How have these successful companies—take your pick from the Fortune 500—found these branding companies? There’s no one-stop resource or fail-safe formula. Fact is, finding one worth its salt is exceedingly difficult. But if you’re going to take your brand to the next level, there’s no way around it—you need one. So, here are some things to remember when you’re out there on the hunt:

1. Know your needs and have an idea about how you’d like them met. This will give you the self-knowledge you need to better gauge the work of the branding agencies you'll encounter to determine if they really can deliver what you need.

2. Go ahead, be a fan. If you admire the branding efforts of a certain company, call around and find out who did the work.

3. Go with a referral, not a blind hire. Canvass your contacts. This is always better than hiring someone with no frame of common reference. If they left a favorable impression on one person, chances are it’s a trend, not an exception.

4. Throw a few companies a bone & see what they do with it. Give them a general question or problem scenario. See how responsive they are and how much time it appears they put into crafting their response. This isn't the same as asking for free or speculative work, which is bad form. Don’t do that. Rather, this should give you a preview to how they think and their work ethic…and whether they would really value your business and do a good job for you.

5. Money isn't taboo. Once you’ve found a company you’d like to work with, discuss it from the outset. It’s better to agree on financial terms from the start than for either of you to be in a precarious position somewhere down the line. This may start with a simple question, like: “What’s your budget?” or “What would you typically charge for this kind of work?” If they ask you, give a number if you one in mind, but don’t pull it out of nowhere. Be sure you’ve educated yourself on the costs involved with the kind of work you need, and don’t expect them to give you a discount just because you have kind eyes. If you ask them, try to be specific. Ask how much it cost to produce a specific project in their portfolio.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

 Why is brand identity so critical?

 A strong brand identity can position a company above its competition all by itself. But having a brand that strong takes time, money and effort to develop. It’s not as simple as just redesigning a logo or rewriting a tagline. Brand identity is the reason you offer for your customer to choose you instead of your competition.

 How to rework your brand identity

 Successful re-branding involves “evolution,” not “revolution.” You must impress upon your existing customers that your new brand is just a new and improved version of the same you. It’s important to not get too crazy with a re-branding effort because you could end up destroying fragile emotional ties and customer loyalty.

 Brand identity is much more than marketing

 Having a brand identity that resonates with your market is important, but not at the expense of the people within your company. They need to not only get it, but also be your brand’s most fervent ambassadors. Do your employees believe in your company? Do they feel like they have a vested stake in its success? Companies with solid brand identities can say yes to these questions. Can yours? If not, here’s some things you can do:

Get every aspect of your company on the same page: Easier said than done, right? Well, that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. Get all your departments talking to each other and understanding each other.

1. Promote everyone to the position of brand ambassador: Give everyone a common understanding of the company, its mission and their part in it. They should feel like they have ownership—even if they don’t.
2. Reinforce brand values and behaviors: To do this, use the tools you have, such as internal communications…and like a good basketball coach, consistently promote these fundamentals until they’re second nature.

 
Your employees will ultimately determine your success or failure. That’s why it’s so important to have them buy into your company’s brand identity. However, that’s not something that can be forced. You, as leadership, must earn it. But once you do, you’ll have a company that is full of happy, motivated successful brand ambassadors.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

 You’ll likely get an answer like this: “Well, I don’t really have one of those exactly, but I am doing some corporate branding, direct mail, updating my web site and considering search engine optimization.”

 Fact is, just the thought of a “marketing plan” overwhelms many. Mention of projections, studies, demographics and segmentation are returned with blank spacey stares.

 Nevertheless, you shouldn’t let the idea of a marketing plan scare you. Think of it, rather, as a marketing recipe—a mix of ingredients you pull together to create a fabulously tasty result like increased sales, better profits or more market share.

 But before you start-throwing ingredients together like a cook gone wild, brainstorm ideas of what you’d like to eventually make with the recipe and educate yourself on the characteristics of the ingredients you might use—what will each bring to the final product?

 And you know what’s cool? After you find a marketing recipe that proves successful, you can use it again and again—just like any recipe.

 I have numerous marketing recipes in my repertoire. I’ve got them for networking, getting speaking engagements, adding names to my e-newsletter list, creating a successful online sales letter and for following up with prospects and turning them into clients over the phone.

 None of these recipes were especially brilliant. They were simply the results of brainstorming, research and testing. Many came from others, which is one of the best sources for winning marketing recipes. All I did was add my own twist to make it fit my business and market.

 I continually tested and tweaked my recipes until I finally came up with something I liked…and that a few of my peers liked. Now, I have an arsenal of marketing techniques ready to tackle any marketing problem I may have. Here’s a look at how I put everything together:

 Marketing Activity: What action will you take to accomplish an objective? Focus on one per recipe, such as networking, speaking or search engine optimization.

 Purpose: What’s your goal for this marketing activity? What’s the perfect outcome?

 Intended results: What do you want to happen as a result of accomplishing your goal?

 Target market: Who is it and how can you best get their attention?

 Plan: What tactics does your research show will work? What ingredients are needed and how will they best work in?

 Message/Attention: What’s your key message? It must be attention-grabbing and memorable.

 Marketing materials: Do you need a web page or a printed piece? Perhaps a combination…

 Main activity: What is the main line of communication, and how can you best use it to reach your prospect?

 Offer and Call to Action: How will you ask them to take action? What can you say or write that is compelling enough?

 Follow-up: How will you get back in touch? Whatever you do, don’t forget to do this…it’s what separates marketing from selling.

 Time: Give yourself deadlines, and carefully place them in your calendar so you can realistically accomplish them.

 If getting results from your marketing is truly important to you, you need to have a recipe like this. Just start with one ingredient and take it slow. Before you know it, you’ll be cooking up a feast of new business wins.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding</a> Research firm in Boston, MA, http://www.brandidentityguru.com

 Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

From a branding perspective, Google has much in common with the Kleenex’s, Xerox’s and Rollerblades of the world. It’s a brand name that has become the name for a category—a far cry from the time, not that long ago, when only the urban hipsters with Tony the Tiger shirts knew what Google was.

The Yellow Pages may not be gone, but their star is fading quickly as more and more people turn to Google (or other search engines) when they need to find a product or service. Why? Better, more complete and up-to-date information. No contest. When someone looks up a company in the phonebook, they get their address, phone number and maybe some flashy ad graphics; depending on how much money they spent on the ad. On a Google search, they get a link to the company’s website, where you can find as much information on a company and its offerings as you need.

For things like books, tickets and music, Googling will often lead to an instant purchase if the price is right. But even for more “considered purchases,” where one competes on more than just price; Googling is often the first research step buyers take to arrive at a decision. They search keywords and combinations of keywords, comparing each set of results to the next, looking for the most relevant information.

In a perfect world, people would systematically study three to five competitors in a selection set, write down the pros and cons of each and come to a calculated decision. But a perfect world isn’t the real world. Here’s what happens: if a search result looks promising, the buyer will click through to the company’s website and investigate the possibilities of a match further. If it looks like a fit, case closed. Customer won. No

further research required—even if someone’s out there with a better deal waiting.

This is why being on this “short list” of high-ranking search results is imperative in this day and age—the higher the better. Top rankings give you the chance of having prospective customers knock on your virtual door, knowledgeable about your offerings and eager to buy before you ever say a single word to them.

Don’t be ashamed of self-Googling

Come on, you know you’ve done it: typed your name into an Internet search engine such as Yahoo or MSN. Don’t feel embarrassed. We all do it. It is, after all, interesting to see what others are saying about you.

In a business context, it’s not narcissistic at all. It’s smart, especially when you’re trying to build your brand online. But besides looking for your specific name, try looking for your category. For instance, if you’re a Denver widget maker, look up “Denver widget” or any other combination of keywords or phrases relevant to your business. Where do you rank? Top two? Top 10? Top 1000? It doesn't take a genius to figure out the top five results will get a lot more clicks than Numbers 75-80. Are you where you want to be?

How top-ranked websites get their positions
 
Especially for the most competitive keyword searches, companies must engage in a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, which encompasses strategic smarts, hard work and clean code.

 How search engines rank your websites

Computer programs called “spiders” are responsible for visiting, indexing and ranking web sites. Each search engine has its own spiders with somewhat differing methods for ranking the websites it finds, and there are strategies you can use to make yours more appealing—and also mistakes that can negatively affect your rankings.

 4 SEO Urban Legends
 
Legend #1: You can muscle your way into top rankings. Maybe in 1999, but not anymore. Simply repeating a bunch of hidden keywords on your page or in your <META> tags no longer fools the search engine spiders into giving you high rankings. Algorithms that power the software behind these spiders have become much more advanced, and employing tactics like this will more likely hurt your rankings than help them.

 Legend #2: It starts and ends with traffic. Many people will click themselves repeatedly in the hopes of boosting their search rankings. However, this is a futile effort because spiders don’t care one bit about traffic.

 Legend #3: I can get rankings cheap from those nice folks sending me all those emails. If you fall for one of those spammer schemes, you deserve to be ripped off! Seriously though, you’d be paying good money for a clerical job you could easily do yourself. But even if you did do it yourself, you would run the risk of getting even worse rankings. It’s like membership at Augusta National—if you say you want it, you won’t get it. Search engines regard repetitive submissions as desperation, which they reject wholeheartedly.

 Legend #4: A Search Engine Optimization service guaranteed a Top 10 position on Google. In short, nobody can legitimately do that. Such guarantees are a telltale sign of snake-oil salesmanship. Here’s how the scam works: technically, they live up to their end by getting you top billing on a search term of their choosing, which is so specific to you that only your mom would likely search on it.

 Smarty-pants spiders

Search engine optimization is far more complex than it’s ever been. The obvious shortcuts to great search engine rankings have long since been identified and shut down by the search engine companies. These days, high rankings have much more to do with the structure of your HTML code, your acumen at avoiding “trip wires” that send spiders away, where certain keywords appear on a page, how you use JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets and where your formatting instructions appear in relation to your website copy. If you used a WYSIWYG code-writing program—such as Front Page, GoLive or Dreamweaver—you almost certainly will get a much lower score from the spiders.

It really does take a team of people, like the kind we have at Brand Identity Guru, dedicated to monitoring the everyday changes on the battlefield to maintain a high-ranking web presence. And it does change frequently—search engines are notorious for changing their search algorithms often.

What about pay-per-click?

Organic (“free” or “natural”) rankings are completely different from sponsored (“pay-per-click” or PPC) links. PPC can be an effective part of a brand’s overall online marketing strategy, and a lot professional SEO companies work with clients to design PPC campaigns that are both cost-effective and eye-catching. But PPC won’t substitute for SEO. High positioning on a relevant keyword search on Google, with its reputation for returning highly relevant results, bodes well for your brand in a way that sponsored links just can’t. However, neither is it wise to engage in an all-SEO, no-PPC strategy. Serious online brand marketers get the best results with a comprehensive strategy run by professionals with both the branding and technical know-how to determine the right mix of the two.

 Yes, it’s complicated.

But you get back a lot in return for your investment of time and money. A more “Googleable” online branding strategy will quickly yield improved sales and a more visible brand on the web, which, in turn, will also positively affect your bottom line.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

 For months now, the 7-year-old search engine has been testing new crawling and indexing systems with the hopes of making web searches more intuitive and accurate. The project, called “Bigdaddy,” is much more than a software update. It’s a total refit of the search engine’s infrastructure and software.

 “…It’s not just a data push or algorithm update,” says Search Engineer Matt Cutts of Google. Three data centers have so far been updated with new ones coming online every 10 days, a pace that’s expected to increase. Web users can access the updated Google search by typing in the IP address of the updated servers in their address bar: 66.249.93.104, 64.233.179.104 or 216.239.51.104. All of Google’s reported 85+ data centers are expected to be updated around the end of February or early March, and the closer we get to that time, the odds increase that your Google search will hit a “Bigdaddy” data center.

What ‘Bigdaddy’ addresses

 The biggest issue “Bigdaddy” will fix is hijacking redirects of URL requests—what happens when someone redirects a request for one website to another though illicit techniques. These kinds of redirects are called “302 redirects.”

“Bigdaddy” will also add something Google calls “canonicalization,” which will instruct a search engine how to decide which of a series of URLs is the proper one to insert into the Google index. For instance, most people would consider these the same URLs:

 www.example.com

example.com/

www.example.com/index.html

example.com/home.asp

In reality, these URLs are different and could conceivably return completely different content for each request. However, Google’s “canonicalization” will pick the URL that best represents what the user is likely asking for.

What ‘Bigdaddy’ does

“Bigdaddy” will also bring different crawling and indexing criteria, the groundwork for more advanced algorithms, larger databases and faster, more effective indexing of content.

Additionally, Google will be able to index new kinds of content. Testing is underway on a new search engine spider based on the Mozilla browser that can read links within images and even within Flash video.

What ‘Bigdaddy’ means to you

Brand Identity Guru has spent the past week researching what the implications of “Bigdaddy” will be for our Boston Search Engine Optimization clients. By comparing the results, we found that “Bigdaddy”-powered keyword searches returned improved rankings for 77% of our clients while 17% stayed the same and 6% (mostly those without a good number of incoming links) experienced a decline.

“Bigdaddy” data centers also reported much higher numbers of search results: searching for “landscape software,” the non-“Bigdaddy” search engine returned about 30 million results while “Bigdaddy” returned over 60 million. We’ve concluded, then, that sites ranked well because of solid on-page SEO techniques and inbound linking will benefit from this update. But there are still many unanswered questions about the implications of “Bigdaddy.” However, Google (as usual) is remaining mum on specifics in the hopes of preventing people from taking unruly advantage of the system.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

1. Corporate identity

Corporate identity is a company’s visual presence, which involves the corporate logo and design strategy for corporate marketing collateral. Corporate identity does not encapsulate brand identity, which is best defined as the soul of your company. However, a corporate identity may, and often does, reflect a brand identity. But some ad agencies, marketing companies and graphic design agencies would have you believe that brand identity is the same thing as corporate identity and that changing a logo or design strategy will change the brand identity. However, this is not the case. There are many intangible factors that weigh in on a brand identity. Such cosmetic changes can help a brand identity by making it evident to customers that a company cares about its appearance, but that’s about the extent of its power. A corporate identity does, however, need to evolve with the times. Failure to do so can negatively affect a company’s brand identity, but care must also be taken to not overly revise the presentation of a brand, lest customers be concerned about the state of a company. Corporate identity, along with organizational culture, product quality, service reputation, features, benefits, performance and value, are some of the key factors of brand identity.

2. Brand Identity - It’s the essence of your company

Brand identity is the complete package of a business to its customers. It includes the company’s service reputation, product quality, features, benefits, performance and value. It is the summation of all these things, which create brand identity.

3. Brand image

Brand Image is the market’s perception of your brand identity, which may or may not coincide with your intended brand identity. Companies must work hard at the daunting task of getting brand identity and image to align…or hire a true branding company.

A branding company can show you how success starts with the brand identity. Do you have a branding strategy? Are your employees aware of it and able to be ambassadors for your company’s brand during interactions with the outside world? Are you making the most strategically sound decisions for your brand? Do you know your customers’ perceptions of your brand?

 If your answer is “no” to any of those questions, take the first step in being able to answer yes to all of them and success.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding research firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.