8 Laws of Personal Branding

Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. Here is a list of 8 laws that should help you will create an effective – and lucrative – personal brand:

1. Specialisation: A great personal brand must be precise, concentrated on a single core strength, talent or achievement.

2. Leadership: Endowing a personal brand with authority and credibility demands that the source be perceived as a leader by people in his/her domain or sphere of influence.

3. Personality: A great personal brand must be built on a foundation of the source’s true personality, flaws and all.

4. Distinctiveness: An effective personal brand needs to be expressed in a way that is different from the competition.

5. Visibility: To be successful, a personal brand must be seen over and over again, until it imprints itself on the consciousness of its domain or sphere of influence.

6. Unity: The private person behind a personal brand must adhere to the moral and behavioural code set down by that brand. Private conduct must mirror the public brand.

7. Persistence: Any personal brand takes time to grow, and while you can accelerate the process, you can’t replace it with advertising or public relations.

8. Goodwill: A personal brand will produce better results and endure longer if the person behind it is perceived in a positive way.

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6 Basic Qualitites of Brand Positioning

The right positioning incorporates strong values and differentiators that are important to your customers. Brand positioning is important in deciding where you want to position your brand within its category and relative to the competition. We mentioned here before nine positioning types you can think of:

  1. Quality positioning
  2. Value positioning
  3. Feature-driven positioning
  4. Relational positioning
  5. Aspiration positioning
  6. Problem/solution positioning
  7. Rivalry-based positioning
  8. Warm and fuzzy positioning
  9. Benefit-driven positioning

Positioning is an act of seeking, placing and optimizing something in relation to the competition in surrounding environment and is based on customer-company-competitor relationship triangle. In order to move up the ladder in the customer mind, management must follow the rules of positioning. Basic qualities of brand positioning include:

Relevance: Positioning of brand must focus on benefits that are important to people or reflect the character of the product.

Clarity: Brand should be positioned in such a way that it is easy to communicate and quick to comprehend.

Distinctiveness: In current market situation there are reasonably good number of players vying for a share in the market, forcing them to compete on the basis of price or promotion. To overcome such a situation, company needs to offer distinctiveness in its products or services.

Coherence: A brand should speak with one voice through all the elements of the marketing mix.

Commitment: Management should be committed to the position it has adopted. Once a position is adopted, it takes commitment to see it through.

Patience: Patience plays an important role in the success of brand as branding is not a one-day wonder – it takes years to position a brand in consumers’ mind.

Courage: Adopting a strong brand position requires courage as it is much easier to defend an appeal rather than generate sales pitch.