Build Your Brand & They Will Come
At about eight billion, there are now more Web sites than people.
Your brand is the sum of everything that sets your site apart from
the rest of them and is the essence of your business. Everything
you do should ultimately be aimed at building that brand and the
effort should be focused and coordinated-we sometimes forget that.
In a very real business sense, your brand is everything. More precisely,
it is the sum of everything-tangible and intangible-that sets your
site apart from the rest, and makes your offer unique. A closely
related concept is "identity," referring to all the elements of
brand identification (domain name, site design, logo, slogans, etc.)
that allow surfers to immediately pick you out from the rest-"All
that you are to the buyer comes from your identity," as Lady Jag
says. (5)
The point of branding your content is that if surfers like it, they
know they have to come back to you to get more of the same. So your
ultimate goal when engaging in brand marketing is to create a loyal
customer base, the ultimate key to any business' success:
Look at any successful company, be it a brick and mortar or an e-business
pureplay, and there is one clear consistency: residual brand name
recognition. The brand name sticks in your mind and is usually accompanied
by some sort of strong feeling. As with all business operations,
the creation of a brand is an investment--one that takes time, money,
thought, and often professional consulting. Although the short-term
costs can be high, the long-run payoffs can be enormous. By investing
in a solid customer base, one that is satisfied and vocal about
that satisfaction they feel, a company is investing in its future,
its profitability, and its reputation. (18)
Nick Shore (22) emphasizes that all the hard work you put into your
business is essentially building your brand-your real basic asset:
It has been said that if you systematically dismantled the entire
operation of Coca-Cola Co. and left them with only their brand name,
management could rebuild the company within five years. Remove the
brand name, and the enterprise would likewise die within five years.
That's the mark of a brand-first enterprise.
Think about it-if The Hun or Persian Kitty, Danni or Playboy were
catastrophically cast out on the street with nothing left but their
brand, how long would it take them to rebuild? Not Very Long. Nevertheless,
as Lopix (17) reminds, we usually don't pay enough attention to
it: "Branding seems to be one of the things that is not shared between
the adult and mainstream worlds when it comes to advertising. It
appears that there is a major lack of branding in the adult world,
even though we all know its effectiveness and can see the effects
for ourselves."
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