Never before was building a brand as important as it is today. Whereas in the past decades, marketing campaigns would focus on selling a product, today it’s all about establishing a brand.
A brand is essentially the story you tell your target audience about who you are; it’s the promise you make to your target audience. It encompasses your credibility, experience and quality. It adds value to who you are whether you are a company or an individual.
Product VS Brand
Products have an expiration date, literally and metaphorically. They can only survive competition for a while; brands on the other hand are forever. It’s essential to market each product, of course, but it’s far more important to constantly be promoting your brand as you create a following that will be behind you independently of your products. The world’s most successful products are those that have a powerful brand behind them to support them. A brand is like the backbone of each campaign to promote a product, this is why you should always focus on establishing your brand. It’s far more likely that you will be able to survive a bad product, if you have a strong brand to back it up. In terms of financial success a brand provides a long-term financial success, whereas a product is only as profitable as it’s cycle lasts.
It Presents Recruiters With a Holistic Image of You
As you see, building a brand is essential if you want to achieve long term success. As an individual you are going to need to promote yourself in various occasions in your life, most notably when you are looking for a job. If you focus on your skills or your qualifications each time you are job-hunting, it’s as if you are focusing on promoting products. The key to having a successful career is being able to promote your personal brand.
Recruiters and potential employers look beyond skills and qualifications. They want to hire people who have a vision, innovation and creativity. And the only way to convince them is by presenting them with who you are as a professional. Fragmented pieces of yourself –what your CV essentially is on its own- might not do the trick. A brand will help recruiters see you as a whole and what you can offer to the company and the position. By establishing your personal brand you will be able to show your potential employer that you know who you are and where you want to go and the self-confidence that will ooze from this image will get them on your side.
Branding is Differentiation
Read the rest of the story from the Source: Why is it Important to Build Your Brand?
The holidays are officially behind us, which means folks are getting back to work and back to their routines. But what happens when your routine just isn’t cutting it for you? For many small business owners, routines can actually hurt you… or more specifically, your business… if you don’t allow yourself to mix things up, try new things and approach business from a different perspective every now and again. To help jump-start your 2016, consider incorporating these three things into your business – whether for the first time, with more robust efforts than in the past or as a second attempt to a failed first endeavor.