“I need to see Mr. Big! He is NOT expecting me!”, the loud visitor announced to an appalled administrative assistant. A well-polished gentleman had just exited a downtown high-rise’s elevator and glided toward the reception area. His untucked fitted shirt with gaudy, initialed golden cufflinks, draped over his Levis. His jeans, in turn, perfectly capped his loafers. His ball cap matched nothing! After failing to persuade the man to return with an appointment, the assistant reluctantly calls Mr. Big to announce the peculiar man only using his visual description. She grimaces upon hearing the phone slam without a word. Magically, power- suited Mr. Big appears in the stuffy reception area, bear hugs the visitor, before dragging him back to his suite with an uncharacteristically broad grin! Clearly, that visitor’s brand spoke for him!

Personal
A personal brand has all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a corporate brand, except that it involves a singular person. As business processes and headcounts streamline, organizations do less with more. Empowering a brand to do more marketing heavy lifting is an efficient means to that end. Teams of internal marketing professionals and outsourced experts polishing campaigns are no longer efficient in fast-paced business environments. Marketing decisions must be made more quickly.

Once upon a time, competitors featured equally weighty departments passing judgment on messaging. Those organizations still exist. But, so do boutiques with great ideas, entrepreneurial spirits and digital mindsets that produce and analyze messaging at unprecedented speed. Fighting marketing battles with yesterday’s battleships is absolutely futile when younger, nimbler competitors wage digital wars. Essentially, a trusted colleague with laser-like focus on the immediate marketplace and this week’s data has an unmatched advantage in launching marketing campaigns that evolve continuously using real-time input from customers and analysts.

Professional
Benefits of the professional, or corporate brand remain relevant. Scale helps. Yet, business is still done person to person. Even committee-led decisions require a leader whose opinion carries disproportionate weight. In many cases the decision-making committee is simply in place to verify the leader’s decision. Either way, the decision’s merits are communicated based on the knowledge, awareness and reputation of the person representing the professional organization.

Since current branding emphasizes messaging as well as multiple delivery channels, identifying trustworthy sources to establish new connections is essential. Outsourced resources help. Furthermore, as customers’ and consumers’ needs evolve into more narrow niches, communication to those specific targets must become more precise. Flexible messaging that communicates consistently via blogs, real-time images, and point-of-sale video inspires purchasing decisions. Likewise, individual influencers are more valuable than ever in directing choices among the masses with the blazing speed of shifting whims. Engaging identified target audiences with the right voice through the right media transforms messaging into purchasing decisions which drive superior revenue.

Takeaway
When consumers or business customers determine whom they trust, that voice becomes more important than the message. With so many messages communicating through so many mediums, a product’s real value quickly drowns out of the conversation. But a trustworthy brand, delivers a credible voice which triggers the necessary engagement to drive enormous sales volume. Marketers, before judging the moral character of the latest internet personality that influences enormous segments of the marketplace, honestly monitor customers to ensure how they receive marketing messages that drive purchasing of your goods and services. Align campaigns and businesses with the proper messaging that communicates the specific persona that targeted customers will trust.Branding is what the product says when business developers are not in the room. Strong branding opens doors. Then, when great brands talk, targeted prospects listen and buy.

By Glenn W Hunter
Managing Director of Hunter And Beyond, LLC