Learn From Examples

As we discuss throughout this volume, successful branding campaigns create immediate familiarity and strong positive associations. Well-conceived brands are recognizable at a glance and memorable over the long term. However, unlike Coca-Cola or Target, your brand is most likely relatively new, and it is almost certainly not as well known. The good news is, your brand will never need to be as big and successful as these huge household names. You merely need to get your brand message across to those you are closely targeting.

To better understand the power of strong branding, research the brand campaigns of those most closely competing for the same share of the marketplace in your field. You will probably see fairly quickly which campaigns hit their mark and which just miss. It may be more difficult at first to determine exactly why a campaign you can immediately identify as successful actually is. You should have a better idea of what to look for by the time you finish this book.

Do Your Homework

How do you even start planning your brand? This is a daunting question. A logical first step is to explore. Hit the Web, and search for sites that represent brands similar to your own. Find a few sites you find particularly appealing or compelling, and take note of why you noticed them. Sites that represent strong brands will stand out immediately, although you may not yet know why. If you have to stop and consider whether a particular site is successful, you can rule that one out.

Finding sites that provide appropriate points of reference for your brand is good practice for choosing keywords for your own brand. Pay close attention to not just the sites themselves, but also to the search terms that brought them up. Ask yourself if these are the search words you plan to use for yourself, and if so, consider how your own brand might fit in (or not) among the results. Choosing keywords is not an exact science. However, Google, which hosts around three-quarters of all Web searches,² is itself the best resource for decision-making about keywords—whether for search engine optimization (SEO) or simple searches to help you assess your potential competition.

Examining how others in your field have branded themselves can be a big help. But how do you know what to look for? And before you look anywhere, you have to know where to look. Before you can even begin to conceive a branding campaign, you need to clarify two key questions: (1) Who is your audience or target market?; (2) Where can you find them?

Research Google Trends

If you don’t already use it, familiarize yourself with Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends/). Searching Google Trends is the most direct way to research what people around the world are googling. The Google Trends home-page lists 200-plus of the most popular searches currently trending on Google. Click on any one of them, and you will find a graph of search interest in the topic over the span of a few days. You will see which geographical areas were home to the most searches. You will see the actual words people typed into Google to access information on the topic. And you will be presented with related topics that you can click on for the same information.

Use Google Trends to optimize the way people find your content through Web searches. (Search engine optimization, or SEO, is discussed at length later in this volume.) This is one of several essential research tools Google provides users. Others include Google Analytics, Google Ad Words, and Search Console. These three products help drive traffic to your website and help you learn more about improving your site based on information about the behavior of visitors to your site.

Figure 4.3 Creatives should know how to read basic analytics data.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#487846861

Google Analytics provides you with much more than just the number of visitors to your site, but also provides insights on important things like where visitors to your site are located, where on your website they first arrive, how long they stay on your site, how many pages they view, and any referring site that led them there. Of course none of this will help you much until you determine who you are, what goods or services you offer, and how you will brand yourself online. That said, having a sense of the online landscape in your field should help inform the way you build your brand online. We return to a more complete discussion of Google Analytics in Chapter 10. There, we consider how you can use analytics data to tweak or fine-tune your online content. For now, though, a basic understanding of how to build awareness of your brand online should be enough.

Let’s assume you are new to branding. If you are a journalist or artist accustomed to working alone, the thought of branding may not at first sit well with you, but you know you have to do it. Your professional success may depend on it. You may be open-minded and willing to learn, but you are not yet sure where to start. You are not sure what makes you unique or what might make you identifiable as a brand. How do you even begin to conceive your brand?

Before you can begin to craft your brand, you need to know what kinds of goods or services you will provide to your target market. In other words, what value will you provide others? What is your business? Is it to inform and enlighten? To entertain? Something different?

For the moment, let’s assume you are in the services business. At its most basic level, branding is the same for those offering products (which can include art or handmade items) as it is for those offering services (which can be anything from journalism and social media management to marketing and sales). The kind of business you are in should help determine the nature of your relationship to your brand. Are you your brand? Do you represent branded products? Does your personal brand differ at all from your professional brand? Answering these questions will help you determine your brand’s positioning.

Position Your Brand

In business school, one of the core concepts taught in the marketing and entrepreneurship classes is product positioning. In short, product positioning is about knowing who your customer is and what they are looking for. It is not being all things to all potential customers. Rather, it is about determining the best way to present your product (or yourself) to the customer, and single-mindedly pursuing that approach.

This is important because not focusing on a specific approach based on the profile of your client or customer will likely result in failure. For instance, if your enterprise differentiates itself on the basis of high-quality products or exceptional customer service, marketing messages that promote low prices or deep discounts can confuse the message. And that undermines your brand.

You can see this at work in the marketing of personal injury attorneys on TV, radio, and the Web. Coming on strong with money-focused messages will naturally lead viewers to assume that the services offered by the law firm are shoddy and possibly corrupt. It will be difficult for an attorney who has presented his or her services in this light to win the trust of clients who are looking for excellent ethical representation. That is not to say that a brand’s reputation cannot change or evolve. But a brand should stick to one positioning strategy at a time.

Among the main choices you will want to make when positioning your product or service is whether you will compete on the basis of quality or cost. In other words, will your ideal customer be more interested in a great deal or in high quality? If you are your own product, selling your own services, you most likely want to position yourself as a quality choice (unless you are a personal injury attorney).

For the vast majority of one-person businesses, whether they sell products or services (such as writing, editing, photography, videography, graphic design, etc.), competing on the basis of cost is not a good idea. When you are an individual going up against large companies, your innate advantage is the personal touch. That is the main differentiator between you and a large advertising company or copywriter or marketing firm.

Figure 4.4 Most creatives choose quality over cost.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#297677570

You will eventually need to choose a strategy. You cannot compete both on cost and quality because each branding position cancels the other out. To determine which way to go, you want to, as always, try to envision your real or ideal customer base. Consider what they may be looking for when they visit your business. If you are a maker of unique handmade soaps, dolls, or jewelry, distributing too many branding messages focused on low cost or discounts would likely backfire by diminishing the association with quality for your audience and leading them to question the value of your goods or services.

This applies to pricing too. Remember that the price charged for an item or a service conveys to the customer its degree of quality. Pricing something too low may suggest to potential customers or clients that the product or service is low quality or, quite literally, cheap. There are countless anecdotes about businesses selling unique, handmade, or otherwise high-quality items that actually increase their business volume after raising prices. Take this as a lesson that, counterintuitive as it may seem, lower prices are not always what customers are seeking.

Unless you plan to be a cost leader (basing your business on offering the deepest discounts and the lowest prices), quality and customer service are most likely where you want to position your brand. Besides, it is a rare small business or new entrepreneurial venture that is either able to or would be smart to compete on cost.

Like with almost every concept in this book, there are no hard and fast rules regarding positioning your brand. But there are guidelines that you should consider. Determining whether you will position your brand to compete in the quality or cost realm is only the start, and it’s likely an easy decision. There is much more to positioning a brand. As On the Mark marketing consultants explain it, product positioning is about three things: differentiating yourself from the competition; addressing the needs of your customer, client, or audience; and articulating (showing) how you are uniquely able to meet those needs.³

On the Mark suggests that those looking to determine or refine the positioning of their brand consider the following: positioning yourself against or away from a competitor (thereby differentiating yourself), any specific benefits you offer to the potential client or customer, what is unique about your brand or business, how (if at all) your brand crosses product lines (i.e., marketing for creatives), any specific uses or conditions in which your product or service would be particularly relevant, and any differentiating aspects of your target audience or community.

You may have noticed a common theme emerge here: Your brand is unlike any other brand, provides value no other brand does, and serves a dedicated, highly specialized client. This means, as we discuss elsewhere in this book, that delivering a high-quality product or service itself is not enough in a crowded consumer marketplace. The key to success as an entrepreneur is to deliver high quality differently in some way, to find your specific niche. Especially these days, when most people claim to suffer from information overload, the more you can do to quickly communicate the unique advantages of your product or service, the more likely you will be to stand out and succeed.

Be a Generalist and a Specialist

One of the most challenging quandaries creative professionals face today is balancing generalization with specialization. Being a generalist or a specialist today is not enough. Successful creatives are both.

Thanks to the Internet, there are now so many others available who have all the important qualifications for a job in any field that no one can afford to come up short in any relevant area. Rather, creatives need a number of basic skills and at least a working knowledge of everything. They also need a well-developed specialty that sets them apart from all the others. Quite simply, they need to be the whole package. This wasn’t necessary in days when labor markets were more localized.

Recent developments in the field of journalism have made this abundantly clear. In rare instances these days are entry-level journalists hired to simply write. It is widely expected that any freshly minted journalist also has basic Web-building skills, the ability to create competent short videos, social media savvy, and some editing experience. On top of that, they are also expected to bring something special to the table. Otherwise, how could they distinguish themselves from the dozens (or hundreds, or even thousands) of other candidates out there with similar foundational skills?

Figure 4.5 Creatives need to do a bit of everything—and also specialize.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#422883451

Distinguishing factors are likely skills, but they can also be backgrounds or experiences. Perhaps a writer can distinguish herself because she holds an advanced degree in astrophysics, or because she is recovering from a drug addiction or was once homeless, or because she speaks three languages. These specializations can give people a unique perspective or special access to communities their peers may never get.

But how do you know what you need to know in a particular field? There is no exact answer because the tools change continuously, and not all employers or clients have the same demands. That said, there are a few essentials.

All entrepreneurial creatives should have basic facility with the following skill sets:

• Professional writing and editing
• Basics of photography and photo editing
• Graphic design
• Web development skills
• Video and audio recording and editing

Of course they now also need basic entrepreneurial skills, and skills that aren’t directly related to their work. These include:

• Marketing and promotion, including advertising fundamentals
• Budgeting and accounting
• Navigating tax law
• Personal finance

Now comes the specialty or background that sets someone apart from potentially thousands of other job applicants or bidders for a job. Yes, this is something that is needed in addition to all of the above skills, talents, and abilities.

If this seems like a tall order—particularly for one just entering the employment marketplace—it is. Just because the old gatekeepers are gone, and all of us can now publish to a worldwide forum for free does not mean that a creative, journalism, or media job these days is any easier than it once was. In fact, in many ways it is probably more difficult. However, it is now much easier to break into fields that once required the help of an employer or corporate sponsor.

You may be starting to wonder what all of this has to do with branding. In truth, your unique skill set, specialty or background is your brand. It’s what sets you apart and makes you special. Branding is all about differentiation, so it is the differences, not the similarities, that should serve as the basis of your brand.

If you do not yet know what sets you apart or makes you special, you may struggle to build a solid, distinct brand. You need to know what you are promoting before you promote it. Let’s say you have all the required skill sets for your field, but you are not quite sure what sets you apart. Sure, you may have many potential characteristics that could qualify as a differentiator, but how do you know which one will work best? This will require some research and reflection.

The following exercise will help you explore possible branding differentiators. Of course, if you have not yet mastered one or more of the required skill sets above, you will want to work on building up those basic skills before moving on to your specialization.

To explore potential avenues for personal branding, answer the questions in the following table. Then follow the steps listed below.

1. For each of the items you identified in the table above, consider which might be interesting to a potential employer or client. Ask your friends, teachers or others with knowledge of current marketplace conditions and demands to help you rank each specialized skill, talent, ability, or background in order or importance or significance. Try to come up with a list of three to five items.
2. For each item (or branding position), identify 5 to 10 keywords that one may search for when identifying possible job candidates or researching your field.
3. Enter the keywords for each item you identified above into a search engine such as Google, one at a time. Note how many results each search yields, how closely they match this potential personal specialization, and how many of the results would qualify as direct competition if you were competing from this brand position.
4. Note those results that are similar to your own potential branding message.
5. Follow numbers 3 and 4, above, for each additional potential branding position.
6. Compare the results for each, determining which positions may be saturated (where the needs you would fulfill are already more than sufficiently served by other people or companies) and which may indicate an unmet need or demand that you could fill.

You should now have a good start on developing a unique branding position—something that could make you particularly valuable to potential employers, customers, and clients. If, even after this exercise, your unique branding position is not obvious to you or if you have too many potential unique branding positions (this is a good problem to have), ask friends and family members to help identify your unique characteristics, and to help you pick the best one. Often we do not have enough perspective on ourselves to be able to clearly discern our strengths and weaknesses, or our competitive advantages.

Consider Your Resume, CV, or Portfolio a Work in Progress

Regardless of what you do across social media to build and reinforce your brand, keep in mind you still also need a static page or site to house your digital resume or CV, and provide links and contact information. You may also want to use this space to house samples of your work, client testimonials, informational downloads, or your blog. The point is to clearly spell out what you do, and make it easy for potential clients, customers, and employers to find you.

Although there are a number of sites and platforms now available for creating and sharing employment information and enabling connections (LinkedIn is the best known), you just can’t beat having complete control of your own site. Particularly if you are an artist, photographer, designer, or if you do other work in a visual field, a busy, business-oriented platform like LinkedIn may undermine your brand identity. A visual person needs a visual site.

Figure 4.6 Creatives need to represent themselves well online.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#411934717

Regardless of what tool you use to build your online resume, there are a few basic items you want to make sure to include. In addition to resume basics such as contact information, education, and job history, you may also want to include a simple head-and-shoulders photo. It doesn’t need to be a professional studio shot, but it should reinforce your brand. For instance, if you are a nature photographer, your photo might show you in the woods or holding a camera. Also plan to include a short personal video in which you introduce yourself to potential employers or clients. This will help build trust with those who need reassurance that you are who you say you are, and that you will make good on your promises.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you create your online resume or home page:

• Reinforce your brand. Your online resume, CV, or portfolio should not just be aligned with your brand. It should also reinforce your brand. Include a brief bio, video, and images that play up what makes you different or special.
• Sell your skills. Although your primary motivation may be to find work, focus on what you can do for others.
• Link like crazy. Link to your professional websites, social media accounts, and professional organizations (that align with your brand) with which you are affiliated. Link to your personal (but professional) blog if you have one. If you don’t, consider starting one. A blog on your professional website or portfolio doesn’t carry the same expectations as a stand-alone blog. You don’t need to post every day to a blog you use to supplement your professional site. After all, the purpose of this kind of blog is specifically to establish your credibility and help you get work. Chances are low that general readers will want to check in each day to read the latest posts on your career site (unless you are a career counselor). That said, if you create content that may help inform others and you make it searchable through thoughtfully selected keywords or tags, people who are searching for information may wind up on your site. If they like what they read, they may even hire you.
• Solicit and share testimonials. Ask for former and current bosses and supervisors to write short testimonials about your work. Ask if you can feature the testimonials on your website.
• Share samples of work, including presentations and papers. Highlight content that may be relevant or of interest to your readers. Include downloadable resources. Providing a short list of useful information, or worksheets to help readers solve problems is your best opportunity to make a lasting impression.

Once you have created your brand and an online landing page to show it off, remember to revisit both from time to time to ensure they stay current. Employment conditions and technology are in constant flux. A line or term in a CV can quickly look outdated. While changing careers is now common, it is particularly so in the creative fields, where job descriptions can be vague, overlap or change entirely. As a creative, you will likely find opportunities you hadn’t considered before if you are open to considering new ways of applying your skills. The uncertainty and flexibility of today’s global job market is a good reminder of the need to not only keep your job skills current (and updated on your resume, bio, and online profiles) but to also maintain your contacts, create a strong professional brand, and keep your eyes open.

One tip for every professional looking for new opportunities and planning for the future is to keep a key eye on job openings and larger marketplace trends. Follow the news, and consider its implications for you and your field. (How will a change in Instagram’s algorithms effect your social media strategy? The aging boomer population has brought surging demand for technical writers in the medical field.) Also make a habit of reading job postings—even if you are not actively looking for work. Paying close attention to the kinds of jobs that are being offered and the requirements for each will provide clear insights into the real labor market while helping you prepare for your own future. For example, if you see an increasing number of job postings in your field that list among their requirements a library science degree or grant writing experience, you may want to consider going back to school or taking a grant writing workshop.

As you continuously prepare for the labor market of tomorrow, resist the temptation to be all things to all people. Among the insights you glean from job postings, consider which ones are a good fit for your particular strengths, interests, and skill sets, and above all, which ones align with your brand.

Make It Mobile

Don’t forget to think beyond the website—particularly if your key audience is young or in the developing world, where more people connect via mobile devices than desktop—or even laptop—computers. According to Deloitte Global, as of Spring 2016, 85 percent of younger millennials in 13 developed countries had access to a desktop or laptop computer, while 89 percent had access to a smart-phone.⁴ In the developing world, smartphone use, which once lagged far behind use in the developed world, is now nearly as widespread, according to Pew Research.⁵ And everywhere, mobile devices are dominating—particularly for eCommerce and social media. In the United States, consumption of digital media on mobile devices eclipsed that on desktop and laptop computers all the way back in 2014, according to a comScore report that opened with the compelling line, “The days of desktop dominance are over.”⁶

As smartphone use has become more widespread, people have grown more comfortable with using their phones and mobile devices for tasks they may not have imagined using them for previously, including making purchases and, most significantly, using social media. This simple fact should significantly inform your approach to personal branding. It will no doubt complicate your branding strategy, but it will also help focus your efforts and yield better results.

Figure 4.7 Millennials use smartphones more than they use computers.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#431964640

How much you need to vary your branding campaign on various platforms will depend on the diversity of your target audience, market, or client base. The narrower and more specific your ideal client or target market, the easier it will be for you to maintain consistent brand messaging. And when it comes to branding, consistency is key.

Practice Your Pitch

Elevator pitches are called what they are for a reason. They force you to focus your personal pitch to the mere 30 seconds or so a typical elevator ride takes. The term is old, but the concept remains relevant. Whether you are ever actually asked to make a 30-second pitch, being able to clearly and succinctly present yourself, your brand, and what you can do for your audience, followers, or community is a highly useful skill. It will become even more useful in the future, as people face ever more distractions and demands for their time. Honing your elevator pitch, even without the opportunity to deliver it, is great practice. If you cannot quickly summarize your brand and what it delivers, you need to dedicate more thought to exactly what your competitive advantage may be.

As you consider your elevator pitch, keep in mind two basic questions:

• Who is the audience, and what are their needs?
• Why am I uniquely qualified to satisfy those needs?

Practicing elevator pitches (even reciting and wordsmithing them in your head when you get a free moment) will ensure that when the time comes, your delivery will be smooth and confident. Hurrying through the pitch or merely reciting memorized lines will make the listener uncomfortable, as if they are fielding a sales pitch. Even if you are selling something (and you are—yourself) and you think you can offer something the listener needs, no one wants to hear a hard sell. The aim of an elevator pitch is to pique the listener’s interest enough to want to hear more.

Figure 4.8 Elevator pitches aren’t just for elevators.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#357640448

What to pitch is up to you. It depends on what you can offer. In business, elevator pitches are often about specific ideas such as requests for startup investment. Your pitch will likely be a bit more nuanced, but keep it as simple as possible. Limit the purpose of your pitch to explaining what you can do for the listener, and why you’re the person to do it. Also make it memorable. Leave the listener with a distinct impression—ideally, that you are exactly the person to solve their problem. Have business cards on hand so they can easily follow up if they want to.

Decide What You Will—and Won’t—Do

Although you may be hesitant to turn down work, especially in the early days of establishing your business, keep in mind that the kind of work you do—and the clients you take on—helps define your brand. In other words, your work represents you. As a rule, don’t take on clients or jobs that could undermine, interfere with, or diminish your brand. Even if you believe you are not in a position to say no, consider that even one bad client or job could make it more difficult to get the kind of work you want later.

When considering whether to accept a client or a job, ask yourself whether you would be proud to display the product on your website or share the association through social media. Also ask yourself whether it is consistent with the other clients, jobs, products, or images that you have chosen to represent your brand. Keep in mind that you do not have to have a strong objection to a particular client, company, or job to respectfully decline an opportunity to represent it.

You may, for instance, opt not to take on a graphic design job for a gun shop. You may not take a personal, political, or moral position on guns. Perhaps you decline the opportunity because it conflicts with your brand or could create brand confusion for your target audience. Maybe you specialize in wedding invitations or your signature style tends heavily toward pastels and elaborate script. If this is the look of your brand (as well as your website and social media accounts), a dark design for a gun shop, featuring heavy black and gray text and straight lines, will clash with your established brand in a way that could damage your business. This is common sense.

Grow and Protect Your Reputation

Your success as an independent contractor, journalist, or creative entrepreneur depends on building and growing a positive reputation. Whether you are a journalist, artist, photographer, social media manager or any other kind of creative, the only way to establish yourself and your brand is to get your work—your name, your brand—out there. That means you need to not only develop a coherent brand identity, but you also need to create content that influencers and others will see, consume, and—you hope—help spread.

Put yourself everywhere it makes sense for your brand to be online—definitely on social media, but also on the Web. Write and produce content regularly, and share it liberally. Keep it simple, consistent, and recognizable. Develop a look, a style, or a signature that is exclusively yours. Protect and monitor your brand at all times. Perhaps most important, keep your personal and professional online lives separate—except when details of your personal life can reinforce your brand. For example, if your business is social media management for a charity that supports breast cancer research, posting photos of yourself running a half-marathon to raise money for cancer research makes perfect sense. Posting photos of your dog does not.

You don’t need to delete your personal online accounts, although you may want to edit them, deleting any content (not just photographs, but posts too) that does not align with your brand. As a rule, you should not post anything online anywhere that you would not like a potential employer to see, even on accounts on which you have restricted your privacy settings. Remember that privacy settings change frequently, and often without notice. You may learn too late that a compromising photo or post (even on someone’s else’s account) has compromised your brand. When in doubt about what information about or photos of you may be available online, google yourself. Do this once a month or so. You may be surprised at what you find. Just make sure you find it before potential clients, customers, or employers do.

Figure 4.9 Don’t be surprised by what you find when googling yourself.

Credit: Shutterstock ID#357697235