Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Released December 2014
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118958087

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Book description

Discover how brands are created, managed, differentiated, leveraged, and licensed

Whether your business is large or small, global or local, this new edition of Branding For Dummies gives you the nuts and bolts to create, improve, and maintain a successful brand. It'll help you define your company's mission, the benefits and features of your products or services, what your customers and prospects already think of your brand, what qualities you want them to associate with your company, and so much more.

Packed with plain-English advice and step-by-step instructions, Branding For Dummies covers assembling a top-notch branding team, positioning your brand, handling advertising and promotions, avoiding blunders, and keeping your brand viable, visible, and healthy. Whether you're looking to develop a logo and tagline, manage and protect your brand, launch a brand marketing plan, fix a broken brand, make customers loyal brand champions—or anything in between—Branding For Dummies makes it fast and easy.

  • Includes tips and cautionary advice on social media and its impact on personal and business branding programs

  • Covers balancing personal and business brand development

  • References some of the major brand crises—and how to avoid making the same mistakes

  • Shows brand marketers how to create brands that match their employers' objectives while launching their own careers

    • If you're a business leader looking to set your brand up for the ultimate success, Branding For Dummies has you covered.

    Table of contents

      1. Introduction
        1. About This Book
        2. Foolish Assumptions
        3. Icons Used in This Book
        4. Beyond the Book
        5. Where to Go from Here
      2. Part I: Getting Started with Branding
        1. Chapter 1: Putting Brands and Branding in Perspective
          1. Wake-Up Call: You Probably Have a Brand, Whether You Know It or Not
          2. What Are Brands, Anyway?
            1. What brands do
            2. Why brands are a big deal
          3. Gaining Your Branding Bearings
            1. Deciphering branding lingo
            2. Branding’s essential ingredient
            3. Branding’s altered environment
            4. The never-ending branding process
            5. Assembling your branding team
            6. Gulp! How much does it cost?
          4. Pop Quiz: Are You Ready to Brand?
        2. Chapter 2: Why, What, How, and When to Brand
          1. Why Bother with Branding?
            1. Branding to avoid the budget-busting commodity trap
            2. Branding to cast your vision
            3. Branding to win trust and increased value
          2. So, What Do You Want to Brand?
            1. Product brands
            2. Service brands
            3. Business or corporate brands
            4. Branding individuals (namely, yourself)
          3. Branding: A Bird’s-Eye View
            1. The path from brand essence to esteem
            2. The branding process at a glance
          4. Brand Architecture 101
            1. Master brand/parent-driven architecture: A branded house
            2. Multiple brand/product-driven architecture: A house of brands
          5. When to Rev Up Your Branding Efforts
            1. Launching a business
            2. Introducing a product
            3. Turning your gig, consulting, or freelancing into a business
            4. Announcing or fundraising for a nonprofit
            5. Taking a business public
            6. Opening markets or going global
            7. Raising capital
            8. Merging with another business
        3. Chapter 3: Gearing Up to Brand or Build a Better Brand
          1. You Are Here: Marking Your Brand-Development Starting Point
            1. Getting real about your brand identity
            2. Knowing and protecting brand assets
            3. In your dreams! Defining what you want out of branding
          2. Prioritizing Your Branding Goals
            1. Build awareness
            2. Create an emotional connection
            3. Differentiate your product
            4. Create credibility and trust
            5. Achieve preference and motivate selection
          3. Crunching Numbers: Budgeting Realities
          4. Committing to the Branding Process
            1. Aligning your mission, vision, and brand identity
            2. Including branding in your business plan
          5. Who’s on First? Suiting Up Your Branding Team
        4. Chapter 4: Powering Up Your Personal and One-Person Business Brands
          1. Taking Ownership of Your Personal Brand
            1. Benefits of a strong personal brand
            2. Launching the personal-branding process
            3. Growing into a personality brand
          2. Branding Your Freelance or Consulting Services
            1. Benefits of a one-person business brand
            2. One-person brand-building steps to follow
          3. Balancing Personal and Business Brands
            1. Keeping your personal and business brands in balance
            2. Keeping your personal and business brands in check
            3. Cross-promoting your two brands
      3. Part II: Building a Brand, Step by Step
        1. Chapter 5: Profiling and Positioning Your Brand
          1. The Marketing Muscle of Positioning
            1. Successful positioning approaches
            2. Major positioning strategies
            3. Positioning around marketplace opportunities
          2. Finding Your Position: The Birthplace of Your Brand
            1. Zeroing in on the strengths of your brand
            2. Defining your point of difference
            3. Dealing with brand misperceptions
            4. Mapping your brand’s position
          3. Aligning Your Brand’s Position with Customer Wants, Needs, and Desires
            1. What do your customers care about?
            2. What sets your ideal customers apart?
            3. Why do customers buy from you?
          4. Digging Up the Info You Need
            1. Putting your brand through a self-exam
            2. Tuning in to customer insights
            3. Conducting customer research
            4. Knowing when to get research help
            5. Where else to turn for facts and figures
          5. Putting Research in Perspective
          6. Defining and Testing Your Position
        2. Chapter 6: Putting Your Brand into Words
          1. Building Your Brand on the Strong Back of Your Business Mission and Vision
            1. Focusing your vision
            2. Defining your mission
          2. Describing Your Brand and Its Style
          3. Polishing Your Business Promise
          4. Considering the Character of Your Brand
          5. Mission Possible: Defining Your Brand
            1. What to incorporate
            2. The anatomy of a brand statement
            3. Grading your statement
            4. Putting your brand statement to the test
        3. Chapter 7: Naming Your Brand
          1. What’s in a Name?
            1. What the right name does
            2. When naming happens
            3. Types of names
            4. Fitting your name to your brand architecture
            5. Naming advice to follow
          2. Picking (or Inventing) Your Brand Name
            1. Rounding up good ideas
            2. The hard part: Narrowing your list to the best options
            3. Putting your top contenders through a preliminary test
            4. Building consensus around your top-choice name
            5. Checking for domain name availability
          3. Catch It If You Can: Claiming Your Name
            1. Conducting a name-availability search
            2. Treading the trademark ropes
          4. Changing Your Name, If You Must
        4. Chapter 8: Designing Your Logo and Tagline
          1. Planning Your Logo: The Face of Your Brand
            1. What your logo is and isn’t
            2. Matching your logo to your brand image
            3. Choosing your logo approach
          2. Logo Design Resources
          3. Developing Your Logo Design
            1. Design ingredients
            2. Preparing your logo artwork
          4. Putting Your Logo to Work
          5. Saving Face: Giving an Existing Logo a Makeover
            1. Making evolutionary logo changes
            2. Making revolutionary logo changes
          6. Managing Your Logo
            1. Creating standards and usage rules
            2. Naming a brand cop
          7. Creating a Tagline
            1. Discovering what makes a great tagline
            2. Deciding whether you need a tagline
            3. Tag(line), you’re it! Coming up with your slogan
      4. Part III: Winning Brand Fans and Followers
        1. Chapter 9: Countdown to Takeoff: Launching or Relaunching Your Brand
          1. Carpe Diem! Seizing the Opportunity to Put Your New Brand in the Limelight
          2. Preparing for Your Brand Launch
            1. Knowing your story, chapter and verse
            2. Putting your brand launch into context
            3. Producing introductory brand prototypes
            4. Checking your internal readiness
            5. Previewing your brand with priority audiences
          3. Ten, Nine, Eight . . . Writing Your Brand-Launch Marketing Plan
            1. Benchmarking your pre-launch situation
            2. Setting your launch goal and objectives
            3. Defining your target market
            4. Setting your strategies
            5. Selecting your brand-introduction tactics
            6. Brand-introduction budget worksheet
          4. Takeoff! Launching Your Brand
            1. Launching internally
            2. Launching externally
        2. Chapter 10: Branding in the Digital Age
          1. Pulling People to Your Brand Online
            1. The open-and-shut case for building your brand’s online presence
            2. Capitalizing on the difference between push marketing and pull marketing
          2. Ego-Surfing to Benchmark Your Brand’s Online Footprint
          3. Paving the Way for Your Online Presence
            1. Set your online branding objectives
            2. Establish your brand name across your digital channels
            3. Establish your brand’s digital home base
            4. Optimize your site
            5. Self-promote your site
        3. Chapter 11: Engaging Your Brand Audience Online with Social Media
          1. Getting Organized before Getting Social
            1. Define your social-media objectives
            2. Reserve your social-media name
            3. Turn your brand’s elevator pitch into a 160-character social-media introduction
          2. Mapping the Social-Media Landscape
            1. The dominant social networks
            2. Location-based and check-in sites
            3. Review and rating sites
          3. Getting and Staying Active and Engaged
            1. Setting your social-media strategy
            2. Creating and posting content
            3. Making blog posts the backbone of your content strategy
            4. Creating and sharing video
        4. Chapter 12: Advertising, Promoting, and Publicizing Your Brand
          1. The Power of a Strong Brand Image
          2. A Clear Purpose: Don’t Communicate without One!
          3. Creating and Placing Ads
            1. Deciding on your media channels
            2. Print ads
            3. Broadcast ads
            4. Digital ads
            5. Direct mail
            6. Where to turn for creative help
          4. Turning Packaging into a Powerful Brand Touchpoint
          5. Matching Promotions to Your Brand Image
          6. Using Public Relations to Build Your Brand
            1. Covering all the public-relations bases
            2. Leveraging media relations and publicity
      5. Part IV: Caring for Your Brand
        1. Chapter 13: Perfecting Your Brand Experience
          1. Making an Organization-Wide Commitment to Your Brand
            1. Writing your branding playbook
            2. Becoming your brand’s MVP
          2. Suiting Up a Team of Brand Champions
            1. What everyone in your organization needs to know about your brand
            2. Gaining team buy-in
          3. Building Brand Trust at the Point of Sale
            1. Developing and sharing brand testimonials, endorsements, and reviews
            2. Intercepting and overcoming objections
          4. Delivering a Brand-Building Experience
            1. Testing your brand experience
            2. Auditing your brand experience
        2. Chapter 14: Winning Brand Loyalty
          1. Developing Loyalty through Customer Relationships
            1. Why customer relationships matter
            2. Sparking customer relationships
          2. Igniting Customer Passion
          3. Nurturing Brand Loyalists
            1. Increasing accessibility and interaction
            2. Generating buzz that spreads virally
            3. Takeaways from best-of-viral case studies
            4. Loyalty program do’s and don’ts
            5. Recipe for a cult brand
          4. Keeping Your Best Customers
        3. Chapter 15: Valuing and Leveraging Your Brand
          1. The Brand Value–Brand Equity Connection
            1. Revving up the economic engine
            2. Gaining a competitive advantage
          2. Estimating Your Brand’s Equity
            1. Brand equity measuring sticks
            2. Calculating your brand equity
            3. Identifying evaluation experts
          3. Protecting Your Brand Equity
          4. Planning for Product Innovations
          5. Tiptoeing into a Brand Extension
            1. Avoiding line-extension traps
            2. Looking before leaping into brand extensions
          6. Cobranding Cautions
          7. Brand Licensing
            1. Understanding licensing lingo
            2. Benefits of licensing
            3. Licensing steps to follow
        4. Chapter 16: Revitalizing Your Brand with a Full or Partial Makeover
          1. Brands Grow Old, Too
            1. Spotting brand aging signs
            2. Brand change-of-life warning signals
          2. Examining Your Brand’s Health
            1. Conducting a brand review
            2. Making the diagnosis: Retool or retire?
          3. Fixing a Broken Brand
            1. Protecting your valuables
            2. Making the change
      6. Part V: Protecting Your Brand
        1. Chapter 17: Defending Your Brand Legally and through Careful Usage
          1. Immunizing Your Brand with Government Filings and Trademarks
            1. Registering your name with local government offices
            2. Obtaining a trademark
            3. Maintaining your trademark registration
          2. Shielding Your Brand from Misuse
            1. Laying down the law with brand-usage guidelines
            2. Enforcing brand-usage rules
            3. Naming and empowering a brand cop
        2. Chapter 18: Taking Action When Bad Things Happen to Good Brands
          1. Caution Ahead: Avoiding Brand-Equity Landmines
            1. Identifying potential threats
            2. Taking preemptive strikes against brand threats
          2. Be Prepared: Planning to Dodge Brand Threats and Missteps
            1. Compiling a list of who’s who
            2. Knowing who to call
            3. Working out what to do and say
            4. Acting with speed, calm, consistency, and unwavering customer focus
            5. Following crisis communications do’s and don’ts
          3. Picking Up the Pieces Post-Crisis
            1. Following up on promises made
            2. Rebuilding trust
      7. Part VI: The Part of Tens
        1. Chapter 19: Ten Signs that Your Personal Brand Needs Attention
          1. You’re Not Making Your Personal Goals
          2. You Think Personal Branding Sounds Self-Absorbed
          3. You Can’t Say What You’re Best At
          4. Search Results for Your Name Are Few and Far Between
          5. Links to Your Name Are Dated, or Worse
          6. You Freeze Up When It’s Time to Introduce Yourself
          7. Your Connection Invitations Get Ignored
          8. You Aren’t Sure Which to Promote: Your Personal or Your Business Brand
          9. You Need but Don’t Know How to Ask for Referrals and Recommendations
          10. You Want More Awareness, Credibility, and Recognition in Your Field
        2. Chapter 20: Ten Branding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
          1. Thinking of Branding as a Quick Fix
          2. Starting with a Weak Brand Identity
          3. Forgetting the Branding Rule of One
          4. Failing to Differentiate
          5. Failing to Launch Your Brand with Fanfare
          6. Failing to Protect and Defend
          7. Believing that What You Say Is More Important Than What You Do
          8. Losing Brand Consistency
          9. Asking Your Brand to Stretch Too Far
          10. Ignoring Brand Aging Signs
        3. Chapter 21: Ten Branding Truths to Remember
          1. Branding Starts with Positioning
          2. A Brand Is a Promise Well Kept
          3. Branding Happens from the Inside Out
          4. Consistency Builds Brands
          5. People Power Brands
          6. Brands Live in Consumers’ Minds
          7. Brand Names and Logos Are Like Keys that Unlock Brand Images
          8. Brand Experiences Trump Brand Messages
          9. Brands Need to Start and Stay Relevant
          10. Brands Are Valuable Assets
      8. About the Authors
      9. Cheat Sheet
      10. More Dummies Products

    Product information

    • Title: Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: December 2014
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118958087