Our photographer could expand her business while maintaining focus by publishing a book, printing greeting cards and calendars, or teaching lessons, all in her specialized area.

She?ll know she?s created a powerful brand when her name is the first one to pop onto a parent?s head when they want a ?hero shot? of their young soccer player.

Publicity First, Advertising Later

One of the great benefits of being first in a new category is that you become newsworthy. Newspapers and magazines, TV and radio are always looking for ?something new under the sun.?

Remember Pet Rocks? This small outfit gained international coverage, all of it free, for their unique idea. Millions of Pet Rocks were sold with virtually no advertising costs.

Advertising alone is rarely enough to create a new brand, although lots of businesses try that route. Remember the Super Bowl of a few years ago when the media was filled with stories about the millions that were spent on 30-second ads? This was supposed to be the launching of several new dot com businesses and the amount of money spent to launch these brands was incredible. In spite of all that money and the creative efforts of Madison Avenue?s finest minds, those businesses failed quickly and are totally forgotten today.

A better path is the one followed by Google, the world?s most popular search engine. Google wasn?t the first search engine, but they created a new way to rank web sites that garnered them huge amounts of free publicity. I?ve never seen an ad for Google, and yet just about everyone who has surfed the web has heard of it. Just this morning our local paper ran a large article about Google?s decision not to sell shares of stock in the company yet. More free publicity, which will further boost the strength of their brand.

Conclusion

Focusing your business until you?ve created your own category is just one step to branding your business. An excellent resource for learning more ways to create a strong brand is the book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (http://www.zmoon.com/cgi-bin/pl.pl?branding22) by Al and Laura Ries. Next time I?ll have some specific ideas on how to brand yourself through your web site. Until then, stay focused!

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About the Author

Les Goss is President of ZebraMoon Design, Inc. To see a partial list of high-ranking web sites we've created for our clients, please visit our web site at http://www.zmoon.com. Sign up for our free newsletter at http://www.zmoon.com/webdesigntips.html. You'll receive two issues a month on topics that should help you stay a step ahead of your competition.