Brand Y-O-U

In the race to find customers, sales and success for our companies’ (or clients’) brands, marketers sometimes forget about the leading brand in any industry — Brand YOU.

It’s important not to forget about Brand YOU. Or about investing time in building your brand and making it better. And of course not doing anything to tarnish your brand — it’s too easy to find nowadays.

Brand YOU is critical for marketers for several reasons. So much of what we do involves selling ideas we believe in — whether it’s a launch strategy for a client’s product, spending on a new tactic, changing a marketing plan or creative that’s been the same for a while, or going after a new market. Just like in the store aisle, a strong brand and strong recall means something. It lends equity to those ideas we sell.

A strong Brand YOU is also critical in tough job markets like now (really, in any job market it’s important). A rich job history and track record of proven results are great thinga for any marketer — yet if nobody knows it, if there are no Brand YOU evangelists spreading the word, if there is no viral marketing about Brand YOU, are you getting the most out of all the hard work you put in? You have to make the effort to market yourself. Meet people, comment on blogs, attend networking events, reach out to people you don’t know and get to know them, start a blog. Of course, you can sit back and just prove what you know to anyone who asks — yet it’s alot easier when you don’t have to prove it, because someone else who knows it has already made your case.

This is important whether you’re happy in your job, not on the job market, not looking, and perfectly content. Because things can change very fast (just like in our markets) and you need to be ready.

It’s not always easy to do all you have to do in a given day. Yet don’t let too many days pass without investing time in Brand YOU. Marketers work too hard to let our own brands wither from lack of effort.