Hoping some of you will be willing to answer my survey question:

SURVEY: Process for discovering brand. What first step(s) do you recommend in ARTICULATING (not sharing) your brand?

No need to go into great depth - just your spontaneous answers would be great. Thanks so much!

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

Not so sure exactly what you are asking, Mary, but when I was thinking about my logo what it wanted was something to show two seperate companies coming together and workinging together but still keeping their companies seperate.
Hope this is what you were asking. If not let me know and I will do my best to help you in your survey.

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Vicky
www.c-vas.eu

Ooops, no, I wasn't responding to your previous thread, Vicky. Sorry for the misunderstanding! I'll go now and check your thread and see if I can help there.

Meantime, got any responses to my survey question?

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

Allow me to re-word a little.

SURVEY: Process for discovering brand. How do you figure out what your brand is in the first place?

No need to go into great depth - just your spontaneous answers would be great. Thanks so much!

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

I think brand should convey a message - well put toghether - cohesive, professional (but not necessarily boring), and meaningful (even if it only means something to you! - I know alot of business owners who name their company and develop their brand around their kids or a favorite song...)

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I agree. Your brand should be about what message you want to convey so you need to figure out what you need to know what your mission, point or message before you can develop your brand. Who do you want to serve and what do you want to say to them with your brand?

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Kimberly
Facebook Marketing Magic!

Tess and Kimberly - Thanks so much for being my (only) two wonderful responders! I'm realizing this is too vague a question. What I'm trying to get at is how do you figure out what your 'message' is. It seems this stumps small business people. They don't know what to name or tag their businesses; their websites show no uniqueness; their branding is weak and so are their sales. They haven't done the process of characterizing their enterprise, and so their image is faceless. If you ask them, what is your core meaning, "who do you want to serve and what do you want to say to them with your brand?" they have no idea where to start.

So I figure it could be useful to write about ways you can create brand in the very first place. Know what I mean? Like, what are the exercises or disciplines or activities or games?

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

It is elusive - which I think is why we get SO many posts here on the boards from people who are desperate to come up with a name and tagline.

I often point people who are working on this to the thesaurus for like terms - get them to start with a few 'action' and 'descriptive' terms and then explore similar words. It can help develop some neat starting points (and in some cases, end points) for a company name.

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What about suggesting they look at others in their industry? See what the competition is doing and how they are branding or marketing themselves. This can give them a starting point for considering in what ways they might want to brand themselves similarly or differently from their competition.

I know when I was just starting on my research into the VA biz, I looked at every VA site I could find and researched industry related sites for ideas on how I would brand myself. As I got further into creating my brand, I also joined some professional business networking sites and read articles and posts by other biz folk about what is important to consider when marketing or branding yourself. Ultimately, I chose to try and brand myself as a VA in a way that most closely matches my personality, what kind of person I'd be to work with and what my specific values and work ethics are.

I hope this helps a little more. Have you tried setting up some google alerts for branding or creating brand and seeing if something helpful comes up?

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Kimberly
Facebook Marketing Magic!

You guys are the best. Thanks a million!

A Google alert is next in order, you're right.

Tess, have you noticed how fabulous Kimberly is? So helpful, articulate, energetic! I so much appreciate YOU BOTH.

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com