best there is to offer. I do want to emphasize one simple strategy that applies to everyone. Focus on building trust in your business. The easy was to think about this is to “do what you say you are going to do and be consistent about it”. I also don’t want to get into logo design, because typically your logo’s affect is a result of your product and service. The effect of Coca-Cola’s logo or Starbuck’s logo is a result of years of branding and creating a great tasting product. Let’s focus on creating your advertising piece. First, stop stating the obvious or the “well I should hope so” response from the consumer or prospect. If a car dealer advertises, “we finance or financing available”, your response would be “every car dealer offers financing.” To differentiate and standout, the dealer could use a Special Offer of 0% Financing Available! When you as the consumer see this, it stands out to you because of the special offer. To make the ad even more compelling, the dealer could say, “Act Now, Limited Time!” creating more urgency and possibly triggering a call to action from you the prospect. The main idea here is to focus on the offer. I could create to most beautiful advertising piece and print it on the nicest paper, but if the offer is weak, then the consumer will disregard your marketing piece. But if I offer you A FREE PIZZA every week but I write it down on a napkin, in pencil, would it matter to you how it looks? NO, of course not, a free pizza every week is definitely going to get me into this business. So always start with the offer and design around it.

But what else can you do to differentiate and stand out from everyone else? Everyone wants to convey how “Cool” their business is and how your clients, members, patients, etc. really enjoy being part of your business. This sounds great, but how can you do this? In the past it would have been more difficult, but now with Youtube and video, it is much easier. A short 30-90 second video about your business showing the great interaction between you and your customers can really capture and spark an emotion in the prospect. The video could depict the “lifestyle” that the prospect desires. Getting healthy and fit, relieving chronic pain, bully proofing a child, can all be shown in a short, fast moving video that you could make with a camera phone and post on Youtube. You will have to do some editing and should add some music, but with many simple to use editing features and programs available, you could be able to produce a “Cool Video” in as little time as a week.

So now we have talked about two elements of creating an ad that will stand out from your competitors. Now the issue is how to get your ad and your brand out into your community. If you have a budget that is virtually unlimited, you do what LA Fitness or 24 Hour Fitness focuses on. Lots of big street billboards, radio, TV, lots of direct mail, sponsoring big events like The Rock N Roll Marathon. For most of us smaller businesses, we need to focus our efforts more specifically in our immediate community and with a much smaller budget. Use a variety of advertising methods because they all work together. An average consumer does not take action until they have been targeted between 7-11 times. This means that you have to be in front of them on those magic numbers of 7 to 11. However, you cannot create a marketing campaign the only targets a consumer within those magic numbers. Therefore, you have to do everything possible to be in front of them as many times as possible. This way, your chances increase in not only reaching out to the prospect, but having them take action and choose your product and service.

What Else Can You Do?

Okay, so you have created your ad with a strong offer and an eye captivating design. Now it is time to put your brand out into your COMMUNITY.

Put Your Brand Name Out into Your Community

LeadBox.com helps you to maximize your advertising and marketing reach. Being able to put your face or BRAND in front of as many prospects as possible can make a tremendous difference to your bottom line success. Now more than ever, it is vital to distribute cost effective marketing materials into your business community. You also need a way to capture a prospect or consumer’s contact information. The average person does not take action until being hit with a marketing message between 7 to 11 times. This can greatly reduce your chances of them walking into or calling your club. In order make the percentages work on your side, you can make the initial contact. This means your marketing and advertising materials need to capture contact information. LeadBox.com has made capturing a prospects’ contact information easy and efficient with of course, Lead Boxes or Guest Pass Display Holders and either Text Marketing or QR Codes. We can easily create a variety of marketing materials that allow you to introduce your business, include special offers and even create a special bonus offer when a prospect scans your QR Code or texts you.

Mobile texting and QR Codes can be used with our post cards, door hangers, VIP Guest Passes, lead boxes, business cards, etc. Adding a QR Code allow the user to scan with their smart phone and immediately be taken to your website, Facebook page, see a video, or your Contact Capture Page. Mobile texting allows you to instantly capture cell numbers and send texts to members and prospects.

LeadBox.com is more than just Lead Boxes. We are your one stop shop for cost effective marketing solutions! We have added a line of Compact VIP Guest Pass Display Holders in either cardboard or acrylic. These products are clearly the way to go when you want the presence of a lead box but not the frequent follow up.

Not to mention, all of our boxes and displays are made in America

Building your Brand