Ok, here are some notes I took on the video above. Hope it will help you Deep Space and anyone else who had trouble hearing over the echo.
Branding
(These are notes I took from the video. Some are word for word. Others I’m paraphrasing.)
The goal of becoming a truly great brand is to become a verb. Example: Google is a company, yet when we want to look up something on the internet we say, I’ll Google it. (Of course that might be a bit harder as a writer. It’s just one example of a big brand almost everyone knows and how successful it has become.)
People choose brands based on perceptions.
Perceptions – are the ideas you own in people’s minds
You want to create a signal in people’s minds and own a perception of what you stand for.
So brands have two things:
- Perceptions that you own.
- Promises you can make to your consumer.
Think about when you’re writing a novel. What are the perceptions that you want to own? What do you want people to know about you, think about you, and have them say, “Oh yeah, he/she is “that” writer. They do “that” and it’s really amazing.”
So when people engage with you, what do you promise that their engagement is going to be like? Example: Fun and innovative
Think about Harley Davidson. They own the perception of rugged, manly, and almost this “don’t mess with me”, really great vibe of tough. The typical person who buys these bikes are usually a 45 year old white male accountant who wants the perception of rough and rugged and look like they could beat someone up.
So Harley Davidson has sold the perception that whatever you buy from them is going to make you rough and rugged, etc.
So it’s really important that the perceptions that you own and promises you make are going to be delivered at every single point of contact. That’s the key of making a really good impression and really strong stance with your brand. It can be the book that you’ve written, your bio, your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and be sure to be consistent every time you deliver it.
So how do you come up with the perception you want to make? There is an exercise you can do that will help. You make a Vin diagram with three circles. One circle for true, one for meaningful, and one for different/distinctive. Or could also make a list for each one.
True - Make a list of what is true about yourself as an author.
Your writing style, when you started writing, your genre, etc.
Meaningful - What is meaningful to your target audience? Make a list.
What do they want to hear in a book? What do they want to read? Does my book relate to my target audience? Did I write a book that will resonate with a 16 year old girl or a 30 year old married woman? (I am personally going to have a problem here. I wrote whatever came out of me. I had no control over it. Who is my target audience? I think it remains to be seen. Anywhere from 14 to 100 I guess.)
It can be very tricky trying to find the overlap of what is true to you and yet meaningful to your target audience and finding it is key. Do one of these also show up on your True list? (Match all the ones that do. These are the things you want.)
Different/Distinctive - What is different about you? What makes you different than the thousands of authors who also write in your genre? Make a list.
You might have something that’s different about you, but might not be meaningful to your target audience. Or you may have something meaningful and different, but not true to who you are. That will not do you any good. You must have all three.
This will ultimately take a lot of digging, hard work, and time to come up with all three. It’s also important to stay consistent once you find your brand and not change it. People want consistency, they like consistency, they like to know what they are going to expect going in.
An example of a brand that tried to change was Old Spice. Example: Old Spice vs Axe. Both are deodorants, both keep you from smelling bad, and both wanted the teenage boy market. Axe had something true, they had a great product, something meaningful, you’re going to the girl, and the way they advertised themselves was different.
Old Spice was… well… old. You come out smelling like an older man. They tried to change by bringing in a fun and funny guy, but the brand didn’t really resonate with the young teenage male market. The name itself says it’s for an older generation. “Old” Spice.
So stay consistent.
(These are the notes I took and found useful, or at least I hope they are. I have yet to make my diagram/lists.)
