Life Branding

A good brand can earn you millions of dollars if you know how to use it. These 5 famous brands are the prime example of that. You may not like some of them, but you can’t deny that they are successfull and that you use or used at least one or two of them every day, during work or at home.

1. Google

The number one on this list belongs to Google. If you have a computer and an Internet connection, you probably use their search engine, e-mail service, chat or any other service every day several times. This brand is currently valued at a staggering 86 billion dollars, a great achievement if you consider that it has first appeared on everybody’s computer only ten years ago. Google started very small, as a college project of two students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were at that time Ph. D. students from Stanford University. The Google Inc started on September 7th 1998 in a friend’s garage somewhere in California. After just seven years, on August 19th 2004, Google has become public and is growing every year.

2. General Electronics

This US based giant with headquarters located in Fairfield, Connecticut is holds the second place on this list being valued at something over 71 billion US dollars. Their are mostly engaged in the industries of technology and services. It was started by Thomas Alva Edison in 1892

3. Microsoft

The biggest computer software company in the world is valued at almost 71 billion dollars. Like Google, this company has also had small beginnings, It was started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 after the two of them developed a BASIC interpreter for a MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800 computer. After proving that their interpreter works effectively, MITS started distributing it under the name Altair BASIC. The company Microsoft has officially started on April 4th, 1975.

4. Coca-Cola

The world’s most famous soft drink has a brand value of around 58 billion dollars. It started under the name Pemberton’s French Wine Coca in 1885. The person who first thought of making this drink (and we thank him for it) is John Pemberton, from the Eagle Drug and Chemical Company in Georgia. This drink first started as an alcoholic beverage, but after the 1886 prohibition in Atlanta, Pemberton decided to switch to a non-alcoholic one. An interesting thing is that the original formula contained 5 ounces of coca leaf for every gallon of syrup. Fortunately, this ingredient was removed in 1903.

5. China Mobile

So far all the companies have been from United States, but the last one on this list is located in the world’s most populated country, China. This country houses the largest mobile phone operator in the world with close to 300 million subscribers. The company boasts a huge share of the very competitive Chinese mobile market, 65% as well as a brand value of over 57 billion dollars.

You’ve just started your online business and are now comming to one really important question. How to make your own online brand? Why should you brand in the first place? Simply, because without a brand, you practically don’t exist. It’s really important for your business, product or service that the people are seeing it in a positive way and that they have an image in their head when someone mentiones the name of your company or product or service and this message has to be positive. A brand, therefore, is how your costumers see you.

Having a good online brand is maybe even more important than if you are solely doing business offline. Today, visitors will check your website for just a second or two and will imedieatelly come to a decision whether to stay or not. If they don’t like what they’re seeing, they have the ultimate power to just click themselves to another website.

Should they decide to stay (yay, success!), they would want to learn as much as possible about you and whathever it is you are doing. Make sure that they can subscirbe to your list so that they could get valuable info or even a free product. Everyone apreciates things like that, believe me. This way, you both get something. You visitors get more information about you and your products or services, you get a satisfied costumer.

What is online branding all about? It’s about telling people who you are and what do you do by getting them to visit your website and then, once they are already there, to share more information about you to your costumers. As you can see, it’s all about getting information to your costumers about you and your business.

Let’s say that your company sells speakers and you want to present them to your potential costumers. What do you do? Do you create an affiliate website within the company and promote your business this way? You could, but a much better choice would be to forge an image in the minds of your costumers that you really enjoy what you are doing and to promote your product this way.

A good brand is like a magnet to your costumers. This is the reason why people by “Coca Cola” or go to “McDonald’s” and not because they are so fond of the taste. And the best way to create a good brand is to let your costumers know that you enjoy what you are doing.

Creating a positive brand is no small task and there is little room for an error. That’s why you might consider even hiring a brand consultant, someone to guide you and to tell you if the people will react positively or negatively to your business.

Don’t let branding scare you. It might be a little tough at the begining to find your right place among other brands, but once the costumers really start seeing you in positive light, all that hard work will definitely pay off.

Do you own a bussiness. If so, have you ever thought of branding it? And don’t give me that “my business is too small to be branded”, because that is just not true. Now, if you’re interested in knowing more about branding and what it can do for your business, I suggest that you read this short article about it.

First, what is branding? Branding is a vital part of marketing strategy, one without no business can really succeed without. It is, to put it in the most simplest term possible, how your costumers see you, or how you are seen in their eyes.

Let’s have two hypothetical companies. We’ll name them “A” and “B”. Company “A” portrays a good brand and company “B” a poor brand. Now, which one of them, do you think will have more costumers or sales. Having a good brand and being able to give a message through it which the costumers can trust is the epitome or business today.

Think about some world renown companies. What is your first thought when someone mentiones “Microsoft”? Probably international leaders and pioneers in software, its creation and distribution. And what about “McDonald’s”? My guess is multinational leaders in the world of fast-food. Why are these two companies so successful? Because they have a good brand, that works benefits when it comes to keeping old costumers and getting new ones.

Now, let’s get back to you and your small business. You are probably thinking that your business is too small to be branded. Well, it’s not. No business is to small to use the benefits of a good and positive brand, even if it just a one-man operation. Even if you have only one product to sell, or one service to offer, you can still brand them. Hell, you can even brand your own name. Just think about all the famous couples that have branded themselves, like David and Victoria Beckham (”Brand Beckham”).

You probably won’t find a place where branding is more important than the Internet. The user has the power to go through 10 websites with just a few clciks of the mouse in a matter of seconds. In average, they will scan your website in just a few seconds. They’re not interested in reading anything, so you have to send them your message right away. If they don’t find what they want with your website, they’ll close the window and look elswehre.

So what can you brand and market online? Whatever you want can be branded and marketed on the Internet, but if you are dealing with infromation-rich product or services, you have hit a jack-pot as there are no better things on the Internet for getting some much neaded costumers. Don’t know what those could be? Check the Internet.

If the brand is not good and doesn’t convey the message you wanted, it can actually hurt your business badly. This is why this issue shouldn’t be taken lightly and has to be thought about carefully.