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Time to bring out your branding iron. This has a physical aspect: the color, the logo, the font, the look and feel. It has a psychological aspect: what is the experience of the buyer and customer when they interact with you? Do you keep the promises you make? Do you surprise and delight? Is the interaction friction-free? These are all elements that contribute to branding.

Thanks to the Internet, small companies can look like big companies. An easy to navigate web site, personalization, email subscriptions, and shopping carts are yours, even if you are a one person show.

Branding is crucial because it becomes a proxy for a host of decisions that do not have to be taken. It shortens the sales cycle, improves customer loyalty, and raises barriers to entry. You may “do” branding, but those are the mechanical and administrative tasks. In reality, every single person in the organization is contributing to the brand every time they come to work.

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With steps 1 to 5 out of the way, you are now ready to start talking to your prospects about buying your products. If you are a monopoly or a dominant player in the midst of scarcity, you don’t have to worry about messaging, just make your product or service available and easy to buy, it will fly off the shelves. If you are in a competitive environment, or an undifferentiated product or service, or your product or service is not well understood, what you say is crucial, it could turn your buyers “on” or turn them “off.”

“Messaging” is a fine art and the higher the stakes, the more important to hire specialists to put it together. In addition to the choice of words, you have to determine the right frequency and the right channel. As we all know, “The medium is the message.”

Marketing automation can be used to deliver your message to the right person at the right time. Web sites can make your messages available 24×7, worldwide to anyone with an Internet connection. You can choose interesting formats like motion graphics or videos, or do it the old fashioned way via static text and graphics.

A good vocabulary and grammar are table stakes, knowing what to say is priceless. If you have a clear vision, the idea generation is usually effortless, but the actual process of assembling your collateral can be messy. This is not the time to be impatient or frustrated. It is hard to “take back” what you say and to change perceptions once they have been formed.