What is a brand?

A brand comprises of two essential components. People usually get one right and forget about the other.

First, a brand is a statement of what the product or service actually is. This is called the brand promise. A brand promise isn't a tag line or a statement written in words. It's the overall encapsulation of what your product or service stands for. This means that it is the tag line, design, written description and how someone feels interacting with that product or service.

The tag line for this website is Tips and Tricks to Make Money Blogging but that's not the brand - the brand is the entire experience that you have with this site. The brand is a website hat will offer help, guidance, tips and information about blogging and making money doing so.

OK. Part two of brand - the thing that people often forget is that you have to deliver on that brand promise. If you visit this website and find a whole bunch of articles about cars then you will be a bit confused. If my articles are not correct or misleading, you will be disappointed. If the site looks terrible you will feel that I cannot be that good at doing what I do and I lose credibility. So to deliver on brand promise you have to stay on target with your posts, set the right impressions and deliver the goods.

Think of brand as personality. If I meet you in a pub and I tell you all about myself portraying myself to be a successful businessman making a ton of cash then I am actually telling you my brand promise. If I am dressed shabbily, ask you to pay for the drinks and talk in four letter words (ie behave like anything but a successful business man), what will you think? You'll think I am an idiot, a liar and a scoundrel.

Its the same with a brand. Say it AND ACT IT.

Its the act it bit that people forget and why their brand never takes hold.