Make yourself stand out

Knowing how to market yourself can make the difference. But how do you do this? What makes icons like Nike and Coke stand out from it's competitors? This unsure land that businesses sink or swim in is called the brand gap. It's knowing the difference between marketing and branding and how to use both.

Now I know that you are asking yourself, there is a difference in marketing and branding? I am here to tell you there is! We will start with marketing. The easier of the two, well maybe. Let's start with a product, it can be anything, now you take this product and deciede that you need to advertise it. Get the word out. Well what are it's features? What does it do? What do you want people to think about it? And other such questions... So you come up with a campain. Now after you figured all that out and who you want to sell it and have your campain to you think you are ready to send it out into the world to make you money.

But have you asked yourself, what is the lifestyle of the people buying this product? Or even better what do you want them to think their lifestyle is after they buy your product? Studies have shown that it's not necessarily what the product can do for their lives that sells the item but what people think of themselves after they have bought the item. Does it make them feel hip, cool, in the know, or even rich. The iPHONE (or any product from apple) is a great example of how this works. You can buy an iPHONE and feel like you are part of the "cool" group or "in the know", even though you haven't changed who you are one bit.

Now some people think you can get by with just one or the other of these two different strategies. And some companies do. But if you combine the two together...that's when you get the Apples, Cokes and Nikes of the world.

But now you ask is there some magic formula to get there. No, but there are things that you can do to help you get there. First ask yourself 3 questions:
1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Why is that important?

The first two are simple, it's the answer that you give to the third that will make you stand out. Of coarse there are a few other things too, but one of the most important is you are never afraid to try anything. And if you fail, get up and try again. It's always ok to fail, just never fail twice the same way. Good luck!