How to Take Your Brand from Boring to “Brand Famous”


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Brand Famous is a book that delivers classic marketing advice in a colorful manner with a fresh new approach to building your brand.

brand famous

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How’s your brand doing?  I’ll bet you don’t know, or maybe you don’t think your small business doesn’t need some fancy brand.  In either case, this is not good news for the success of your business.  Don’t kid yourself, branding is important. No matter how big, how small or how insignificant you think branding is.

Why Does Branding Matter So Much?

Branding matters because it’s hard to get customers to buy from you if they don’t know you exist and how you can help them.  This is the primary message behind a book I’ve recently received to review called Brand Famous: How to Get Everyone Talking About Your Brand by branding maven, Linzi Boyd (@Linzi_Boyd).

Another question you might ask is why do so many small businesses ignore their brand?  Boyd suspects it’s because there is a prevailing belief out there that brand building is an expensive process that is strictly reserved for big brands like Nike.

Well, get this!  Linzi Boyd says that it’s not that hard to become a famous brand.  All you have to do is follow her tried and true process that she outlines in this book.

Ready, Set, Go Build Your Brand

The key to building your brand is knowing what you want to achieve with your brand and knowing where you are on the barometer of brand fame,  Boyd actually has branding goals broken out into six different goals:

  • Market leader (like Nike).
  • A thought provoker (lika Malala).
  • A person of authority.
  • A Global Innovator.
  • A renown visionary.
  • An influential person.

I really love this approach because she’s incorporating personal brands along with corporate brands.  And after reading this list, it dawned on me that so many of us think of branding inside of the context of “market leader” and since we think there’s no chance that our little business is going to become Nike in the next ten years, we ignore branding.  This is a mistake.

Boyd has developed a “branding barometer” this takes you down a quick series of eight questions to help you decide exactly where your brand currently is, so that you can start moving in the direction of build your brand to exactly what you want it to be.

Just to give you a peek inside the barometer, here are the eight questions or levels:

  1. You have a recognizable name or brand that everyone is talking about.
  2. You are regularly featured on one or more of the pages of a relevant print/digital magazine.
  3. Your product is easily accessible through numerous retail stores, own stores or distribution networks — potentially globally.
  4. Celebrities/opinion formers are using it, promoting it or affiliated with it.
  5. Retail stores are championing it and making it the “must have” item/brand and everyone wants to stock it in their stores.
  6. Your high-profile events are being successfully written about through the pages of print/digital publications relevant to your industry.
  7. You have a waiting list for your product lines/services.
  8. You are a leader in your sector/industry and are sought after for interviews, talks and appearances at high profile events.

Then the book takes you on the journey of moving your brand from boring to brilliant using Boyd’s 5-Step Process to “Stand Out Brand Success”.  Each of the steps is a chapter and each chapter treats the work inside each chapter as a “game”.  It’s like she’s trying to lighten up the process for you so that you don’t give up.

A word of warning here — there are no new insights inside this book.  Don’t think that there’s anything inside this book that you haven’t seen before if you’ve read a marketing book, attended a marketing workshop, done anything remotely resembling a business or marketing plan — this is exactly what you’re going to get in this book.

What makes this book fun and easy to work with is the color.  Yes.  That’s correct — the color.  The book is printed using a neon orange color as an accent and feature color throughout the book.  I’m not kidding when I say the words literally jump off the page and into your brain.

Boyd’s style is colorful too.  She actually makes the branding process fun.  And remember when I said that she distinguishes between different kinds of brands; global brands vs expert brands.  This is also what makes your having a successful brand almost attainable.

Can You Really Get Enough Branding Information — Nah

Look, in my opinion reading books on branding and marketing are like eating your favorite dessert. Everywhere you go, you order it and you appreciate each one for the special unique flavor that the chef brings.

Well, to me, branding and marketing books are the same way.  While each one has the same basic ingredients, each expert brings their own special ingredient to the mix that makes it worth the consumption.

This is no different. Brand Famous will shake up your brain and your brand – and get you moving toward brilliance.

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Ivana Taylor Ivana Taylor is the Book Editor for Small Business Trends. She is responsible for directing the site’s book review program and manages the team of professional book reviewers. She also spearheads the annual Small Business Book Awards. Ivana publishes DIYMarketers, where she shares daily do-it-yourself marketing tips, and is co-author of "Excel for Marketing Managers."

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