BRANDING & SOCIAL MEDIA ARTICLES

Branding for You and Your Company

By Tom Malesic

I'm sure you have started to notice our INSANE dedication to branding EZSolution. This concept is constantly on my mind, so I thought I would share some branding strategies that have been working for me.

About five years ago, I meet Marlin Miller (MDM Creative). He started to talk to me about branding. Quite honestly, I just didn't get it!

I understood how Coke and Pepsi do branding with mass advertising, but branding for my little business? How is that possible without an ad budget of over $100,000? And why did I even need branding? After all, I don't market to consumers! Right?

About four years ago, Marlin talked to me about the issues I had with my logo. He had no arguments from me. My logo really only worked on my website. It was in full color and down-right impossible to have in one color. This was really my first step into branding.

Next, I started to look at my business cards. I liked the personal branding that I saw real estate agents doing. So I tried taking my picture myself. It was okay. I started to use it on my business cards, my website, and my yellow page ads. Marlin kindly suggested that I hire a real photographer. That was money well invested.

I'm sure you have noticed that when I use a photo of myself, you see one of two photos. The concept is being consistent and focusing on personal branding as well as EZSolution branding.

This last year is when I really got crazy with the branding. Now I get it!

Branding is not just people recognizing a company name or a person, but is making the association that the company or person is an EXPERT at something. Whether it's true or not is not the point. Branding is the market perception.

I upped the ante by writing a book. After all, if you are a published author you must know what you are talking about. Right? This has given me instant credibility when I talk with prospective business owners. I recommend that every business owner write a book. This was a simple process. It took me three months from start to finish.

Next, I bit the big bullet and purchased three vehicles and wrapped them with crazy graphics. It has been nine months of having four vehicles on the road and I am now seeing the benefits. I recently attended a Rotary meeting. There were six business people at the table. I knew one of them because he is my client. The five other people knew my business because of the vehicles. -WOW-what great brand awareness.

What I hope you take out of this article is that even a small company can create branding/expert status in the market.

Take a look your website. What else can we do to create a stronger brand on the homepage and also throughout the site. Here are some suggestions:

Add video to the homepage and interior pages
Add free reports to download
Sell your book
Add video testimonials
Add success stories

If you would like to set an appointment to have me help you with some new ideas on branding on your site, give me a call at 717.291.4689.

If you would like to talk directly to Marlin, he can be reached at 717.285.3789.

Thanks - Tom