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What is Branding??
This question can be answered from more than one perspective.
Branding must involve the founder(s) and/or major players of the company, who are led through a process of questioning, defining, clarifying and refining what their brand truly is and how to communicate it outwardly. We specialize in building businesses as a brand. This is a process we honed over the years and have captured in our Self CLIC or assisted programs called CLIC Track. Of course, we also lead the process in the traditional client/consultant relationship as well.
Another perspective may be to ask the question "what does branding affect?"... everything. Fundamentally a complete identity must be created, much in the way a writer creates a character in a story. What's the name of the company or product, the tagline, the logo, words used in marketing materials, the tone and color of the lobby, web site, business collateral-- cards, letterhead, brochures, etc? The BrandU® process extracts the answer to all of these questions.
Branding is branding and marketing is marketing. And you can get "lost" mixing the two.
While they live together they are two distinct parts of the process. Both are valid and extremely important. A good marketer can sell anything, right? What is that "anything" going to be? The approach to the market and the actual campaign won't emerge if you don't know "why." This is the "branding" process– knowing why and what your brand is. Then you can discover your way into marketing your business and ultimate success.
Most people think of an image or a logo when they think about branding, or perhaps they'll go so far as to think of a mass media tagline like Nike's "Just Do It." Some define "branding" as the process of applying an existing brand to a generic product -- branded entertainment or branded products -- Disney Paints at Home Depot for example.
We define branding as the process of building your business activities, no matter their kind, as a brand. And it begins with a mindset. Without that mindset you will never "see" your business as a brand and it will never be. Using a process to enable you to see it and with a set of tools that enables you to communicate all the aspects of it, you begin to build equity in your brand. This is an equity that translates into more clients, more sales, and a real asset for you to have listed on your balance sheet.
Read on
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