creating a brand
How to Build a Potent Brand (Six Clues)
October 27, 2011
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Best known for her individualistic expertise when it comes to coaxing out the real emotional power in brands to spike the bottom line, Mary van de Wiel [alias: Van] is CEO and Brand Anthropologist of Zing Your Brand & Co., a New York-based creative brand consultancy, laboratory and workspace. Dubbed Master Provocateur by clients and media alike, Van brings a highly-eclectic perspective to branding whether as weekly host of NY Brand Lab Radio, leading the quarterly NY Brand Lab Workshops, speaking, consulting, blogging or producing the Brand Reinvention Summit. For 15 years, Van ran her own global branding shop with offices in New York and Sydney, Australia with Fortune 500 clients across four continents. She’s written for Entrepreneur.com, Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog,and been featured in Investor’s Business Daily, Reuters, VOGUE and Entrepreneur Magazine. She is the author of soon-to-be-published Dead Brand Walking. Follow Van on Twitter @maryvandewiel or download her free audio, 7 Creative Secrets to a Wickedly Bolder Brand as well as two free ebooks (How to Score your Business Brand and Raise the Pulse of your Brand) www.zingyourbrand.com.
It’s just not enough to be brilliant. People must know and remember that you are. Let’s face it, walking around feeling complacent and entitled because you know you’re brilliant is not a viable strategy, right? So if you want to be known, remembered and recognized, it’s critical you build a brand that not only positions you as brilliant – but as irresistible and indispensable, too. How do you do that? You create a potent brand.
Potency defined OK. Let’s start with a definition of potency here just to get us all on the same page. The word ‘potent’ means (i) power; authority, (ii) efficacy; effectiveness; strength; and (iii) the capacity to be, become, or develop one’s potentiality; and (iv) a person or thing exerting power or influence.
In other words, the more potent your brand, the more powerful, authoritative, effective, strong and influential you are. The best part? A potent brand makes it easier for your world to find you, get to know you and then, want to engage with you (work with you, employ you, salute you, etc.) You get the idea.
So how do you start building a potent brand? The world is moving at a staggeringly fast pace. It’s never been more important to get a grip on your brand’s core values, what it stands for and why it’s meaningful.
It starts with asking questions. Take a look at the six clues below plus questions. See how willing you are to give your brand a leg up, as they say. It’s likely to turbo charge your thinking. It’ll then, hopefully, get you moving forward—and building a brand with potency.
1. Be Chief Influential Officer of Your Brand
• Are you poised to become the Go-To-Resource within your area of expertise Y/N?
• How willing are you when it comes to getting out of your comfort zone Y/N?
• Are you ready to stake out your territory in a more authoritative way Y/N?
• Is your Brand Pulse showing strong, pumping and vital signs? (the last time you checked?) Y/N?
• Would you describe your brand as robust and hardy Y/N?
• Is the world around you noticing you’re becoming a center of influence Y/N?
2. Set the Right Tone for Your Brand
• Are you clear about the intention behind your brand Y/N?
• Are you really communicating you are who you say you are Y/N?
• Is your brand’s voice clear, authentic and aligned Y/N?
• Are you regularly minding your brand’s behavior Y/N?
• Is your brand’s attitude welcoming, empathetic and transparent Y/N?
3. Start Seeing your Brand as Your Platform
• How committed are you to showing up in your brand Y/N?
• Would you give yourself a high score when it comes to inspiring your world Y/N?
• Do you actually think about changing the world Y/N?
• Are you at ease speaking confidently from your brand platform Y/N?
4. Pay Close Attention to Your Brand’s Emotional IQ
• Would you say your brand lands a high score when it comes to empathy Y/N?
• Are you aware the world around you has feelings about you and your brand Y/N?
• Do you think you might be keeping your world at arm’s length Y/N?
• Do you focus on actually creating strong emotional connections in your communication Y/N?
5. Focus on Being 120% Authentic
• Are you spending much effort on creating a consistent brand Y/N?
• Do you know exactly what a congruent brand looks like (let alone feels like?) Y/N?
• Would the world around you give you a high score as an authentic brand builder Y/N?
• Do you know that feeling when your brand is out of alignment Y/N? (You always know when the wheels of your car are out of alignment, right?)
6. Face Facts: The Money’s in the Brand
Note: Potent brands are profitable. The definition of business, after all, is about profit, purchases, commerce and volume of trade.
• So are you paying enough attention to what your world really needs the most Y/N?
• Does your brand consistently deliver what your world is craving Y/N?
• Are you willing to let your brand go to work for you Y/N?
OK. How potent is your brand feeling right now? P.S. Don’t ever forget that building your brand is always a work in progress. (That’s the good news Y/N?)
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Grow Your Business with a Book?
December 16, 2010
by Katie Steigman
How a book can expand your client base and establish you as an expert
How do you stay competitive and differentiate your company or brand at a time when cutting through the noise is harder than ever? To get consumers to take notice of you over your competitors, you have to not only demonstrate your knowledge and expertise—you also have to broadcast it.
A book is a great medium to integrate credibility and intellectual capital into your current branding and business development efforts. It acts as a persuasive advertisement for your business, your consulting services, or your personal expertise. When you pick up a good-looking book on management (or sales, or health, or leadership) that’s sitting on the shelf at an airport bookstore, you automatically attribute a certain amount of credibility to that author. A book helps speakers, consultants, and business owners differentiate themselves and their brand from all the other companies out there doing the same thing.
Is a book a good next step for building your brand or growing your business? Here are a few factors that may point to “yes”:
- You’re a consultant in leadership, management, sales, or customer service, and you have years of experience in the business and want to make yourself more visible to potential clients. A book may be a good way to share your take on best practices or new approaches based on your experience.
- You’re a health professional, MD, dietitian, or fitness expert, and you want to publish your winning methods, breakthrough research, or health plan while simultaneously building a wider platform for your services and products.
- You’re a marketer, publicist, or social media expert, and you already have a following online. A book is a logical extension of the platform you’ve already built, and you can pass along your knowledge to other marketers while opening up a new channel of communication for your brand.
These are not the only folks who may consider becoming authors, and there is a wide array of circumstances that may prompt someone to write a book. Other alternative options for sharing your expertise that you may consider are
- Creating white papers or case studies
- Starting a blog or a newsletter
- Producing booklets, workbooks, or pamphlets on your industry or topic of expertise
Though these type of products won’t have the reach of a book, they all provide useful content that you can distribute to current and prospective clients.
For more on books as a branding tool, check out this article from the personal branding blog.
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3 Hot PR Tools for the Budget-Conscious Author
May 31, 2006
by GreenleafBookGroup
Public relations, or PR, plays an integral role in the success of any author trying to increase book sales and visibility in the marketplace. No longer the ugly stepsister to advertising, PR has changed its image and is on the rise. For the budget-conscious author, PR is usually the most cost-effective solution for maximum market penetration. Use the tools below to keep your money in your pocket and your book on the shelf:
1. Online Alternatives
Everyone has a story to tell, a message to promote, and a product to push—and they’re using online media sources to do their bidding. If you aren’t blogging, vlogging, podcasting, or even Googling yourself on a regular basis, then you need to jump on the bandwagon. Americans create an average of fifty thousand blogs a day. That means every twenty-four hours your competitor may be creating a blog to sell his or her message.
The Internet provides a way to promote your message on a global scale, with the ability to reach an unprecedented percentage of the population. According to Redbooks.com, Coca-Cola spends approximately $2.16 billion a year on traditional advertising around the world. New Line Cinema spent less than .5 percent of that amount to promote its new movie Snakes on a Plane. Starting in January of 2006, New Line Cinema started blogging about their new movie and has created a huge cult following. Consumers have since created external blogs and podcasts, all for a movie that will not be released until August and that no one has seen. This same pre-release hype can be applied to authors. Use the popularity of online alternatives to promote your book before the release date. Start a blog and get your blogging friends to write about your book. If Snakes on a Plane can get a cult following, maybe your book can, too.
2. Wham! It’s WOM!
If you follow trends in fashion and retail, then why not follow trends in the world of PR and marketing? Leading the pack of new trendy services offered by marketing and PR agencies is Word of Mouth, or WOM, promotions. WOM starts by eliciting the help of others, often called WOM agents, to spread positive buzz about your product, ultimately leading to the creation of brand ambassadors. How often have you read a book because a friend personally thought you would enjoy it? Probably more times than you can remember. Creating brand ambassadors will help spread the message of your book through your personal network and the networks of your ambassadors. The eMarketer/WOMMA report stated that 43 percent of marketers plan on conducting WOM campaigns in 2006. Companies such as Microsoft, Volkswagen, and Best Buy have all integrated WOM initiatives into their traditional media campaigns. Entire marketing agencies are dedicated to creating WOM promotions by making WOM agents available for purchase, just like media space. Instead of spending money on agency-created WOM agents, create your own. If you look, you probably already have brand ambassadors. Try checking with your parents, friends, and siblings; they have to like your work, so use that to your advantage.
3. Get Branded
J.K. Rowling. Dan Brown. Both authors represent two of the most powerful brands in publishing. Books, movies, video games, and cross-promotional products are all things associated with them. Creating brands raises positive awareness with any product, service, or message and helps in the creation of positive brand ambassadors. Our culture is built on branding—what’s hot and what’s not. Make yourself part of the hot list and create a brand image that is memorable and lasting. Find where you want your position to be in the marketplace and develop a brand position statement. This way, people will talk about you in the light you want them to when you’re not around.
All of these tools run the gamut of prices. If you’re budget conscious, hire an experienced freelancer to help you. If you have money to spend, hire a full-service agency. It will be more expensive with similar results, but agencies have their own brand awareness and respect in the market. If you want more information about the world of PR, I recommend Full Frontal PR by Richard Laermer and The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR by Al Ries and Laura Ries. These books offer great insight into the modern world of PR.
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