I was on the phone with my good friend Juan. We were talking about establishing an Internet business presence. We had already gone over the topic of having to create your own product in order to have the best chance of making a decent income and I had gotten that much. But then he said to me, “Having a product isn’t enough. You have to brand yourself.” Honestly, at the time, I didn’t know what he was talking about. So I asked him to elaborate.
He explained to me that all the big companies, all the big marketers, have an internet business brand. They’re known as much for what they stand for as for the products or services that they sell. Then he gave me some examples, not so much of online brands but offline brands. I finally got it. And I’m going to share some of what I learned from Juan with you.
Think about just about any company you know from the offline world. Think about the products they sell and then think about how they go about selling them.
Notice anything? No?
Okay, let’s see if I can’t give you a few examples. Let’s take Nike. Now, Nike sells sneakers and other sports related products. But if you look at the Nike ads, especially the ones on TV, they really don’t advertise the product itself. What they advertise is the concept, “Just Do It!” Nike is all about confidence and determination and winning. It’s not so much about the products they sell. This is what branding is all about.
Let’s take an online example. Love him, hate him or whatever, the Rich Jerk is branding taken to a whole new level. When you think of the Rich Jerk, you don’t think about his products. What you think about is the man, who is richer than anybody on the planet, lounging around, doing no work, spouting out his profanity to the world and not caring what anybody thinks about him. You’d have to be living in a cave not to know about the Rich Jerk. He may very well be the most well known brand on the Internet, perhaps of all time.
Is finding a brand for yourself easy? No, it’s not. If it was, everybody would be doing it. But there are some ways to go about the process. The main thing is to take a look at the products that you sell. Take the main points of the products and see if you can’t find some USP (unique selling point) for that product and from that USP, turn it into a brand for yourself.
By looking at what you do, and what’s unique about it, you can come up with a brand for yourself that may very well make you the next household name on the Internet.
