When times are tough, should you forget about branding and just concentrate on your marketing?
That is the opinion of Donald Miller, a very good marketer, who dismisses branding as just how you make someone feel about your business, useful for those $500,000+ companies, but a waste of money for everyone else.
I’m sure the branding experts will disagree. Branding is the way you stand out from your competitors, and with so much competition about, you cannot ignore it. But let’s put Donald’s remark into context. When he is talking about branding, he defines branding as how you get someone to feel about your business. It is colours, fonts, moods. He acknowledges that it is important, but believes that branding is something that $500,000 companies should take on board. It is not relevant for small businesses who should focus on where the money is. Marketing wins sales so that is where you should spend your money.
The reason I disagree with Donald is that I do not accept that branding is just about fonts and colours, and it is not just about getting someone to feel about your business. If you follow Donald’s approach, he is right. And when you look at the millions of £ or $ spent by big corporations on new logos, you really do have to question the logic behind the expenditure. Of course a million pound company should not spend £50 on a Fiverr type logo, but a Million (Pepsi, BA, etc)?
What is Branding?
No, for me branding is not just about getting someone to feel something about you. It is much more than that. It is about defining who you are, to yourself, employees if you have them, your customers and your prospects. In short, everyone. When you define yourself, you set yourself apart from your competition. You give yourself a reason why someone should buy from you rather than your competition, appealing to both emotion and reason.
That branding should start from day one of your business. Of course it will evolve over time as your business develops and grows. You have to earn the trust of your customers, particularly now when more and more business is conducted online. It is harder for your customers to get to know, like and trust you online than it is face to face. People are increasingly more sceptical about claims made online so how do you stand out?
You stand out by walking the talk. If you make a claim, you need to demonstrate at every touchpoint of the customer journey that you can meet that claim. If you claim on your website that you are particularly responsive to your customers, but fail to show that responsiveness on your social media, customers will pick up on it and comment on it, damaging your claim and damaging your brand.
I regard branding as an integral part of your marketing in the sense that your branding defines not how someone should feel about your business but why they should buy from your business.
I am sure that the other experts and consultants will also be putting up their hands to catch your eye when it comes to spending your money with them in touch times. How can you win business unless your website is well designed? But what is the point of having a great website if no one can find it: you need SEO to get you to the top of Google. An image says a thousand words, so you need great photography. It’s all happening on social media, you have to have an effective social media strategy to succeed. Paid ads find you the customers who are actively looking for your goods and services, you should spend your money there for an immediate return.
All of this is true. So let my small voice enter the fray.
You will recall the scene in Gladiator when Maximus says to his fellow gladiators before their entrance into the Colosseum, “ Whatever comes out of these gates, we have a better chance of survival if we all work together.”
We, the barbarian hordes of Carthage, may not be stepping out into 2021 to meet the massed legions of Rome, but we can probably expect more than a few surprises as we step gingerly into the New Year. We need all of our weapons sharpened and ready to use so that we are ready to meet whatever challenge is outside. It would be foolish to step out and leave one behind.
And the glue that holds it all together? Good copywriting.
The Glue
We need good copywriting to help define who we are, to define our brand, and to persuade our customers why they want to buy from us and not from someone else. We need good copywriting on our websites to hook our readers into the site and to keep them there. We need good copywriting to persuade our prospects to take whatever action we want them to take. We need that copy to be optimised for SEO and well illustrated with images that complement our branding. Our copywriting should be consistent across all of the channels and touchpoints that our customers, past, present and future are or will use. Paid ads can be expensive and a real money drain unless they are well worded.
You can run your business but can you write for it? Sometimes we are just too close to the day to day running of the business to see what our customers can see about our business. Good copywriting is about looking through both ends of the lens, from your perspective and from the view of the customer and making sure that there is minimal divergence. There will be some as we cannot please all of the people all of the time. But a good copywriter will work towards expressing your business the way that you want your customers to perceive you.
If you would like to discuss the copy you are currently using, why not arrange a discussion with me to see if I can help you do better in 2021, whatever comes out of the gates.
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