Know-How Exchange : Branding

Admirable indeed. However, there's a lot of distance between the things you want to do.

1. Promotion (in my book at least) is basic messaging that's name, rank, and serial number; it's plain old vanilla messaging: name, telephone number, website and ... we're done.

2. Branding—compared to promotion—and in its purest form, and again, in my book, is a TOTALLY different landmass, on a way distant planet, orbiting around half a dozen suns, in a galaxy far, far away.

The first kind of messaging takes you to the corner store.

The second kind of messaging puts you at the centre of people's universe.

Where do you want to be found?

When promoting or branding, you have to communicate whether you will service homes (residence) or businesses. Begin with identifying your audience to whom your promotional messages are set to target.

"Cool Down" all of you!

Any good? ;-)

Branding is a serious undertaking. It starts by defining exactly who is in your target audience, what important and unique benefit you provide them, and what makes you different from, and better than, your competition.

Branding is the sum-total of associations and beliefs your target audience has about you. So even if you say all the right things and position yourself right, your brand is still a function of the service you deliver, your appearance when you show up, your courteous driving on the road, and a zillion other things.

If branding is really important to you, you probably ought to hire a branding expert to guide you through the process. You can post a project in the Hire an Expert section in the right column of this page. Or you can review the profiles of the experts on this forum to see if one or more of them sound like they might be a good fit for the assignment, and contact them directly.

A business such as yours really needs to work on an on-going basis with a local marketing expert -- whether that's an experienced freelancer or a marketing agency. Here's what they can do for you:

1. Install branding that works, because they'll take you through the questions and considerations that reveal the right branding solution. It's not a DIY project -- actually, it's similar to replacing an old HVAC system with one that will perform well for a long time.

2. Formulate on-going seasonal promotion options so your company has leads coming in year-round.

3. Position and place your business where the right customers will be looking for help, from improving your website to making sure you're covered in social media and email marketing, to designing your brand presence on smart phones, brochures, and messages targeting building managers, property/ insurance/repair bloggers, etc.

Are there area businesses of your approximate size with a pulled-together brand presence you admire? Perhaps fencing, landscaping, flooring, roofing or computer repair companies? Learn who crafted their marketing, then interview those marketers.

About immediate promotion: In your area, the violent storms and onset of winter require that your message gets out immediately. Property/apartment managers, contractors, claims adjusters and insurance companies in your area need to know about your business right now. Yelp and Angie's List would be among the top action priorities. Choose one of the marketing people you interview to get on an immediate promotion organized and launched as a one-time project, even if you select a different marketer for your longer-term branding project.

Hope these thoughts are helpful. Stay warm!

You are taking a very good step, branding is key of success in internet marketing and in open market too.
Branding seo and SEM are some how connected with each other. Through branding it is expected that people can search you with the name of your business. eg say your company name is ABC then people can search you with keyword like - ABC airconditioning repair or similar.

There are some good online marketing companies such as CBIL360 which can help you out for expected results.