Marketing and Branding 101: How Unique Brands Promote Themselves

The old marketing addendum says that people have to come into contact with your business four to six times before they will commit to buying anything.

The only trouble with that statement: people have to not only see your business four to six times, but recognize it four to six times. Changing one word in that sentence makes all the difference in the world to a company that doesn't have a solid brand. If your brand and your vision is adequately represented visually (think the Target bullseye or the Nike swoosh), it will make impressions in the minds of people who initially see it one time, for one second. And they will remember it.

Here's a few marketing hints for establishing that killer memorable brand:

1) Your logo should be no more than two colors, preferably one light and one dark color. (Example: Starbucks) All logos get abused during their life cycle by being photocopied, e-mailed, faxed, scanned, embroidered, screen printed, bumper-stickered, and who knows what else. Your high-contrast logo should be built to survive this abuse.

2) If the name of your business is not a household word or a noun, the name of your business should be in the logo. (Example: Coca-Cola, who has now made themselves a household word!)

3) Choose no more than 3 fonts and 3 dominant colors. Too many fonts and colors will prevent your business from standing out among the busy commotion that will inevitably surround it.

4) KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

5) Pick a tag line that describes your business that is no more than four words long. Believe it or not, I had an employer who asked me to write a four-line tag line. It was more like a tag paragraph. It wouldn't fit on a bumper sticker and people would have had to brake in order to read it on a billboard. The rationale was, "there is so much information I want my prospective customers to understand! Why should I condense it?" My answer to that is, if you give your prospects too much information, you have lost them. Not only will they not have a chance to read all of it, but by the time they see the lengthy paragraph being passed off as a tag line, they won't want to read it. Their attention span is spent.

6) A graphic designer is worth their weight in gold. People think in pictures, graphics, and colors. People will remember a picture long after they have forgotten the words. A good graphics person can carry your business to the next level.

If your business has a strong, unique brand, it will promote itself. Every time a person sees a strong brand, it fits into their schema and it they can easily recall it when they see it again. In the business of branding, memorable translates into customers, and customers translate into a growing, thriving business.