The DNA of Branding - It Isn't Just a Theory

Have you ever heard of a man by the name of E. Haldeman Julius?

Let me share a story with you…

Haldeman-Julius built a mail-order publishing empire back in the 1920s. He created a company called “Little Blue Books,” and he built a solid reputation for selling high-quality information inside these little 3.5 by 5-inch pocket books with the blue covers. 

In fact, Haldeman-Julius sold over 100 million books by branding them as “University in Print.” This brilliant bit of branding resulted in these little books finding their way into the pockets of everyone from college scholars to farmers.

You can figure that Haldeman-Julius built up his Little Blue Books brand in order to easily get both first-time orders and repeat orders. People saw his advertisements in newspapers and knew they could trust the brand. In just nine short years, the Little Blue Books brand was known around the world for producing great pocket-guides at low prices.

But beyond that, Haldeman-Julius proved to the world that product names matter. That’s because he sold his books just based on the titles of these books. There wasn’t room in his ads for descriptions, so the titles alone had to sell the books. No fancy sales copy, no long sales letter, no benefit-driven ads… just book titles.

It worked like this…

If a book wasn’t selling at least 10,000 copies per year, Haldeman-Julius changed the title.  For example, the book “The Art of Controversy” posted dismal sales figures. But once Haldeman-Julius changed the title to “How to Argue Logically,” this same book sold at a fast clip, exceeding 30,000 copies.

Now, you may not be selling books, but the point here is still the same – branding, product names, slogans and product positioning matter.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling reports, books, software, bird feeders, mouse traps, golf clubs, tuxedos, consulting services, snow-removal services, fishing poles, zombie survival gear, recreational vehicles, tattoos or anything else under the sun…

Branding matters. Slogans matter. Product titles matter.

However, branding may not necessarily be what you think it is. And that’s what we’ll be covering in this report.

The Law of Branding: GB = BG

Here’s the law of branding: GB = BG.

What does it stand for?

Simple: Good Branding Equals Business Growth.

By this point, you should be getting the idea of just how important branding is. It’s a way to set yourself apart from the competition and garner customer loyalty.

It’s not just something that big companies do. It’s something that you should do, too.  And that’s because branding is a long-term mindset, one which will contribute greatly to your overall business growth.

Most business owners are focused on selling. But this is a short-term mindset. Because if the consumer doesn’t buy right away, they’re going to forget about the business and the products. And that means that if you’re focused on short-term selling, then you’re going to be struggling with commodity-based sales.

If we had to sum up the difference, it’s this…

Short-term selling is all about making the sale right now.

Branding is all about creating customer loyalty for the long term.

A good business owner uses both short-term selling and branding. But a great business owner understands that branding is going to make the biggest impact on sales over the long term.

Let me give you an example…

Let’s suppose you were interested in purchasing a watch. And let’s imagine I pulled out a watch brand called Buzzinga. You’d never heard of this brand before. The watch looked nice enough. Seemed like it kept time.

So, you asked the price.

I tell you it costs $15,000.

What would you do?

You’d probably laugh in my face. Because unless this watch included a free car or the Hope Diamond, it would be really hard for me to sell you on the idea of buying a $15,000 Buzzinga watch. 

But what if this watch was a Rolex?

Whether you’d personally buy a $15,000 or $20,000 watch is beside the point. That’s because Rolex has plenty of customers lining up around the block to buy watches for thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. That’s real-world proof that people will buy expensive watches.

Is it because a Rolex watch keeps extraordinary time?

No. I’m betting you can easily find a $20 watch that keeps great time.

Is it because a Rolex watch is made from gold and other precious metals and gems?

Not entirely. Because you can certainly find other watches made from the same materials which don’t cost as much as a Rolex.

So, why is it that people will spend thousands of dollars on a Rolex watch, when they could get similar watches for less money?

Simple… it’s because of the Rolex brand.

People will gladly spend thousands of dollars just to get the feeling that the brand promises.  In Rolex’s case, the feelings center around power, wealth and sophistication. In one word, it conveys a feeling of prestige.

And that brings us to one of the most important things you need to know about branding…

Branding is about emotion.

When some people think of branding, they think of a slogan and a logo. These are parts of branding, yes. But the slogan, logo, colors and everything else that goes into the brand are all designed to convey some sort of feeling.  The whole point of the brand is to produce the feeling that you want customers to experience when they use or even merely think about your product.

Why does a brand seek to produce a feeling?

Simple: because consumers make their purchase decisions based on emotion, and then justify those purchase decisions based on logic. So, in order to move your prospects to the order form, they need to feel something. You need to be tapping their emotional buttons.

Direct-response sales letters seek to do this. That’s why these sales letters often have heartstring-tugging stories in them as a means of connecting emotionally with the reader.

But here’s something else…

The emotion created by direct-response sales materials starts fading as soon as the prospects stops reading the sales materials. That’s why direct-response sales letters work so hard to get the sale NOW… because if they don’t, emotion fades and the consumer lose his enthusiasm for purchasing the product or service.

Now contrast that to branding…

If you build up brand recognition, then you automatically associate a certain feeling with your brand. And that means that you don’t need to stand there and “sell” a product to your consumers. You don’t need to artificially create the feeling every time a consumer comes in contact with you. If you’ve done your job, your consumer will see your brand and associate it with the emotion.

Let me give you a few examples…

·         Pampers is a well-known brand of diapers in the US. If you go to Pampers.com, see their ads on TV or even see their ads in magazines, it’s clear that their brand is based on conveying a feeling of love. There are loving images of mothers and babies, soft colors, and even hearts on the site.

·         Ferrari is known the world-over for their exclusive high-performance cars. And indeed, the Ferrari brand conveys power, performance and prestige. This branding has not only allowed Ferrari to sell some of the most expensive sports cars in the world, it has also given the company an opportunity to expand their profits through licensing and retail opportunities, such as with their association with Formula 1 Racing.

Whether you’re looking at the Ferrari.com website or even looking at a Ferrari, you’ll see the branding at work. People don’t buy Ferraris to get them from Point A to Point B. They don’t buy Ferrari merchandise because they look the red, yellow and black colors. Instead, people buy in order to capture the feelings of prestige that go along with the Ferrari brand.

Those are just two examples of two brands that convey a feeling. But if you look around, you’ll find that the biggest brands in the world are all associated with a specific feeling.

The second thing you’ll notice is that while a company may freshen its brand image from time to time, they always avoid doing anything that dilutes or otherwise ruins the reputation of the brand.

For example, Rolex isn’t going to suddenly start selling $50 watches. Ferrari isn’t going to start mass-producing $50,000 Ferraris, as that would damage the feeling of prestige that comes with exclusivity. And Pampers isn’t going to create a website based on a scary black color scheme.

Likewise, once you develop your brand image, you’ll want to do everything you can to protect the image and build the brand. You’ll learn more about that in the upcoming module. But for now, let’s recap – see you in the next section…

Branding as the Nucleus of Your Business…

As you just discovered, developing a brand is about conveying a certain feeling to your prospects and customers. This brand should completely permeate your business.

This includes:

·         Ensuring your brand image is effectively conveyed through your website.

·         Ensuring your brand image is effectively conveyed via your product names and product packaging.

·         Ensuring your brand image is effectively conveyed in your sales materials.

·         Ensuring your brand imagine is effectively conveyed in all content, such as blog articles.

·         Ensuring your brand image is effectively conveyed in all channels, such as social media.

·         Ensuring your brand image is conveyed in all communications, including all customer service inquiries.

·         Ensuring your brand imagine is protected by any decisions you make about how to manage your business.

In short, your brand should permeate your entire business – no part of your business should to untouched. Indeed, your brand image should be the nucleus of your business… the heart of it.