Let’s chat about brands—what are branding and why is it important in 2024 more than ever?
For me, my personal brand is a pivotal part of my business, but not in the way that your “branding gurus” might tell you.
Investing in branding is a smart move if you’re at 20k or 50k revenue a month, but if you think it’s just about logos, fonts, and visuals, you got it all wrong.
Let’s talk about big brands like Nike and Apple.
They are known by their logos, but it’s only underneath the branding umbrella and it’s way more powerful than what you see.
Let’s break it down:
Visuals Are Cool But It Doesn’t Define Your Brand’s Identity.
Imagine the online space filled with experts, gurus, and bros talking about branding like they know it. Now, picture all these successful gurus offering the same package / offer / strategy, and the only difference is, that one of those people is famous and known as the #1 authority in the space.
Which do you choose?
You’d probably go for the #1 in the industry, not because they’re famous but because you know their brand, what they represent, and what they built over the years with it.
Because visuals are irrelevant to a brand’s identity, it’s actually just how we identify the brands we like.
Brand Can Literally Change Preferences And Stick In Your Brand.
I think you’ve been in this situation before:
Like when you order a Coke at a restaurant and the waiter responds, “Is Pepsi OK?” (or vice versa).
For some people, switching brands is stupid.
No way would Pepsi replace Coca-Cola.
So to find out which is the best, people did a blind test.
In the blind test, people preferred Pepsi because it’s refreshing, sweet, and has a slight citrusy tang that makes it taste crisp and delicious. But as soon as they knew that it was Pepsi, they literally chose to go with Coke, and their preference changed.
Brands can literally change what we like.
Because of branding strategies that we see in the online space over the years, our brain that makes a decision can be trained to love one brand over the other. So when you think that branding doesn’t really matter, think twice or even thrice because branding can literally influence our decision-making processes.
Branding for startups and small business
The honest reality is Branding is not important under $20k revenue per month, and I’ll be the first one to advocate you focus on dialing in your offers, marketing & sales at that stage.
But — if you’re way past $20k, you might be missing out on the leverage that Branding creates for companies that are dying for a rebrand (and may not realize it.)
What Is Branding?
It’s not just about logos, your brand is like an invisible person working on behalf of your business 24/7, relentlessly, spreading awareness, trust, and creating loyalty WITHOUT ever having to pay them.
Just because you “can’t see” the brand show results immediately, doesn’t mean it’s not working.
A strong brand, created uniquely for your business, for your offer, and your audience, will convert existing leads, prospects, and past clients like nobody’s business.
That’s the exactly reason enormous companies you know and love like Tesla, Apple, and Amazon have been using these hidden-in-plain-sight strategies for YEARS to create market domination.
Key Element Of Branding That People Fail To Leverage
Now that you know a little bit about branding, here’s the main thing that people miss when they think of their brands and their strategy,
Positioning
One of the biggest mistakes I see many startups and small businesses make is positioning themselves to get as many people to like their products / brand.
You might think that getting as many people to like you would equate to having more buying customers / actual buying clients – that’s where you’re wrong.
An overcrowded market only means one thing, more competition.
It’s true that there may be a bunch of competition but there are also so many possible prospects that you can get.
But that’s only if you know how to position yourself, your brand, and your products in the marketplace as the leading authority in the space.
How can you do that?
You need a TON of branding.
Literally.
To get people to know, like, and trust your brand, you need to differentiate yourself among the hundred, thousand, or million competition that you have.
You need to show people what it is that you’re trying to give a solution to, what you stand for as a brand, and what will they get if they decide to hit that follow on your page.
Just like Apple’s values are important to its success now. MRI research shows that when Apple fans talk about the products they love, a part of their brain is influenced by Apple’s huge effort to make the stick and live up to their brand’s promise to only deliver the best in the marketplace and continue their differentiation with their products and features.
Though it’s not just for features that you can consistently get people to buy from you,
You have to think, how are you using your brand?
What is it that hooks people to your brand and urges them to buy from you?
