05/09/2022
If I had to pick one piece of knowledge to share with business owners it would be that there is a big difference between branding and marketing and that all businesses should have a budget for both. But you will not be successful marketing without a solid brand to work with.
Your brand is your message, your culture, your values, your image, the problem you solve, what you want the world to know about your business. Your brand is what people say about your business when you are not in the room. Branding is mnemonic—meaning it is based on the lasting feeling, experience and emotion that consumers associate with your brand. Branding refers to the deliberate actions you take to influence people’s perception of your product or service—so they will choose your brand time and again. Essentially, it is the way your product or service lives in the hearts and minds of your customer.
Branding is actually the entire identity of your business, way too often businesses skip branding and miss the significance of it. Brand identity is the first step of marketing. Creating a recognizable brand that people know and trust. Do not skip out on this process, this alone can make or break your business.
Once your brand is solidified and built up you can transition your focus to marketing, this is where we utilize your brand to connect you with your target market and initiate sales. This is where, with my clients, we focus on the ROI. The strength of your brand will determine the overall message we deliver and the response received when you transition the focus to marketing.
Building your brand (identity) and marketing strategy is incredibly important and must be part of your business plan from the first day. Way too often we see businesses skip this process and wonder why they don't have more sales and wonder why their businesses are failing. I’ve heard so many emotional stories from failing business owners who took their savings, their sweat, their blood and built a business only to realize when it was too late that they missed the most critical step of branding and marketing from day one resulting in a complete loss.
If marketing is so critical to business today, why is it overlooked or undervalued by so many? The growth and life span of your business is positively correlated to your business’s reputation. Marketing is a tool to keep the conversation going. By engaging your customers, marketing gives them a sense of belonging.
“A baker cannot bake bread without yeast. A business cannot thrive and be successful without branding and marketing. Branding and marketing to a business is as important as yeast is to bread. Yeast is what makes bread rise. Branding and marketing is what makes a business rise. “ -Jahaziel Gonzalez - Empire Media
You might have the best product or service in the world but setting up a business and just hoping that people find you is the fastest way to fail. Assuming word of mouth is all it takes to build a business is also a fast route to failure. Word of mouth is powerful for many businesses but not to be confused with productive branding and marketing strategies. In order for people to know about the product and service you have to have a strategy in place.
This part of starting and running a business can be intimidating, that is where businesses like Empire Media come in, Empire Media works with clients on branding, marketing and we have even been known to tackle revenue strategies with our clients. We don’t do your branding and marketing for you, we do it with you. When you hire Empire, you hire a full marketing team to work for your company and work alongside your business to build it up to its optimum level of success.
What I want businesses to understand about Empire Media is that the only way we win is if our clients win. Our goal at Empire is not to help you for a month or two, It’s to build long lasting relationships and loyalty with businesses, which means in order to do that we need to build lasting results. If our clients win, and if our work helps grow their business, then we win as well.
Branding and Marketing must be embraced, developed and valued more than ever.
