Monday, May 13, 2013

Branding and Co-branding your product




Your brand and community involvement

Is the community involved in your brand? Do you have other people in the community that are helping you spread the word?  Hi I’m Jeffrey Bernhard and welcome back! I wanted to share a 3-minute video with you about your brand and ask if you have the backing of your community?  This is a very important question that will most certainly affect your success. 

Most companies have great marketing plans, budgets, consumer research, social media, but they don’t consider community involvement until they have been established for some time.  By then, the community can only help in certain ways like social media and word of mouth.  When you involve the community from the start of your project, you open up a world of opportunities for all of those around you.  Think about hiring local people who can really help you not only in selling your new product, but getting the word out and about in their social areas.  I would hire local kids from the high school to come and work for me on various levels.  This did a number of things from getting them involved, to bringing in their parents.  This sends a great message to other parents and students.

If you are trying to push your new product in the community why not think about sponsoring the local boy scout troop, the towns 5 and 10k, or how about a local YMCA sports team?  These are all good ideas that have worked for several companies. Now if you’re thinking that this type of planning is too small for you, it worked for Red Bull.  This is how they broke in to the adventure sports arena.  They were sponsoring local adventure sports and venues and now they own them all!  They sold over 2 billion cans last year.  The playing field on the community level for them was wide open.  We know that communities love to support a local person.  Tap into this resource and see where it takes you.  Don’t forget the five most successful companies all started in garages.  Apple, Amazon, Disney, Google, and Mattel all started in a garage.  Now every person in this country has something in his or her garage from one of these companies. How ironic is that?  So the point is, never discount the importance of resources in your community. Tap into them and use them for your projects, they can help you on several different levels. 

We all know that communities stand together and help each other.  They can help you with sales, marketing,  and can bring a wonderful set of new avenues and ideas that you have never considered. The people can open up all types of new doors for your business and your products.  Remember that success is really never far from where you suspected it was.  It’s never exactly where you look, but when you find it, you were always close.  You just never thought about it in that way before.  This is one of the things that makes business so exciting.

If you would like to speak with me, reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me a message at the bottom of one of my blogs.  I would be happy to come out and take a look at your product and help you increase your sales, distribution channel, and give you an evaluation of what your product needs to make it.  I hope to speak to you soon.  As always, take care, and have a great day!

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