Your product is not your brand
Your product (or service) is full of functionality. It has details – the nuts and bolts. The features, the colors, and the warranty. And it all prompts lots of description of what it does and how it does it.
We obsess over relaying all this detail to our prospects. Sometimes, it consumes us to the point where we never do anything more than promote our products.
As a result, too often, the brand goes untended.
Oh, I hear the defense. The "brand elements" are present. It's a weak rationalization. Promoting your product is not the same as promoting your brand. Sure there are brand elements in that video you created. You most likely have your logo in it. You probably used your brand colors and fonts as well. You may even have a tagline. Yes, these support the brand.
But if you limit yourself to thinking that this is enough, you are missing one of the most engaging opportunities available to you.
Your brand is not a luxury.
The idea of promoting your brand can be viewed as superfluous. Like it's something that you do only if you have the time and money.
Your brand holds the potential to become the emotional expression of who you are. Why is that important? Because human beings make decisions in the part of their brains responsible for emotions. They then use that part of their brains responsible for rational thought (and language) to rationalize those decisions the emotional part of the brain just made.
If you think people are making calculated, unemotional decisions about engaging with you, you're fooling yourself (you can blame the rational part of your brain).
This is why world-class organizations make the effort to nurture their brands. To fill them with meaning. Because they know the emotional bonds the brand has the potential to create. And the power of those bonds to turn those you serve into advocates and evangelists for your brand.
It's how to become irresistible
Your product is your product. It fills a need. But your brand does something more powerful. It fulfills a desire. A desire to feel part of something. Or to feel understood. Or feel inspired. And more.
Those are powerful outcomes. Outcomes that are only achieved when we reach beyond the limited engagement power of the product to tap into the magic that a well-tended brand can deliver.
Yes, your product or service is important. If well positioned and characterized, it can make you a preferred selection. But it is your brand that will make you irresistible.