Branding your business

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
I wrote this some time back, but I believe it's still relevant today.

Internalizing what makes your business unique

What are the core selling points of your business? In the document imaging industry, service revenue draws over 50% share of profit, whereas unit sales may only account for 10%. Superb customer support drives sales.

If each and every one of your departments, from billing to sales went an extra 1% in every interaction with your clients, could they evolve from being satisfied clients – to ‘Raving Fans?’

Branding should be a company wide effort. It starts and ends with every interaction your company has with prospects and clients.

What I've seen over the years are issues, such as billing, that can sour an entire business partnership. Or less than competent, professional support.

Your thoughts on branding?
 
Not sure if this is branding related or customer interaction related.

Customer response rate is a HUGE factor in any sales business, but even more so for online businesses. Some are more lenient than others, but the hosting world is cut throat. If a user is forced to go to a ticket rather than live chat, that response better be out the door in 15-30 minutes or they've already found a new home. Support can generally go longer, but sales is brutal.

Even for us in SEO and Web Design, our internal requirement is a response (usually via phone) within 4 hours for new sales, and "same day" for existing customers - unless it's a critical item, then it's ASAP.

I don't know how much support plays into the branding of things though - unless you're LiquidWeb and their Fanatical Support mantra (I can't think of other hosts that promote their support so heavily).
 
I see many that

1) go to the expense of getting a billing system like WHMCS, but dont spend $20 to $30 to integrate the billing system to match their branded website.

2) In their billing system like WHMCS they will have the Knowledgebase etc. active, but dont put any info in them.

3) they use templates (which is fine), but fails to amend them and you get dead links that just lead to then same page you are on or it is still full of default lorem ipsum text area
 
In my opinion, apart from the features, which can be similar in most of the times, customer support plays a key role in helping many hosting providers building their brands.

For us, the core selling points of our web hosting business is mainly customer service. Satisfied clients wrote good feedbacks on websites and social networks and this drives sales for us.
 
For us, the core selling points of our web hosting business is mainly customer service. Satisfied clients wrote good feedbacks on websites and social networks and this drives sales for us.

Webhosting is a customer focused business, bad customer service and clients will just move to another provider. you will find 9/10 reviews on forums/social media sites will be negative as very few customers will post good experiences with a host.
 
WRONG, you need create a brand before you can market it as without a brand you have nothing

Brands are created through advertising. Traditionally, a lot of advertising. Without mass marketing, you just don't arrive to a status of brand awareness.
 
Brands are created through advertising. Traditionally, a lot of advertising. Without mass marketing, you just don't arrive to a status of brand awareness.

To brand a business is getting the name, website, domain, products etc. as without these (BRAND NAME) you have nothing to market/promote.

Marketing is brand awareness, so without a brand you have nothing to make people aware of.

such as

The Coca-Cola Company is the company, but they are nothing without their brands

Coca‑Cola
Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar
Diet Coke
Coca‑Cola Energy
GLACÉAU Smartwater

etc.

which all have their own brand awareness campaigns
 
The Coca-Cola Company is the company, but they are nothing without their brands
Coca-Cola would not be Coca-Cola without an insane amount of $ spent in marketing to develop it into a brand.

Starting a company with any name doesn't make it a brand. It just makes it a company that has a name.

The reason everyone wants to get to the status of a brand is to have the brand name work back for you. But without a heavy investment in the name, it won't become a brand.
 
Coca-Cola would not be Coca-Cola without an insane amount of $ spent in marketing to develop it into a brand.

Starting a company with any name doesn't make it a brand. It just makes it a company that has a name.

The reason everyone wants to get to the status of a brand is to have the brand name work back for you. But without a heavy investment in the name, it won't become a brand.

The brand is the business name and everything that goes with it.

You go to a branding agency with an idea of a business and they will first create a name and then build onto that without a name you have no brand.
 
Kleenex, Xerox and Hoover were masters of their brand.

Their brand is so linked to their product that now if someone asks for a Kleenex, you know they need a tissue. It doesn't matter if that tissue is made by Dixxie (paper cup maker), it's a Kleenex to the user.

Xerox was the same for "make a copy"

Hoover was the same for Vaccum. While Hoover didn't catch on in the US, it's standard in the UK.

Ziploc, Band-Aid, Windex, Post-It Notes ... they've all done amazing with their brand, but with heavy, heavy marketing to back it up.

Bounty & Charmin, even Mr. Clean are all household names due to the money spent on marketing, and people (including myself) have particular brands that we like, but it's all down to marketing.

I go to the restaurant and I ask for a Coke, and they say "is Pepsi Ok" - but I don't think I've ever asked for a Cola.

Jack Daniels is amazing with their marketing too, to the point that if you ask the bar tender for a Jack & Coke, if they use Pepsi, they're in BIG trouble.
 
Kleenex, Xerox and Hoover were masters of their brand.

Their brand is so linked to their product that now if someone asks for a Kleenex, you know they need a tissue. It doesn't matter if that tissue is made by Dixxie (paper cup maker), it's a Kleenex to the user.

Xerox was the same for "make a copy"

Hoover was the same for Vaccum. While Hoover didn't catch on in the US, it's standard in the UK.

Ziploc, Band-Aid, Windex, Post-It Notes ... they've all done amazing with their brand, but with heavy, heavy marketing to back it up.

Bounty & Charmin, even Mr. Clean are all household names due to the money spent on marketing, and people (including myself) have particular brands that we like, but it's all down to marketing.

I go to the restaurant and I ask for a Coke, and they say "is Pepsi Ok" - but I don't think I've ever asked for a Cola.

Jack Daniels is amazing with their marketing too, to the point that if you ask the bar tender for a Jack & Coke, if they use Pepsi, they're in BIG trouble.

Yes, but without a brand name a company has no brand.

like you never say i am going for a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the company notice people started to just use KFC, so they rebranded the company and the stores to KFC.

Yes once you have your name or a name easily remembered by the public, then you need to make public aware of your name (brand) which yes will take plenty of money
 
Yes, but without a brand name a company has no brand.
Let me bring the most obvious example.

HostGator is a brand in the hosting world. Silver Hosting [I just made the name up] is not.

GoDaddy is a brand in the domain world (and beyond at this point). Domains4You is not.

Both companies have names, but only one of two in each instance is a brand.

Marketing 101. A brand is not what you register your business with, it's where you arrive at in time after sizeable investments.
 
Let me bring the most obvious example.

HostGator is a brand in the hosting world. Silver Hosting [I just made the name up] is not.

GoDaddy is a brand in the domain world (and beyond at this point). Domains4You is not.

Both companies have names, but only one of two in each instance is a brand.

Marketing 101. A brand is not what you register your business with, it's where you arrive at in time after sizeable investments.

Every company is a brand as is every product is a sub brand of the parent company. The difference is some companies have unlimited pockets of cash they use to push their business into the public eye (brand awareness) and once they have been pushed enough then they need less brand awareness money as people recognise their name with little efford.
 
(A) Every company is a brand as is every product is a sub brand of the parent company.

(B) The difference is some companies have unlimited pockets of cash they use to push their business into the public eye

You are contradicting yourself.

(A) No, every company is not a brand, because not every company has unlimited pockets of cash.

(B) Yes, exactly! Money buys you brand awareness, turning your company into a brand. Finally.
 
You are contradicting yourself.

(A) No, every company is not a brand, because not every company has unlimited pockets of cash.

(B) Yes, exactly! Money buys you brand awareness, turning your company into a brand. Finally.


The company name is the brand ID of the company, without a company name you have no company or any brand.

I am in the middle of doing a brand awareness course. (not much else to do in these times, this will be the 3rd diploma course i have started/done since March)
 
I've gone through that degree already.
Obviously a name is a pre-requisite and comes before a brand. A name is something you have to come up with when starting a business. But a brand is something that you have to build and become through investment.
 
A Company is the people that work for you
A brand is the image of the product/service (and sometimes company)
A Company can have multiple brands (7up, Dr Pepper, Snapple - all owned by one company)

Endurance International Group (EIG), is the company. They own multiple brands of hosting companies; HostGator, Bluehost, PowWeb.

Most people do not know the name EIG, but they know Hostgator.

Then we have Energizer and Everready. Everready is it's own brand and Company, but is controlled as a Subsideray of Energizer.
 
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