Ad-Free Brand, The: Secrets to Building Successful Brands in a Digital World

Today you can build powerful, enduring brands at amazingly low cost — without expensive ad campaigns, huge marketing budgets, self-interested outside agencies, or deep specialized expertise! All you need are passion for your brand, low-cost digital tools, and The Ad-Free Brand.Drawing on his experience helping build Red Hat’s billion-dollar global brand, Chris Grams integrates classic brand positioning concepts with 21st century digital strategies, tools, and practices. Grams presents great new ways to uncover, communicate, and evolve your ideal brand position…embed branding in organizational culture…collaborate with your brand community…avoid costly mistakes…and much more. This step-by-step guide will lead you through the entire brand positioning process, while providing all you need to build a winning brand on a tight budget!


Features

Sidestep the clutter, cost, and ineffectiveness of traditional advertising
Identify “points of difference” your customers will really value
Develop brand positioning that “feels” true because it is true
Dramatically reduce the cost of brand research
Build your brand by guiding, influencing, and being -- not telling
Quickly prototype your brand position, and apply what you learn
Empower the brand advocates who know and love you best
Communicate brand positioning with low-cost social and web tools
Adapt classic positioning techniques for today’s new world
Consistently focus first on low-cost, high-value strategies
Evolve your brand for changing markets, customers, products, and services


Table of Contents

1. An Introduction: Branding in the Digital World
2. A Brand Positioning Primer
3. Brand Positioning Homework
4. The Brand Positioning Workshop
5. Embedding Brand Positioning Internally
6. Social Media and the New Methods of Communicating Brand Positioning Externally
7. Updating Your Brand Positioning
8. Brand Positioning Report Card
9. Additional Resources
10. Conclusion