4 easy steps to effectively brand your business.

By Larry Nardi President/CEO of King's Embroidery

The essential idea behind branding is that the sum is always greater than the parts. Here are 4 tips for creating and promoting your own unique and effective brand:

#1 Find, Define, and Refine Your Identity
Just as you combine your use of language, your wardrobe, your hairstyle, and your handshake to make a great single overall impression upon others, your brand should work the same way to present the personality of your organization. Decide what you stand for, how you want to be seen by others, and what message to project through your brand. Then design it accordingly to connect right on target with your clients.

#2 Prior Planning Prevents Problems
When a chef plans a dinner, the appetizers need to pair nicely with the entree and the dessert has to work well with the beverages. Not only are the flavors important, but so are the colors and textures of the foods. Similarly, by understanding the overall goals and objectives of a branding strategy before starting a campaign, you can tie everything together into one complimentary effort. Otherwise you may wind up revamping your recipe - and wasting precious and costly ingredients - because you didn't first have a clearly digested plan for the entire branding menu.

#3 Generate a Connection with Your Clients and Customers
The ultimate goal of your brand is to connect with customers, so remember to include their viewpoint in your decision-making processes. The brand is like a cultural icon and symbol - it may incorporate art, music, words, fashion, and society - and yours needs to reflect the values and attitudes of your client base.

#4 Be Consistent
Marketing and advertising need to combine for the desired overall outcome to contribute to the brand, the way individual team players all pitch it and do their part for the team. In other words, be creatively and intentionally coordinated with a single focus - rather than using isolated tactics or messages that don't have a synergistic and progressively interwoven relationship to one other. Keep in mind that branding is a long-term process of identifying yourself as you communicate with your customers. Corporate clothing - tastefully designed and carefully tailored with attention to detail - makes a wonderful branding tool because it incorporates all of the essential elements of success into one potent element. Your style, your organizational colors and logo, and the personality of your message are all conveyed through a consistently uniform medium that speaks volumes while it quietly, subtly, and fashionably mingles within the daily culture of your clients.