123 eGuides

Branding Article on Small Biz Bee

An article by Branding 123 eGuide author Barry Silverstein is featured on the leading small business website, Small Biz Bee.

You can read the article, "Three Qualities Your Brand Must Have in a Down Economy," here.

Branding 123 Featured on Brandchannel.com

The new eGuide, Branding 123, is the featured book on Brandchannel.com, the world's leading online branding forum.

According to Brandchannel: "Everything from naming, packaging, brand failures, making your brand "stick," to effective leadership is covered so that small business owners can understand the basics of creating and maintaining a brand that matters."

Review of Branding 123 eGuide

Review posted August 14, 2011 by Mark Didas, owner of waveSpawn (www.waveSpawn.com), a small technology business:

Build a breakthrough brand for the price of a coffee

A good friend and mentor of mine, Barry Silverstein, just published a new eGuide entitled Branding 123, Build a Breakthrough Brand in 3 Proven Steps. In it, Barry shares his knowledge and experience as a marketing and creative professional.  The book is “designed around one thing: to help make your brand a breakthrough brand, because that’s what a brand needs to be to succeed today.”  Small business owners, in particular, will benefit from the information shared.  It’s a quick read and may be the wisest $2.99 you invest in growing your business.

The book gives a thorough background and definition of branding and the influence a brand can have. Many examples are sited which help to simplify the understanding.  “If a brand appeals to a consumer on both a rational and emotional level, it has a very strong chance of becoming a memorable, long-lasting brand.”

The book really does a nice job of explaining – in simple terms – the advantages and differences between establishing a company brand and a product brand.  Step-by-step advice is shared on how to build your brand position, brand identity, and marketing plan.  Since creating brand preference is typically one of your goals, knowing your target audience and their buying patterns is a good place to start.

I would encourage anyone looking for practical tips and strategies on strengthening their brand and/or growing their business to take a closer look at this eGuide.  It is written for a wide audience of professionals – not just marketing folks.

Can Small Businesses Brand Like the Big Guys?

In thirty years of branding, direct marketing and advertising experience, Barry Silverstein learned that there are some basic principles of branding that apply to small and large brand marketers alike.

“Branding 123 includes strategies and techniques I learned from working with and writing about some of the world’s great brands,” says Silverstein. “The Branding 123 eGuide walks small business owners through a proven three-step process for building a breakthrough brand from start to finish. Most brand marketers can’t invest the kind of dollars large companies spend on brands, but they can benefit from applying the same principles the big guys use to build a breakthrough brand.”

In his new guide, Silverstein offers marketers of fledgling brands the opportunity to learn how to build a brand positioning statement, a brand identity, and a brand marketing plan. In the first of three proven steps, he discusses the difference between features and benefits, how to identify both rational and emotional reasons for a brand's appeal, understanding a brand's competition, and knowing how to reach a brand's audience.

Branding 123 is just $2.99. It is available via the Amazon Kindle store, for the iPad and nook, and in any format, incuding a PDF, through Smashwords.com.