Have a seat and enjoy a cool one. You’ve put it all out there for your venture—paid the price, taken the risks, and built up a head of steam. Now you are taking a moment to review what you’ve done.  What should you do next to ensure your venture continues to grow and increase in value?  Let’s address your brand.  Consider the following questions:

Do you have a business plan?

Do you have an established brand strategy?

Do you have a written marketing plan?

Do you have an organized marketing budget?

What marketing best practices do you have in place to ensure you get every bit of brand equity you deserve?

If you’re like many people, you’re probably not entirely happy with your answers.  Big buildings require deep foundations, so let’s start digging.

Branding:Investment or Expense? 

Branding is money.  Your brand is the single most important investment you will make in your company.  Don’t believe it?  What’s the difference between Coca-Cola and RC Cola? Branding.  The difference: billions.  Enough said.

Flatiron builds brands—in accounting terms—company equity.  We provide complete turnkey solutions based on sound,strategic reasoning, form and function fueled by a spark of creative genius.  The result: you enjoy increased revenue, market dominance, and brand equity.  

What Is a Brand Really?

A surprising number of business professionals don’t understand the fundamental business concept called branding. The good news is if you really get this one concept, you’ll be light years ahead of most your competitors.

Branding is not logos, not design, not advertising…  these are simply components of branding.  Branding goes way beyond marketing to product development, delivery, customer service, accounting practices, and corporate culture.  Branding is your reputation—it is who you are.

An-named marketing professor perhaps summed this up best ‘a brand is nothing more than an artifact around which people have experiences.’  Every touch point a customer has with your company or product—every image, impression, experience, rumor, true or not, are components of your brand. Who’s championing your image?

Branding Means Business  | The Brand Blueprint

A powerful brand requires deliberate strategy.  Your brand strategy should be planned with the same intelligent care given to your business plan, your business model, or your financial offering and just as vigorously defended and championed.

Most likely, many of your competitors do not understand this and that gives you an edge. The faster you employ best business practices, the quicker you pass your competition on the way to success.

Strong brand strategy is like compounding interest.  Instead of one unit of input equaling one unit of output,over time one unit of input becomes ten units of output.  An integrated strategy ensures you squeeze out every last drop of brand genius and equity.  Branding requires forethought,discipline, and restraint. 

What are you doing to ensure your brand is everything it should be?

Let’s roll up our sleeves.