I don’t know where it is coming from but I have another slightly controversial blog post for you today. It is the result of a conversation I had with a friend about branding for his small business. It was a great conversation, but the outcome surprised me. We came to the conclusion that what you read online about branding does not apply to most small and medium businesses online. Don’t get me wrong, branding makes sense for Coca Cola, Nike or Honda. These are huge consumer companies that benefit from having people know their names. The idea is that when people make buying decisions, they will favor products whose names they recognize. Brand name products usually outsell generic ones, and not necessarily because of quality. The main reason is trust. I believe that this is why branding gets so much focus online. After all, in order to be successful online, you need to be able to develop a relationship of trust with your prospects. I certainly agree with that statement. So, let’s take a look at what branding is. In my opinion it is the selling of a company name or product through general advertising. When the customer is facing the dilemma of choosing between your product versus another one, he chooses the brand he is familiar with. Based on this definition, it is clear that branding is a name recognition issue. I would like to point out that branding is different from a unique selling proposition (USP). A USP is a critical asset in marketing for almost any product. The USP explains why your product/service is different from anyone else. Where a brand will affect the customers choice based on the product name, the USP will affect customer behavior because of the unique benefits. In essence, the USP will have a similar effect on the customer for a small business that branding has for a large (retail) business. The big difference is that branding is extremely expensive whereas USP does not have to be. But apart from the money, the main take away is that branding is the wrong thing to focus on for small and most medium size businesses. In contrast to what a lot of “gurus” are saying, you should focus on your USP and not on branding. I have to admit that until I had this conversation with my friend, I did not realize this (nor did he). It is amazing how easily we can be mislead by what others are writing. Or am I wrong in my statements. Please don’t hesitate to share your views, even if they are totally different from mine. I really appreciate your opinions. Let me know if you agree, or if you think that I am totally off base. [...]