How To Build A Brand Online

I want to share with you how to build a brand online. Building a brand is the ultimate competitive advantage in your business; it is what is going to allow you to succeed and prosper, long-term.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com once said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”. A lot of business owners focus on building a business, rather than a brand.

A study done by Inc. magazine and the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA) revealed that 80 percent of new businesses fail within the first five years.

A lot of people have a passion to build an online business, however they approach it with the mentality of creating/launching a product or service without building a brand. They ignore the asset that a brand can provide, long-term.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

[smart_track_player url=”http://www.buzzsprout.com/9299/444878-plm-377-how-to-build-a-brand-online.mp3″ social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

Do you want to learn how to build a successful six-figure online brand? CLICK HERE to learn more about my Affiliate Marketing Mastery course!

Any product or service that you create today will eventually become irrelevant and obsolete because the world is always changing and evolving. Eventually other people will create new products or services that find better solutions to problems. It's rare to see a product that has lasted 50+ years. How many brands do you know that have been around that long?

When you create a brand, even though the world changes, you can continue to prosper because your brand will have value, whereas the products and services will not.

A brand is a name that mass amounts of people recognize and associate emotion to. For example, when Apple launches a new product, people line up outside of their store in order to get their hands on it because they have a feeling associated with Apple.

When I built ProjectLifeMastery, I focused on building my brand before I created or sold any products. I put out content in order to attract people and build a name for myself.  This is how I have been able to create a 7-figure internet marketing brand.

Eventually, I was able to create products and services underneath that brand, and they have evolved over the years. You need to have a long-term approach to building an online business. If you are merely in it to sell a product and make money, that wont last forever

I’m in this business to build a sustainable brand that can continue to grow as time goes on. If I am going to put in the work, passion, time, and energy into growing a business, than I want to make sure it lasts, long-term.

What is the best way to build a brand online? Create content.  By adding value, it attracts people to your brand. Sure enough, when you launch products, people will buy from you, because they like and trust you. There are multiple platforms where you can create content and promote your brand – Snapchat, Periscope, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Always remember that content is king. As a business owner, I believe that it is imperative that you create and share articles, videos, blog posts, podcasts, etc., with your customers.  It will give you a huge competitive advantage.

This is how I create business for myself, and what I spend most of my time doing. Today, most content that you find online is video. Research shows that, in 10 years from now, 90% of content online is going to be video.

The world constantly changes and you need to adapt with it. As Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change”. Commit to creating a strong, flexible online brand that people will remember, and that will be sustainable, long-term.

Video transcript

All right, guys. Let's talk a little bit about how to build a brand online. A brand is the ultimate competitive advantage in your business. It is what's going to allow you to succeed and prosper for many years to come.  The challenge is that a lot of business owners focus on building a business and not a brand. They don't have the mentality of building a brand, and unfortunately, the stats show that within a ten-year period, 96% of businesses fail.

Within the first year, half of them are gone. A 50% drop off. Within five years, 80%. Within ten years, 96% of businesses fail long-term.  There are lot of people out there that want to make money online, which is totally fine. You are free to do so, however, they are approaching it with the mentality of creating and selling a product or a service, and not building a brand, and the asset net value that it can provide, long-term. The challenge with that is that any product or service that you create today will eventually become irrelevant or obsolete.

Because, the truth is, the world is always changing

It's always evolving.  Any product that you create or sell that solves a problem or that meets a need, there will be people out there that are creating new products and services, and finding better ways to meet other people's problems and solve issues. It's very rare to see a product that has lasted over fifty years. Because the world is always changing, there are always going to be better solutions that are created as time goes on.

In the same way, how many brands do you know that have been around for fifty years? There are a lot more of them, because a brand gives you the ability to sell products and services underneath that brand.  As the world changes, you can continue to prosper because the brand has the value, whereas the products and services don't. I remember reading a great story about Steve Jobs.  He asked his team, “Guys, what business are we in?” His team said, “We in the business of selling computers”.

Steve thought about that and he said, “That's not the business that we need to be in.” He said, “The business that we need to be in long-term is to connect people with their passions.” Sure enough, Apple, the biggest company in the world, the biggest brand, they've had many different products throughout the years. They started with the computer, the Mac Book, and everything, and they grew from there, and because they recognized that, the Mac Book and all the other products they have are 15% of their business. Do you know what 85% of Apple is?

What are their products and business? The iPhone. Even this iPhone 7 that I have right here, within ten years from now, this is going to be an obsolete product. No one's going to be buying the iPhone 7 ten years from now because there's always better solutions being made available. Very important to understand that. Very important to recognize why it's important to build a brand. Because, by building a brand, you can launch products and services underneath it. Apple, when they launch a new product, I don't care what it is, Apple could launch anything they want.

People will line up outside of the Apple store for hours, and hours in advance to be able to get their hands on that product because they have a feeling, an emotion associated with Apple. What is a brand? The way that I define a brand is a name, a name that a mass amount of people recognize and associate an emotion to. That's all a brand really is. It's just a name that, hopefully, you have trademarked in some way, because that's, you want to protect that name that you have, but it's a name that a mass number of people recognize and associate emotion to.

Think of the biggest brands that you know out there, Coca-Cola, Apple, Microsoft. There are car brands of Ford, and Honda, Toyota, et cetera. There are many different brands out there, and if you look at them, you'll see how many products year after year they're always innovating, and innovation is what's going to allow you to prosper and succeed long-term. Building a brand, guys, one of the most important things.

Focus on building a brand

When I built Project Life Mastery, I focused on building my brand before I even created and sold any product. I focused on building a blog, and a YouTube Channel, and putting out content to attract people, and build a name for myself, my brand. Then eventually, from there, I was able to create products and services underneath that brand, and some of the products that I've created have evolved as the years have gone by. The brand is really what the value is in my business. It's not the products that I have, it's the brand value.

The name, the feelings that people associate with my brand. That's the key thing, guys. You got to build it up. That's got to be your mentality in your business, and you're going to have that long-term approach, because people that I know that make money online, they're just in it just to sell a product, make some money. Great. They can make some money, but how long is it going to last? What you don't realize is a lot of people out there making money online, and they only make money for a short period of time.

I'm in it, and hopefully, you are, as well, to build a business that can continue to grow as time goes on, and make more money as time goes on, and be sustainable. Because, if you're going to put the work, the effort, the time, the energy, the money, the passion into something, and then you better be in it for the long run. I don't know why you'd want to do anything for the short-term, right? You want to always think long-term and building something, building an asset that has value.

I know a lot of people out there, they just, they find a trick, a gimmick, a loophole, some sort of strategy that doesn't involve building a brand. Sure, they make money from it, but as things evolve and change, they've got to start all over again, right? They've got to build a new trick, or gimmick, or strategy, that they got to find to be able to always stay on top. Brand gives you the competitive advantage long-term, and by building a brand, too, other people can't compete with you.

Because why does someone spend $4,000 on a Louis Vuitton purse? Right? When you could buy another purse that's just as functional and practical for $20? It's the brand value that people associate to that. It gives them an incredible advantage in the market that other people can't compete with, with Louis Vuitton. There's a lot that I could say about building a brand, but the most, the ways that you could do it online. There are actually many different ways, but I think one of the most important, the most valuable ways is by creating content.

Content is one of the best ways of building a brand

Creating content and information, either in video, article, on social media, by creating content and giving that away, and adding value to other people, what that's going to do that's going to attract people to you. You're going to attract people, too, that are going to enjoy your content, and receive it, and benefit from it, and they're going to associate the value, the benefit that they get to your brand. Right? That's how I build my business. I create content, and we live in the content age, by the way.

If you look at online, what is available online is content. You go onto your Facebook feed, what do you see? Content, videos, articles, images, that's all content. Right? You go to Google, do a search, what shows up is content. You go to Instagram, what shows up is content. Snapchat, Periscope, all content. There are many different forms of content, but the content is king. You always got to remember that. You got to be a content creator in your business, which means that you got to put up articles, videos, every business has got to have a blog.

If you want to do YouTube, you can do that, as well. You can do a podcast. There are many different ways of doing it. Instagram, and Facebook, and Twitter, et cetera. Putting up content in those ways. Pinterest. There are many different platforms that allow you to be able to create content and be able to share it. Again, by you providing value, people associate emotion to that, and they're going to trust you. They're going to follow you. They're going to enjoy what you have to share.

Then, sure enough, when you launch products or you recommend a product, or whatever it might be, people are going to buy from you, because they like, know, and trust you. They're going to be more likely to buy from a brand that they recognize and that they associate emotion to, rather than no brand at all. If you're selling on Amazon, a physical product, why should people buy your product from you as opposed to anyone else?

Well, one of the reasons that give you an advantage is your brand, and by you creating content and sharing, and helping people in that way, there can be two different products. Someone is going to buy from you more than the other person because they know you. They like you. They trust you. Right? More than the other person. It might be a similar product they don't know anything about. Content is one of the best ways to build a brand. Okay.

Blog, YouTube, again, all the … I think you should do it all in business. I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't. Most content online today is video. If you look at Facebook, your Facebook feed. You'll see a lot more videos than anything else. Snapchat, Periscope, Facebook video. Video is big. I actually heard and read that in ten years, 90% of the content online is going to be video. Again, you've got to adapt. You've got to evolve. Do video. If you're uncomfortable on video, you got to get over it.

Okay. I mean, kids are growing up with video today, and I see kids that are fifteen years old that are crushing it on video. Where here, you're thirty, or forty, or fifty, sixty years old, and you're not willing to change and adapt to how the world is, and what people want, and what they desire. The world changes. You have to adapt to it. If you don't change or evolve, you're going to be left behind. As Charles Darwin says, “It's not the strongest of the species or the smartest that survives. It is he who is the most adaptable to change.”

You got to adapt to change

You've got to … We live in a world of transparency. That's what social media is, guys. It's people sharing. Sharing. Sharing themselves, their lives, what they're doing, et cetera, and again, that's going to give you a huge advantage if you can adapt as well. Okay. Creating content is key.

Another way, I mean, essentially what big companies do. Coca-Cola, for example. They create content, as well, but they put their content on TV, right? They have advertisements and commercials, and what they do, is they try to evoke emotion in some way to associate that with their brand. For example, Coca-Cola years ago, they took Michael Jackson. They had him in a commercial. Michael Jackson, a lot of people associate a lot of positive emotion to his music, and everything.

They associate that to Coca-Cola. Big brands, they go after celebrities to endorse their products. Because then they can use their brand value to help build their brand, to have them represent their brand, so there are things that these big corporations do. These big brands do that. They've got a very mainstream product that can really appeal to the masses, so there are things that they can do that might not be as relevant for you, but in terms of online, creating content is the way to do it. That's what I focus on. That's how I built my business.

Even if you're publishing books online, on Kindle, I don't care what business. I think every business can benefit from the content. I don't know which one can't. By you creating it, you can attract people, and again, promote a book, promote a product, promote whatever. Whatever that might meet the person's needs or be able to benefit from it. That's how you build a brand, guys. Create content. That's what I focus on. If you look at my business, that's where I spend most of my time doing.

Conclusion

It's one of the most important skills you can have in your business, that I would not outsource. I would learn to improve it and master it, because your ability to create content is going to improve as time goes on.  That is going to give you a huge advantage and help save you a lot of money as well. However, you could build a brand by having other content creators.  I know bloggers that have guest posters and contributors to their blog.

News channels, like CNN are all based on contributors. Journalists contribute to CNN. Wikipedia has tons of different contributors.  You can build a brand without having to create the content yourself. You can outsource content, but again, quality content is going to be more expensive, or you could bring in content creators and build a brand that way. There are many ways of doing it.

That's what I've done. That's what I focus on. That's what I try to teach and help people understand. A lot of this I teach inside my Affiliate Marketing Mastery Course, which is primarily focused on building a brand and how I built, be able to build my seven figure brand, Project Life Mastery, over the years and strategies that I teach and do for everything. Really, I'm very transparent in that program and share as much as I can in helping people to be able to do that, but I share a lot of it there.

If you guys what to learn more, go to affiliatemarketingmastery.com. I have a link below the description, but I'm going to end things here, guys. Hopefully, you enjoyed this video. Again, the mentality of building a brand, very important. Leave a comment below. Hit the thumbs up. I'll see you guys in the next video. Take care. Please leave a comment below or let me know any questions you have.  I'd love to hear what you think!