Today at The Blog Herald, we're talking about how you can transfer equity from your current brand to the next. As blogs mature, the conversation is shifting from merely developing a voice and getting traffic, to leveraging that traffic to build a business. If you're building a brand that you plan to sell one day, it becomes more important to separate yourself from the online asset over time.
The point of my post there is that brand equity can be transferred. It would be nice to know exactly what kind of business you're going to be in and plan to grow your brand in that direction. Things don't always go as planned. Especially when you find the opportunity resides perhaps in a slice of your original offering, or maybe just the opposite, you find that what you do appeals to a much broader base.
Many bloggers in my network have adjusted the course over time. In some cases, a blog redesign brought about the recalibration. In others, a book, or a special project that evolved into a specialty offering. How many hours do you spend writing (and researching, marketing) for your blog per week? Even if you are using this tool as a medium to get the word out about your business, chances are that in the next year or so, you will look to develop a way to make this a business as well.
What I'm seeing is a shift in focus from the conversation to a business outcome for many blogs. For the sake of definitions, to me marketing conversation is a need/want based exchange where your customer and his problem is at the center. In a business context, your brand embodies the biggest verifiable benefit you can put to the results your customers need.
I see a lot of opportunity for bloggers to conduct this conversation right - because they grew up in an environment where people can opt in vs. having to opt out. Now it's a matter of learning how to build equity in those online brands so that they may become business ventures themselves in addition to leading to business.
[image extrapolated from PowerBranding, by Brandt & Johnson.]