Every business owner knows that branding is important, and that branding can be done through advertising. It is therefore important to use social media, personal interactions, and branded documents to reinforce who you are and what sets you apart.
Revisit Your Brand
Do you have a short statement that clearly describes what you do and how you differ from the competition? This is your unique selling proposition (USP). If you can fairly describe yourself as the most in-demand social media expert in the world, the USP might not even be necessary. Everyone else needs to constantly promote themselves.
Come up with a pithy way to express that USP if you haven’t done so yet. Tell us that you make Facebook work like no one else. Tell us that you are the only fundraising consultant who specializes in connecting nonprofits with business partners. Whatever distinguishes you from the competition should be repeated in your social media marketing, in your person-to-person interactions, and on your printed materials.
Branding in Social Media Marketing
Does your social media presence consistently remind readers of what makes you different from the dozens of other fundraising experts? If not, you need to make some adjustments. Consider a fundraising consultant who specializes in helping nonprofits find the ideal business sponsor or partner. Tweets and Facebook posts should reinforce the value of partnering with a business, the specific advantages of doing so, success stories, and how the consultant helped specific nonprofits.
Branding  in Content Marketing
Everyone with a product or service to peddle is on the content marketing train. Keep in mind that your brand is always at the core of what you post. Informational Web pages, blog posts sharing news and analysis, and email newsletters all need to support your brand image as the best fundraising consultant in the conservation space, the working person’s attorney, and so forth.
A professional services fund might well serve clients and reinforce its own image by sharing free information in a newsletter or in an e-book. There are two reasons for this: (1) Readers like getting good information for free, (2) the free products keep the creator’s name in front of potential clients.
Using Your Brand in Personal Interactions
Every phone conversation, email, and in-person conversation is an opportunity to reinforce your brand. Your communications should remind the other party of your USP. If you have an elevator speech, use it whenever you have to introduce yourself or describe what you do for a living.
As you make presentations to groups, you have an opportunity to brand yourself in the eyes of each attendee. Put that USP on your PowerPoint slides, in handouts, and in your spoken remarks.
Branded Documents
Yes, branding efforts should carry over to mundane paper products like personal checks, letterhead, and business cards. Therefore, if you have a slogan or tagline, make sure to make room for this on your personal checks. If you don’t have a slogan that describes your business. Put the slogan on your cards, letterhead, invoices, cards, and brochures or flyers.
A variety of companies make these customized documents, and the bank your business uses might be able to accommodate your custom check request. The flyers, brochures, invoices and business cards are easy to make or order.
In conclusion, branding is an ongoing part of marketing; you can only be the strategic partnership guru as long as potential customers keep seeing that branding message. Use social media posts, blogs, reports, email messages, face-to-face interactions, speeches, and branded documents like checks to continuously remind customers of what makes you special.