Branding, Part Deux
Branding vs. Business Model
Was speaking with a friend of mine who has just been hired by a software company to lead their marketing efforts.
We were talking about White Label branding and Ingredient branding, what the differences were, and what she should tell her company to do.
She kept getting more and more confused as to what to do and I became more and more frustrated because it became clear, very quickly, that the issue was not the branding but the business model of the company.
You see, the company wanted to get its software onto other companies hardware. But, they wanted to keep and build their name/brand.
First - do they want to make money and survive or not? How far are they willing to go to make this happen (i.e. how much money are they willing to "not make" or "lose")?
Second - do they have a strategy over how they are going to build their brand?
Third - what have they done to bring both of these together?
So, lets walk through the above:
A company can sell their software for $10 (and the 3rd party wants the software and is willing to pay that amount). The $10 is profitable for them and they can survive as a company. But, the 3rd party will also say, "For this amount, we will not put your name on the product and we want you to label it as "our" software".
So, the strategy and business model can lead to the second step, by offering the 3rd party the software for $8, where the 3rd party gets the price break, but, the brand remains with the developer (my friends company).
Be clear, you must have a strategy for your brand that INCLUDES your business model when you are planning on making your brand famous. Without a strategy, you will waste money and time in trying to develop your brand.
Good luck my friend.