These days, nearly everything is a brand — from large corporations to people, from products and services to government agencies, special-interest groups, and celebrities. Some organizations and people have more than one brand — a business brand, a product brand, and a personal brand, for example. Bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers have brands. And whether you’re aware or not, you have a brand too: your professional or personal reputation, which is all a brand really is.

People build and launch brands for all sorts of reasons: to sell products or services, build trust, advance their careers, promote a cause, gain exposure to new opportunities, and more. Launching & building a brand gives focus and clarity to everything you do, from defining the essence and purpose of what you’re promoting to deciding what you’ll do to promote it. As a result, everything you do to reinforce a positive brand image in the minds of others has greater impact.

I don’t know why you’re interested in launching & building a brand. My husband and I built and launched the Color Me Book brand to bring a cool product (a personalized coloring book) to market and profit from it. I launched my Girl Gang brand to promote women empowerment and connect with like-minded women. Whatever your reason is for launching & building a brand, you want to do it as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Welcome to Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies.

About This Book

Launching & building a brand isn’t easy. Some people seem naturally gifted at it. They’re outgoing and engaging. Their charisma is contagious, and whatever they choose to promote attracts an eager following.

The rest of us struggle. We don’t even know where to start. Launching & building a brand is so overwhelming that we freeze in our tracks.

Fortunately, with the right tools and guidance, anyone can build and launch their own brand. In this book, I provide the guidance you need, and I highlight numerous tools that simplify the process. To make branding even more accessible, I break my guidance into five parts:

• Part 1: Getting Started with Branding introduces key topics covered in the book and guides you through the process of creating, defining, and financing your brand; clarifying your branding goals; and getting to know your audience — the people you’ll be trying to impress.
• Part 2: Attending to Brand Fundamentals picks up where Part 1 left off. In Part 2, you tackle the basics of getting your brand off the ground: creating a logo and style guide, building a branded website and email account, building strategic partnerships, and taking the first steps to launch your brand.
• Part 3: Building a Strong Brand Presence explains what to do to increase brand recognition and awareness, including creating in-person experiences, blogging, podcasting, posting on social media, doing email marketing, buying advertising, and building community.
• Part 4: Feeding and Caring for Your Brand covers everything you need to know to protect your brand and extend its reach. Here, you find out how to scale your brand, build on existing customer loyalty, and defend your brand against threats from the competition.
• Part 5: The Part of Tens covers ten ways to make a marketing campaign go viral; ten ways to differentiate your brand from the competition; and ten ways to drive traffic to your website, blog, or other online properties.

You can’t get lost in this book, because everywhere you turn, you’ll find valuable information and advice.

Foolish Assumptions

In this data-driven age, all assumptions are foolish. After all, who needs to make assumptions when Google knows everything? But to keep this book focused on the right audience and ensure that it delivers the information and insight you need to grasp a topic as complex as branding, I felt compelled to make the following foolish assumptions about you:

• You have a great idea for a brand but little to no idea about how to get started, or you have a brand that’s struggling to get traction.
• You don’t have a college degree in marketing, and you’re not a self-educated marketing maven.
• You want to brand the right way from the start and not waste time and money on a trial-by-error process.
• You’re willing to invest time and effort developing marketing skills.

Other than those four foolish assumptions, I can honestly say that I can’t assume much more about you. For all I know, you could be a teenager or a septuagenarian, an intern or an executive, a work-at-home mom or dad, a doctor, a lawyer, rich, poor, or somewhere in between. You could be living in a beach house on the coast, a bungalow in a small town, or a studio apartment in a big city. Regardless of your demographic, I celebrate your interest in branding, your eagerness, and your can-do attitude. You’ll be rewarded handsomely as your brand goes viral!

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, icons in the margins highlight certain types of valuable information that call out for your attention. Here are the icons you’ll encounter and a brief description of each.

I want you to remember everything you read in this book, but if you can’t quite do that, remember the important points flagged with this icon.

I’ve been branding for myself and various employers for more than a decade, and I’ve picked up dozens of marketing shortcuts and tips along the way. In this book, I share those tips with you and flag them with this icon so you’ll be sure not to miss them.

You’ll find nothing dangerous about branding, but the process does have some pitfalls you’d be wise to avoid, and I use this icon to point them out.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the 300-plus pages of do-it-yourself branding advice delivered in this book, you have access to even more help and information online at Dummies.com, and that information isn’t limited to branding. You can dig up all sorts of interesting stuff on a wide variety of topics.

While you’re there, check out my Launching & Building a Brand For Dummies Cheat Sheet. No, I didn’t forget to put it in the book. Making it available online is just another clever marketing ploy by the For Dummies brand to sell more books — a teaser, a giveaway, which is a technique I discuss in the book.

Where to Go from Here

Where you go from here is up to you. I wrote this book to be used as a reference, so feel free to skip around, following where your curiosity leads. Every part, chapter, section, and subsection is a self-standing component, so you don’t have to tackle topics in some predetermined order.

If you’re new to branding, you may want to head to Chapter 1, which introduces branding and key topics covered in more detail in later chapters. If you’ve already launched your brand and are looking to improve brand recognition and awareness, head to Chapter 6. If you’re looking for branding tips and tricks, check out the chapters in Part 5.

If you’re in a hurry because you’re up against a deadline, or if you need urgent help dealing with a branding issue, turn to the table of contents (at the beginning of this book) or the index (at the end). Either will point you in the right direction.

Keep in mind that branding isn’t a linear process. You can start just about anywhere. What’s important is the collective impact of everything you do to promote your brand.