What is Branding? A human approach to lifting the confusion.
According to SBA Office of Advocacy, there are 30.2 million small businesses in the US which represents 99.9% of all US businesses. Yet most of these businesses are still in a fog when it comes to their brand and what exactly branding means. The aim of this article is to provide a simple definition to demystify the subject of a brand and branding.
In order to define branding, we’ve first got to define what a brand is. The easiest way to define a brand is to think of your business as a person. What others think and feel about your business is your brand. How you get others to think and feel that way is branding.
What’s a Brand?
To make this simpler, let’s use an example. Imagine there is a person named Nanook (shout out to the Lost Boys).
Since you’ve never met Nanook or heard any stories about him, he doesn’t really have a brand. The only branding that he’s done is have a name. Even when we’re presented with only a name, our brains start trying to categorize him based on all the experiences we’ve had with anything associated to the name Nanook.
What’s Branding?
Now let’s say your friend tells you a story about Nanook and how he always holds the door open for women. His act of kindness is a form of branding, it’s how he’s getting the observer of the act to think and feel a certain way about him. What the observer ultimately thinks or feels about this act becomes part of Nanook’s brand in the mind of that observer.
One night you’re finally able to meet Nanook in person. You’re talking to a friend when they nudge you and say, “hey there’s that guy Nanook I was telling you about.” From across the room you see a young man, well dressed in bright colors, who is smiling and greeting people as he enters the room. He seems to know everyone and everyone looks happy to see him. Within those few moments, you’re subconsciously defining his brand because your mind is working to categorize everything you’re experiencing.
The way he’s dressed himself, his demeanor, his hairstyle, facial hair, shoes, socks, watch, etc. is equivalent to a brand’s identity. In the business world, this translates to the logo, colors, images, content, typography, etc. Since each of these elements play a role in how you think and feel about Nanook, they are all forms of branding. As your mind is processing all of these visual inputs from Nanook, it is defining what you think and feel about him. It is creating the narrative that is shaping his brand.
How Does Branding Impact a Brand?
So finally Nanook makes his way over to you and says “Howdy! How y’all doin’ this fine evening?” As you hear his voice, tone, and comment, your brain is adjusting its perception of Nanook. Each of these elements is another form of branding because it influences how you perceive him. What you feel after you’ve heard his voice, tone and comment will further define Nanook’s brand in your eyes.
Each experience you have with Nanook, either directly or indirectly, will influence his brand in your eyes. To bring this back to the business world, every email you send out (direct) or review you get on Yelp (indirect) will be a reflection of your brand.
In this day and age, the truth is, you no longer have complete control over your brand. Your brand is now what others tell each other it is. So when you think about your branding, you’ve also got to keep that in mind. You really can’t just buy 30 seconds of TV airtime and say what year you were established and how many people you’ve served and expect people to trust you.
Your potential customers can just go online and read reviews to determine whether to trust you or not. If you happen to make the mistake of saying one thing and your reviews say another then you’ve now got to work extra hard to redefine the perception that people are starting to say about your brand.
To bring this back to the business world, every email you send out (direct) or review you get on Yelp (indirect) will be a reflection of your brand.
How Can Branding Help Your Business?
Like it or not, as soon as you gave your business a name, it became a brand. Whether that brand is weak or strong depends on how much you’ve invested in branding and brand strategy.
Most businesses don’t consider how their brand is perceived until something goes wrong (like losing market share to competitors) and forces them to address it. At this point their brand is confusing and they feel overwhelmed because they don’t know where to start or how to begin tackling the problem when they can barely define what their brand is.
The only form of branding they’ve done is likely the visual identity. They’ve got a logo, some colors, certain fonts, and that’s it. The reason they even went that far is likely because the needed business cards or a website. Both of those assets contribute to your brand but if there is inconsistency across them then it is only adding to the confusion.
Going back to my Nanook example, imagine that the day you met Nanook he was happy, cheerful and energetic. Then the next time you met Nanook, he was angry, confrontational, and aggressive. Then the next time he was very salesy, pushy, and over-the-top. Your perception of Nanook would be confusing and your mind wouldn’t know how to categorize him. So to save energy, your mind will just avoid him altogether.
In order to leverage the power of branding to help your business, you’ve first got to establish how you want to be perceived in your customer’s minds. Just like how Nanook had to think about how he was going to dress and fix himself up, while also keeping in mind his attitude and energy, the evening you met.
Once you’ve done that, you’ve got to consider all the different ways you can affect that perception, branding. It can be through social media posts, the way you write your emails or website copy, the types of images you use on your collateral, and the different textures on your packaging. The possibilities are endless. The branding you use should be filtered through and reflect the brand you are or aspire to be.
Conclusion
Just in case I wasn’t clear enough, let me state it again. The easiest way to think of a brand and branding is thinking of your business as a person.
- Brand: What you think and feel about them.
- Branding: How they get you to think and feel that way.
With so many new businesses popping up across the US in the digital age, it becomes increasingly more and more important that we take the time to consider our brand and the branding we use to define it. Defining and nurturing your brand could be the difference between whether a potential customer chooses you over 3 others that offer the same exact product or service.
My hope is that this article has helped demystify what a brand and branding is. I know there are a wide variety of different types of branding like product branding, personal branding, corporate branding, geographical branding, etc. but my goal for this piece was to break it down in the simplest way possible since so many of use are still in a fog when it comes to defining what branding is.
If after reading this article you feel you’re still too busy running your business to focus on your brand, don’t fret, there’s help. My business exists to demystify the branding process using a simple framework that results in a brand you’re confident in and growth your business deserves. Visit thebrandinsight.com to schedule a free consultation and let’s get your brand working for you.
