Use Branding to Differentiate Your Business

When you think of branding – in a marketing sense – you probably think first of products that are household names. These companies have perfected the branding process, but even small companies can use branding effectively to promote themselves.

Why should you spend the time and money to develop a brand identity for your business? To stand out from the crowd.

A brand is a mark used for identification. When a rancher brands his cattle, he does it to differentiate his herd from everyone else’s. The most obvious reason is if a steer is lost – or stolen – it can be identified, returned to the rightful owner, and the thief punished.

But the brand serves another purpose as well. By extension, it represents the rancher, his values, the quality of his stock, his way of doing business, his integrity and honesty. It guarantees a certain level of quality to buyers and other ranchers. Over time the brand becomes a symbol representing everything the rancher stands for.

This is true whether the image is positive or negative. If the rancher is dishonest, has poor quality cattle, or can’t be counted on to deliver as promised, the brand is equally effective in warning potential buyers to avoid him.

What does this have to do with marketing your business? Everything.

A well planned and executed branding program will do for your company exactly what the rancher’s brand does for him: accurately represent your values to customers and prospects and differentiate your business from others in the industry.

One of the best examples of a comprehensive branding program I've ever encountered is Wells Fargo. From logo placement to colors, type fonts, and photography, there are guidelines for everything. And, while it can be limiting creatively, the advertising does exactly what it is supposed to do: promote the product and the brand, not the cleverness and imagination of the creative team.

Generate Better Response with a
Copy/Art Team Approach

In an industry that’s motivated by response rates and driven by testing, every avenue for maximizing success should be explored.

Yet since its inception, the direct marketing industry has been driven by copy. While it’s true that “copy sells,” alone it can’t achieve maximum effectiveness. No matter how clever and compelling the words, if no one notices them, you’re sunk. (read more)

What is Good Graphic Design?

Defining good graphic design is an ongoing challenge for designers and non-designers alike. One of the reasons for this is that the definition changes for each project. (read more)