When your brand is bland, your marketing dollars are like The Little Engine That Could - gone terribly wrong. You'll just keep chanting I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can indefinitely, never really able to push the train over the mountain!
Badass Branding saves a "cookie" in your customer's mind.
Have you ever gone to a website, and then realize that ads for that company keep popping up on other websites you visit after? It's a kind of online marketing called retargeting where the website downloads a "cookie" on your browser that follows you around, reminding you (a prospect) about the product/service you looked at. When you have a badass brand that is noticeable and memorable, it downloads a cookie into your prospect's head.
Try It For Yourself
Think about the last time you saw something really cool, something that really stood out to you as interesting and different. Did you think about it afterward? Maybe take a second look later? Possibly share it with someone who also might be interested?
What if everyone that encountered YOUR business had that experience?
Would your business benefit?
The Blind Spot
It is enticing to want to spend every dollar you can on marketing your business and bypass the brand, particularly if you think a brand is just a "nice to have." After all, you want to increase sales, and marketing seems like the most direct way to sell to consumers.
But being short-sighted is not good for business. Marketing will make a sale today, but the brand is what sells today, tomorrow, next quarter, next year, 5 years from now...
Would you rather your marketing dollars pay for sales today? Or sales today and forever moving forward?
Marketing Without A Badass Brand Makes For a Steep Uphill Climb
We all invest money in our companies because we want to increase sales, but it's important to understand the role each plays in the sales process.
Marketing: How people find you
Branding: WHY people buy
Sales from Marketing: The way anyone becomes aware of what you're selling. You can't buy something you don't know about.
Sales from Branding: The reason someone buys from you instead of the next guy, and buys in the future, too. If your brand sticks out in my mind, I will remember you and come back when I am ready to buy, or ready to buy more.
Branding without marketing will make you the best kept secret, but some people will still find you. Marketing without branding, on the other hand, will burn out your engine and your capital.
It's not that you you won't have to pay for marketing when your brand is badass, quite the opposite. Once you have a brand that supercharges your marketing efforts, the ROI will be so damn good you'll be happy to invest more into it.
Instead of pushing your train uphill forever, investing in your brand will take all the potential energy you've built up with your business and turn it into sales for years to come.