The Importance Of Business Branding

Branding is all around us in many forms and faces. Whether you are shopping, watching TV or browsing the Internet, everywhere we go these days we are directly influenced in our decision making process by the effects of branding.

Most people aren’t even aware that their minds are gently (or in some instances aggressively) influenced by clever marketing. They end up buying this and that because something they heard or saw stuck with them. It could be a tingle that keeps playing every time you switch on the radio, or that huge electrical store who annoys you with their repetitive ads.

I’m sure you’ve had your own fair share of getting annoyed at some of these ads, but when you think about it, we often tend to drift toward exactly those businesses we always get annoyed about when we need something in particular.

This is due to a combination of smart marketing and business branding.

It starts with the look

We too can achieve this by branding our name or business name all over the Internet. So how do we do this without spending thousands of dollars like the big corporations do?

It’s easy. We use a blog. My preferred choice is the WordPress platform because it is the perfect content management software (CMS) to design a WordPress blog that actually looks like a website.

This site can be your very own branding tool and with a bit of money invested ($100-$500+) you will be able to get a unique site that is your face for the world to see.

First impressions always count, whether we meet someone in person or see their works on the Internet and those initial seconds can be the difference between a long term contract or no work at all.

Regardless of the business you own, you need a proper portal (portfolio) in which to represent yourself. While this might be a given for some, many business owners oversee this most important point.

Your vision counts

Try to find a designer who can take your vision and put this into reality with a custom made theme. I recently did a total make over on my Portfolio site and ended up paying under $300. This was well worth the investment because since the changeover I already gained 3 new clients!

In effect the theme has already paid for itself several times over.

Regardless whether you are working for yourself in a one man/woman show, or are the CEO of a huge corporation, if you have a web presence, you need branding!

Here is what you’ll need to consider before contacting your designer:

• What color scheme do I want for my site (a mixture of 2-3 main colors work best)
• What kind of navigation do I need (traditional blog design, newspaper design, simple page with no sidebars)
• How do I portray myself? Is it more with a direct approach, or more subtle with occasional hints at who I really am?
• Do I want my photograph, a logo, a slogan or all of these combined on the site
• What is my maximum budget?
• Is the site going to be stationary (set) or will I actually use it to blog on too?

The more you can work with your designer in regards to the final result, the better he/she can work with you. It really pays to contemplate these things before you rush into any decision as your site/blog will be your online business portal (portfolio) for a long time to come.

Make it last.

Conclusion

Branding my name from early on into my business has helped me to gain recognition from top Internet marketers. Using a professional design has furthered this to catapult me into a bigger league now and this is being reflected by the new clients I attract.

In my next post I will actually go into the second stage of branding and what you can do as a blogger, business owner to draw traffic to your site. This is something that can be done by anybody, irrespective of money or time.

As long as you are aware that one of these commodities will need to be invested, you will be fine.

If you have questions, or like to know how you can get your own theme, feel free to comment below.