PART 2 OF BRANDING VS. ADVERTISING

I mentioned in my last blog that in future blogs that I was going to share stories of people and organizations who are good at brand building (vs. one-off advertising) so that we can learn from their actions.

I just interviewed popular musical comic Jimmy Flynn a few weeks back and the full interview will be in the upcoming edition of Island Business News (which is about to go to print) but in the meantime, the following is an exclusive question / answer excerpt from the interview that demonstrates what I said last time about the importance of maintaining consistency while brand building vs. taking one-off advertisements and shifting gears if they don’t pay for themselves right away.

Island Business News: Can you tell us about the Jimmy Flynn Brand? How important is it?

Jimmy Flynn: Branding is crucial. And so is consistency with the brand. When people come to a Jimmy Flynn show they expect to see Jimmy Flynn. And we’ve made sure to continue to make products that enhance the brand. Over the years, we’ve done CD’s, DVDs, Ball Hats, Rubber Chicks, Jimmy Flynn Hats, Bubbleheads, Jimmy Flynn Dolls, and on and on. Anything you can put a name on, we’ve probably tried it. Because Audience members want a take home to share with their friends, and they want something new each time.

Much the same way you are trying to build a brand with your small business and/or your career, Jimmy Flynn is a brand much the same.

I mentioned in my last blog that taken one advertisement in any medium and switching gears if you don’t see an immediate return in business is a challenging way to judge whether or not the medium is working for you and your business because you may be building the brand for later sales (and more at that) despite not receiving an immediate sale from the advertisement or initiative. If you give up after one advertisement or one article your message may not have even broken through yet – consider the amount of advertisements we are bombarded with each day and as a result how difficult it is to break through with just one impression.

In the example above regarding Jimmy Flynn’s effort toward consistent brand building, what would have happened if Jimmy would have made one product and if it didn’t sell gave up on it because he didn’t get an immediate return?

Do you think the Jimmy Flynn brand would be as big as it is today?

Perhaps not.

In fact, as Speakers we write articles for publications all of the time in hopes that it will keep reminding readers that we have information that is important to their staff and/or company (to partly justify why they may bring us in to present to staff) and we know that just writing one article will do little for our brand in the long run and so we continue to write article after article despite the fact that we won’t always get a call the day after the article hits the stands.

The key is to be the company or person your customer thinks of when they finally have a need and it’s tough to do that with the one impression I mentioned above.

So here is the point of this blog – whether you’re a small or large business, whether you’re an individual, a salesperson, a speaker, a coach, an author, an office manager, or so on, if you want to build a successful brand, consistency (which your message and your medium for sharing it) in my experience has proven time and time again to be more effective than the medium in and of itself.

Obviously, this assumes that you have chosen a medium that reaches your customers or potential customers effectively.

Tune in next time when we continue this discussion.

CP for IBN