In the past, I’ve talked about the importance of building your brand (see: Your Personal Brand is Your Promise to the World). Brand building involves creating a unique and lasting impression of your business. Your brand is a key part of the relationship you build with your clients and others.
Why am I talking about branding again? It’s certainly important and a subject you need to spend time on, building your brand doesn’t happen overnight. But the subject, in particular, came to my mind the other evening as I was watching a commercial on TV. There seems to be some new advertising convention that ads now have to have 10 or more people chiming in one after another with pretty much the same message.
I expect the idea is to reinforce the appeal of a product among a group. One ad agency must have come up with the idea for a client, and now everyone is on the bandwagon. What was kind of clever the first time around has, to my mind, lost its appeal, and that’s because it lacks originality.
Original is a key piece of what I think effective branding and marketing is all about. Original means that it needs to reflect you. That’s not to say you can’t incorporate some of today’s popular culture into the various vehicles you use for branding and marketing - ads, social media, blogging, email marketing - but you want your message to convey who you are and not just want you think will capture attention.
"Your brand is a key part of the relationship you build with your clients and others."
Let your own personality come through your branding and marketing efforts so that your brand will be your own. This makes you much more real and approachable than a persona that you are trying to craft based on what is in style or what someone or some other company does.
Your personality has a big impact on building your brand and, in turn, your business. Be yourself and have a good time with it. Let who you are come through, and the right business will follow.