Branding Your Virtual Business

Branding, by definition, is a mark of ownership. It’s a combination of your name, logo, tagline or any graphics that you may use in your business. It’s your identity, how your business is perceived by your clients.

Logos play a big part in branding. Once you have a logo you need to use it in creative ways to gain maximum exposure in your advertising. Your logo needs to describe what your business is all about. Once you have a logo you’ve taken your first step towards branding your business.
Branding is whom you are, whom you want to be and it will become an attestation or a declaration of how clients perceive your business, and how you perform within that business.

You may be wondering why branding is important. A brand is a representation of your business personality. It goes beyond a name and tagline. Aside from the services you offer, a brand is the most important facet of your business. Choosing just the right tagline and logo are important to successful branding. You’ll need to use visuals, auditory, and textural methods in your brands.

A Strong brand will make the difference between being noticed or overlooked. Your brand is a promise to your clients, a promise to deliver every time you take on a project. It tells them what to expect from your services and sets you apart from your competitors. It’s also a foundation for your marketing communication.
How should you create your brand. Be distinctive and do something different. This will take some brainstorming. Finding a mentor will help you to get the creative juices flowing. Create a mission statement. We are all in business to make a living. We all want to be successful. When creating your mission statement concentrate on how you will achieve that success and how you will define that success.

Create your ethics statement. I think this is essential for Virtual Assistants since we don’t really see our clients face to face. When creating the ethics statement, or code, concentrate of what basics are for your business ethics.

Make sure to describe what you are branding. A great way of doing this is by using your logo. Are you a writer? Maybe you can have a pen, pencil or an old fashioned typewriter on your logo. Or if your niche is Internet Research, try placing a small magnifying glass along side of your business name and other information.
Start using your logo as soon as possible. Use it on everything from your web site to all of your advertising and communications, including signatures on networking forums.

When advertising of marketing, be consistent. Don’t advertise one time as “The Best VA in Town” and then the next time as “The Best Virtual Assistant in Town.” Be unwavering, use the same colors, theme, symbols and even fonts on all of your materials.

Networking is an important part of a VAs life. This is how you get to know each other and earn the trust of your fellow VAs, which in turn can help your reputation as a virtual business or company.

The secret to success in branding is repeat, repeat, repeat. Be persistent. Put your logo on every page of your site. The more people see it, the more they will remember it. Whatever you do, don’t lose an opportunity to brand. Always keep it in the back of your mind. If a new opportunity arises, ask yourself “what’s the best way to use this opportunity to my advantage” and then do it.
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This article may be reprinted, as long as it includes the following author box
“About the author: Kathy Zengolewicz is founder of The Virtual Independent Contractor (http://www.thevirtualindependentcontractor.com) and author of informative business and entertaining articles. Kathy is expanding her horizons and writing about everyday occurrences and happenings that may be of interest to people in all walks of life. For now, you can contact her at kathy@thevirtualindependentcontractor.com.”