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Branding - Personal or Entity?

by chrris
4 replies
Hi warriors,

I'm curious as to how I should approach branding. I'll give you some context; so I'm starting an online community/social media marketing campaign in a sports niche. The next year, I'll be spending my time making free content - mostly videos on how to play the game, commentary on tactics, tricks, etc - basically just trying to be a helpful resource for people who are learning how to play the game and want to improve.

A big assumption for me at this point is that I need to basically be an online personal trainer - that I want to establish a personal relationship with my audience so that they trust me. This relies a lot on my personal reputation so a more personal branding approach would seem reasonable. A lot of fitness personalities take this approach. (Jillian Michaels, for example)


On the flipside, I could create an entity. And instead of putting more emphasis on myself, I could put an emphasis on the entity. I plan on creating most of the content myself, however, I will have some friends in the videos.

What would you all do?
#branding #entity #personal
  • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
    Good question.

    If YOU are the program, it obviously makes sense to build the brand around you.

    However...

    If the brand is more of a concept, name it... and build your web presence around it.

    I'll give you an example:

    My wife is a Numerologist.

    The name of her business is Nat's Numbers.

    But after testing that branding, it failed to generate the consistent business she wanted.

    So I came up with DecodeMyPurpose.com and build the branding around her "life purpose code." It worked. She's booked like crazy.

    So even though she IS the brand, the concept won out.

    What's the moral of the story?

    Test.

    Mark
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    • Profile picture of the author chrris
      So, just choose one or the other, run with it for a while and then change to the other branding strategy if its not working?

      I like the idea and thanks for the example

      However, that raises few concerns....

      How would I nail down problems and relate it to back branding? What testable variables and relationships would I look for? I may be asking the wrong questions here...I've never really done A/B or multivariate testing before.

      Also, as far as rebranding, that's a tricky thing to implement because it affects so many other things. Did you experience any negative backlash from a rebrand? Particularly as it relates to social media? Did your communication strategy change at all and did your followers engage with you differently?
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      • Profile picture of the author Mark Pescetti
        Originally Posted by chrris View Post

        So, just choose one or the other, run with it for a while and then change to the other branding strategy if its not working?

        I like the idea and thanks for the example

        However, that raises few concerns....

        How would I nail down problems and relate it to back branding? What testable variables and relationships would I look for? I may be asking the wrong questions here...I've never really done A/B or multivariate testing before.
        There are obviously a lot more variables beyond branding, including the quality of your content/copy/videos and the effectiveness of what you're actually offering.

        If I were you, I'd focus on branding "the method" - with yourself as the mouthpiece - from just the little you've shared.

        Originally Posted by chrris View Post

        Also, as far as rebranding, that's a tricky thing to implement because it affects so many other things. Did you experience any negative backlash from a rebrand? Particularly as it relates to social media? Did your communication strategy change at all and did your followers engage with you differently?
        It's not tricky at all.

        Companies, big and small, do it all the time.

        You can keep your content. You're just adjusting the concept or context surrounding it.

        Think of it as an image reboot - no matter how subtle it may be.

        Mark
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  • Profile picture of the author chrris
    So, I spoke with my marketing professor today. She's one of my mentors for this endeavor. She suggested doing both - She used the phrase "hybrid branding" which we learned in class earlier this semester!

    In practice that would look kind of like "welcome to (entity).com with (my name)" so I create an entity and associate myself with it.

    I think I am going to give this method a run because it includes the best of both worlds. It also feels the most comfortable because I don't yet have a credible personal reputation in the industry to rely on.
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