It has and it hasn’t. The core of branding, which is building a memorable look and feel as well as a product personality, has a decades long track record. By nature, target audiences are uncomfortable with unfamiliar, comfortable with familiar. Branding creates familiarity.

The conduits through which you promote your brand look and personality have changed and newer ideas on how to market it have popped up as a result.

I find the biggest challenge is keeping clients on track with their brand in every aspect– educating them that it works but it’s not always an immediate cause and effect. Some people are just very literal.

For example, some send out direct mail and expect to sell something from it pronto. I paid x amount of dollars and should get xx amount back. I went to a chamber event and it’s worthless because no one hired me right then. That kind of thinking will limit your growth.

It’s not always like that and building a brand takes time–something impatient Americans don’t always understand. If you are in a relationship marketing service field, you simply want to elevate your brand to top-of-mind awareness.

That way when you follow up after they’ve been exposed through many media channels, you will have created familiarity and people become more comfortable with you. They’ve “heard” of you so to speak. So if they hear of you (your brand) through sponsorship, social media, direct mail, enewsletters and networking they have an idea about you and are educated in what you have to offer. So it’s the synergy of all your efforts at branding that creates a brand success story.