Get To The Grapes

Friday, February 05, 2010

Start with a marketing strategy to ensure branding success

Sacramento Business Journal – by Debi Hammond, Contributing writer, Marketing

“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.”

This quote by David Ogilvy is quite pithy and poignant and perfectly sums up the importance and value of a brand. For those who are not familiar with Ogilvy, he is an advertising industry icon who wrote the book “Ogilvy on Advertising.”

So, why should we care about what some ad executive says about a brand? What is it about a brand that is so important?

Well, first, a brand is a company’s greatest asset. I know what you’re thinking; my assets include equipment, products and intellectual property. To a certain extent that is correct, but your greatest asset is indeed your brand. Just look at The Coca-Cola Co., Microsoft Corp., McDonald’s and The Walt Disney Co. Their brands are valued in the billions. Yet, in some cases, their products or services are basically no different than their competitors’. What did Amazon buy when it bought Zappos.com for $800 million? It was definitely more than the company’s assets. It was the Zappos brand and everything for which that brand stood.

Want to build your brand? First you must start with strategy. Too often companies rely on marketing tactics in an effort to build their brand, but starting with tactics is like taking the “ready, fire, aim” approach. To borrow from Ogilvy, any damn fool can do that. (more…)

The marketing and business landscape is changing, are you? Social Media Revolution

If you attended today’s Entrepreneur’s Edge, NAWBO’s premier educational symposium for Business Owners and potential Business Owners, I hope you enjoyed my presentation on social media.

My breakout session topic was:

* Social Media 101: What is it and What Does it Mean to My Business

-presented by Debi Hammond, Founder/CEO, Merlot Marketing, Inc.

As promised, here is a link to Merlot Marketing’s Delicious page which includes informative articles on social media that will help you gain a better understanding of the tools available, the power of those tools, and the strategic approach you should take in engaging in this medium. There are 32 bookmarks with the NAWBO tag.

Additionally, there is a great series of videos that put social media in Plain English. The videos are incredibly informative and quite entertaining to watch. Click here or visit YouTube and search using the following search term to pull up information on everything social media…  Search Term: common craft

I hope you find this information helpful and I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to present to you!