Branding: Increasing its Power

Branding: Increasing its Power

One thing that you are going to want to work out fairly quickly in the early days of your business is branding. The way in which you brand your business is hugely important if you want to make sure that you are attracting enough attention and the right type of attraction. You might need to think about what you can do in order to increase the power and potency of your brand so that it can do as much for your business as possible. Branding is not my strongest skill, to say the least so thank goodness for my Graphic Designer friend who is keeping me right! I’m in desperate need of a rebrand so hopefully, this information will be as useful to you as it is to me.

Make It Bolder

If you are hoping to make a brand more powerful and potent, the first thing to do is to make sure that it is as bold as possible. The bolder a brand is, the more likely it is going to be effective, so you need to always be prepared to go back to the drawing board and make it bolder if necessary. If you are to do this, you will need to think about what it is that actually makes a brand bold, and that is something that you might struggle with for a long time. Bright colours, clear displays, an obvious and loud message – all of this will help, but the boldness of a brand really comes from the force with which you sell it to people. Do that, and you will find that the brand has a much stronger impact in its boldness in no time. Remember though, going big is fabulous but keep it classy and consistent.

Boost Visibility With Branding

You’ll also need to make sure that your brand is absolutely everywhere, or as far as you can get it. After all, it’s not worth much if nobody can see it, so the more visible you make it, the better. There are many ways to improve and increase visibility in this way. You might want to think about the age-old method of merchandising, wherein the simple use of pens, pencils and branded reusable coffee cups can be enough for your brand to reach far and wide. Merchandise is a great means of boosting visibility, but so is merely talking about it with people, so make sure that you do that at every opportunity you can too.

I find that branding online, and again consistency of branding across social media accounts, the website, email signatures and so on all help your business build recognition and reputation. 

Reinvent Where Necessary

There will be times when you find that you need to reinvent your brand, and you need to know how to identify that need, and then you need to know how you are actually going to make it a reality. Reinventing your brand where necessary will ensure that you can always keep it fresh, and yet you will need to make sure that you are keeping it in line with your previous branding enough for it to be recognisable. Keep that balance in mind, and you should be able to master such reinventions, with a view to increasing the power of your brands much more easily.

Do you have any top branding tips to share? Keep an eye out in the coming months for my rebrand! if you’ve recently rebranded I’d love to hear more about it/see it so feel free to tell me about it below.

Getting My Business Out There

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According to my emails via LinkedIn and the kind congratulations they contained I should be celebrating a work anniversary this week, six years as the owner of Candid Copywriting. I’ve been self-employed for nine years now however officially becoming CC was a turning point for me and I’ve worked full time as a freelance copywriter ever since.

When I look back to the beginning of my business journey there are a few things I would change. I know people say that your past mistakes form the present “you” however when it came to marketing in the early days the only thing some of my efforts shaped was an empty purse and wasted time.

I did all of the usual stuff, advertised in the local In Focus magazine which cost a fortune and promised a huge return (no one ever admitted to seeing it, let alone got in touch) and attended the formal networking meetings (ego lunches) to no avail.

The problem with starting out I found, particularly with marketing is that you really need to concentrate on your target audience or area and secondly, you could probably do with some help. I was so busy at that point writing copy that marketing was a sideline which it really shouldn’t have been.

Thankfully my advertising misadventures have not cost me too dearly and now, years on I have a thriving business which I love; I have a great book of clients, I am able to pick and choose what projects I take on, I choose my own hours, I really enjoy copywriting and of course what I do is so family friendly.

To be fair though I think I was fortunate, despite my ham fisted marketing efforts early on, thanks to some great recommendations from people who liked my work to others who took me on because of it. If this hadn’t happened and my reputation hadn’t grown organically I’d have been scuppered!

If I was to have a time travel machine which could take me back and allow me to make some different choices I would look at something like leafleting, having someone create leaflets (something quirky yet professional) and have them distributed in the areas I wished to work. I like the idea of the hand to hand approach as opposed to a blanket advertisement in a magazine or similar, it suits how I like to work. I want people to hear what I do and how I do it and want to take a leaflet with my details on!

My advice to anyone starting out now or revisiting their market plan would be to really think about how your business is being advertised. Of course we are all taking advantage of the online (often free) methods of building a brand and advertising ourselves however it would be blinkered to think that you’ll catch everyone in your marketing net this way as there are so many different forms of advertising to exploit, if you will.

What you choose depends on your business, your message and what you are trying to achieve for example. For me gorgeous lads and lasses as walking billboards at an event or busy metropolitan area would not suit my particular business however for some could be a game changer.

It doesn’t matter how established you are, it always pays to shake up your marketing efforts every now and then and trying something new could take your business in directions you’d never imagined.

Did you waste time and money on advertising methods going back which really weren’t suitable for you and didn’t create the buzz you’d hoped for? What would your one piece of advice be for someone starting up now and looking to get their name out? Please do comment as I’d love to hear your thoughts!