Can You Define Your Brand?

So you’ve been in business for a while. Can you give me a definition of your brand?

For example, I’m a small biz marketing powerhouse who comes in, peels the surface layers back to reveal the true core of your biz, evaluates and, if necessary, overhauls your entire marketing strategy, immerses your biz across the appropriate social media platforms, syncs your day-to-day operations with your firm’s long term objectives, and re-energizes your passion and perception of your own business.

I ask clients to describe my brand to me and this is pretty much a summary of what I’ve been told. Do I like the way I am perceived by my clients? Absolutely!

Did I strategically develop my brand into this? Nope. I just do my work, like most of you do. But my energy is infectious and my clients immediately refer to my energy every time they talk about me. Can’t you sense my energy in this brand description? Had you asked me several years ago to describe my brand I would have probably said something with the words ‘dedicated’, ‘small but mighty’, ‘resourceful’ and a bunch of other boring, average characteristics that clearly my clients don’t even give a thought to.

Why ask my clients, and not come up with some fancy-schmancy branding concept? I mean, I’m a writer and a marketer, so I can certainly come up with the most eloquently stated brand concept ever. However, this wouldn’t be a realistic description of my brand, and I would subsequently go about monitoring and building my brand all wrong. Why?

Because your brand is all about PERCEPTION:
It is the PERCEPTION of your buying audience that makes your brand. 

Since my clients perceive me to be energetic (which I am) and comprehensive in my analysis (I try), I work hard to stay true to my brand in all that I do, from my initial handshake to the way I prepare a final deliverable, and every manner of communication in between. The objective is to match your desired brand image with your actual brand image. If these are in alignment, great! If not, work to figure out how to match them. Want to know an easy way to get started? Ask your clients how they perceive your brand!