Branding

For the second installment of our ABC’s of Business here at the MyCorp Blog. B gave us a bit of trouble – we knew we couldn’t lapse into the overtly lazy choice and just use “Business” as our B word, but we soon realized that most of the B’s we could use involve Business in some way. Business financing, Business to Business Sales, Bring Your Own Business (the new BYOB) … and while we love busy businesses, we just couldn’t be seen using the tell-tale B word for this installment. In what must have been one of the weakest eureka moments in the history of blogging, we figured out an important B that DIDN’T involve the word Business – Branding. So, for this week at least, B is for Branding.

Branding is just as important to a business’s success as any other B word we could have dug out of the dictionary. Your brand is what identifies you, what inspires trust in your product and service. Businesses spend A LOT of money on branding because it is still one of the best ways to make sure that customers are able to, and want to, seek out a particular business over the competition.

Building up your brand, however, is more difficult than just coming up with a spiffy logo or clever name. You have to build the business that is represented by that brand. That means going above and beyond in customer service, and taking the steps necessary to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Your knowledge and experience helped birth your business, and your business thus reflects those very characteristics. You can invest all you want in expensive signage and packaging, but it isn’t enough to simply be set apart from your competition via superficial means. Your business has to walk the walk, if you’ll pardon the cliché.

But if you’re able to build up that trust and confidence, that spiffy logo will be associated with a strong, trustworthy company for as long as you keep up the good work. Just be sure to file for a trademark on anything you use to brand your business, or a copyright in the case of things like jingles. The last thing you want is for your competition to steal the product of all that time and energy. This type of theft may sound like it only belongs in the world of corporate behemoths, but trust us when  we say that there are plenty of small-town businesses that have seen very similar logos and signage pop up near their competitor’s shops.

So protect yourself, protect your business, and protect your brand!