23

Your Brand's Home Base

HANDS DOWN, one of my favorite branding tools is a blog. It's your home online and is a phenomenal tool for establishing authority positioning in your niche. I believe a blog is essential for personal brands. Corporate brands may not find a blog is the best tool, but you still need a home online.

Your blog is your best tool to communicate the essence of your brand.

A blog is the best platform to use for your content. You can write posts, videos, audios, and basically any type of content. A blog sets up your authority and helps people know exactly what you do and how it helps them.

In general, people are more trusting of a blog than a traditional website. Your blog allows you to not only display your content and knowledge but also your personality. The typical blog post is simply good content. No sales pitch or special offers. This is why blogs are nonthreatening to people. They can get the information they need without hassle.

When you try to make a sale, people become defensive and their guard goes up. You can use your blog to sell without really selling. Let me explain.

Prospects are far less likely to buy from you when they have no trust in you. If you lack authority and credibility in their eyes, you have little influence over their buying decisions. Using your blog to showcase your content to establish that credibility and authority is critical. Your blog is a bridge to sales.

If you send out an e-mail to your audience letting them know you've just ...

Get Brand Against the Machine: How to Build Your Brand, Cut Through the Marketing Noise, and Stand Out from the Competition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.