branding is for everyone
When you hear the word branding, do you say, “ah, that’s not for me”? Or, “I will worry about that later”? Some of you might just think of the big brand names such as Coca-Cola, Nike, Mercedes and Apple, and leave it at that.
Branding is for everyone. That much has been said plenty of times. But until recently, no one has really talked about just how you—people like you and me, small businesses and organizations with one, two, maybe a dozen employees, with big-time ideas and passion but without a big-time budget—could start, toward building big success stories. What does “everyone’s” brand look like? Where should we start?
don’t wait, start where you are
Often, business owners get in the habit of waiting—waiting for the right time, waiting for the right people to line up, right amount of cash on hand, etc. The idea is that you have to make a big “Splash”—and making a splash costs money, time and effort. The resources that you don’t have right now.
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. Lightfoot branding proposes that you start now, with what you have, where you are. Don’t have a huge budget to re-design your web site? Use a free service to start a blog. Don’t have a shiny new business cards? Use what you got, or make one for less than 50 bucks. Don’t have money to hire a designer to make a logo? Make one yourself! The thing is, no brand is ever final. You are always testing, measuring and tweaking it anyways, and it’s no crime to start with something simple.
READY? focus
So what’s the first step? Before you think about the visuals and messages, you want to think about yourself. What do you do? Where do you come from? Why do you do it? Why should anyone care? The answers to these questions form the foundation of your brand story, from which springs all your messages and designs.
Lightfoot branding will show you exactly how to do this FOCUS exercise. We will also host workshops where you can share your answers and ideas with people just like you, who can help sharpen your focus even more. Learn about our events and sign up here.
SET: create a flow
The ideal marketing communication states your advantage clearly, establishes your products and services as the one and only for the customers you seek, and shows a clear path to purchasing. This is what any branding efforts should aim for. Nothing to obstruct the flow of thought and actions that lead to sales.
To create, and maintain, such a free-flowing marketing, you need a very light-footed approach. You can’t spend all your money on your advertising campaign, staffing, or creating a logo. You need to attend to everything, and everything needs to work in concert.
You can achieve this by having a strong focus, and then lightly apply that to every aspect of your business. That’s the next step of lightfoot branding; applying your central story to everything, in a light-footed manner so you can adjust as you go. After all, everything is changing all the time. Planning for the planning’s sake sometimes misses the boat.
GO: launch, measure and adjust
Which brings us to the third and most important step: implement. Launch. Now. When you have an idea, the best way to test the validity of it is by trying it out. In today’s web-centric marketing world, it’s becoming easier and cheaper, by day, to try things, measure the results, and tweak your methods/offerings/message often.
We will show how to do this: what tools you have available, what to think about when testing your ideas, and how to accurately measure your results.
And with each of your input, soon we will have a community of business owners where you can share insights and feedbacks.
we are here
Lightfoot branding is here for you. Be sure to make comments, suggestions or ask questions here on this blog, or if you like some hands-on experience, check us out at one of our workshops.
how this web site is organized
We divide our articles in four categories:
- Quick Tips —How to brand yourself, in small, measured steps. Tips you can act on right now.
- Exercises —Warm-up brain teasers, home work and reading assignments. tips
- Textbooks —Case studies, field notes, war stories and lessons learned.
- Reviews & Summaries —Regular digests of lightfoot lessons, with links to further readings.
In addition to these categories, there is a notation on three stages of Lightfoot Branding:
- READY —focusing yourself.
- SET —creating your brand’s flow.
- GO —implementing your brand story.
- (Of course, then you will go back to tighten your focus, adjust your flow, implement that, and so on…)
This is so you can quickly scan what applies to you most, where you are in your branding effort.
