What is Branding and How Does It Rock Your Sales Efforts?
Humor us for just a moment. Think of the other kind of branding, cattle branding. The practice of marking livestock to identify ownership goes back to ancient Egyptian times. And the Romans believed that when brands included “magical” symbols, they had the power to protect animals from harm. Nowadays, as branding is under the scrutiny of animal welfare groups, the brand shifted to the logo, signage, and letterhead for many ranches, standing as a beacon to spread the indelible message of a company’s practices and reputation. Just with the brand image, livestock customers know what a particular brand image stands for.
As a marketing term, what is branding? The business application for this word can be defined as a process to create a consistent name and image in a customer’s mind. As in Roman times, this modern application of business branding conjures up magical powers. The brand image carries the power to attract buyers to your retail doorstep and retain their loyalty.
Branding can also cast an evil spell when it is mishandled, making your company appear invisible, or even make you appear substandard against your competitors. A poor brand image can tank a company’s reputation.
Branding is not only a process—It is the end result of what you convey to your customers. What do your customers expect from your products and services? How do they compare you against other businesses in your field? And finally, can your customers believe in you and trust you to deliver exactly what you promise?
Your branding strategy is your game plan for planting the seeds of positive recognition. What do you want to convey to your customers from the get go? Business goal soul-searching is required to create a successful brand strategy:
• Define how your company and products are different and superior in the marketplace with your mission statement. Our free SWOT analysis worksheet helps you determine your niche in your business sector.
• Describe the benefits and features of your offerings, zeroing in on resolving your client’s needs. First measure your customer’s needs. Then, start writing to formulate your digital identity.
• Research your current customers’ opinions of your company. And when you are just launching your business, research what they think of your competitors, their products, and their services.
• Determine the qualities and benefits about your company that customers should recognize. See how you fulfill their every want. What do you want your target customers and your loyal customer base to think of when they first glance at your logo, your letterhead, your storefront, your business cards, and your promotional collateral?
Here’s the bottom-line—Branding is about creating the best first impression of your company. It’s not about convincing with words and facts. It’s about your customer base instantly viewing your company in a positive light without any hard-sales effort on your part.
How do you get there? Digital (online) branding is the way to go. Consider that over 51% of smartphone users discover new products or companies while performing searches on their smartphones. Particularly for industrial manufacturers, B2B customers are increasingly using mobile devices for product research and purchase activities (42% use mobile, a growth of 91% over the past two years). (Source of stats: Google) Regardless of your industry, you simply can’t afford to ignore digital branding.
Apply with your initial brand strategy research for digital placement:
• Create a brand logo. Your logo is the visual statement of your promise to your customers. Hire a professional digital designer to develop your brand style guide to ensure consistent application of your logo and tagline to online and offline marketing messages. Transform their existing traditional brand into a digital expression, adapting your logo to animation, reformatting to fit various size requirements per platform and social media profile. Your digital graphic designer helps you discover the best logo size and placement, color palette, fonts, photography styles and images, and more for each marketing opportunity.
• Develop a tagline, a succinct memorable and meaningful statement that captures the true essence of your company’s brand. Place it wherever your company information appears. You’ve hit a home run with your tagline when customers see your logo and instantly recall your tagline.
• Formulate your brand’s voice. Emotion sells, even for highly technical products and services. Hone in on the “why” for your audience to buy from you. Maintaining a consistent personality that resonates with your core customers translates to trust. Is your voice conversational or factual? Is it traditional or modern? Partner with experienced content writers who take the time to learn about your business offerings, especially for tech marketing. They find the perfect words to address and answer your customer’s pains, and most importantly.
• Build a simple and clear brand message to communicate to customers exactly who you are. Utilize your brand voice to describe in just a couple of sentences what you offer and why customers should pay attention. Don’t list what your products do—Address specific items that are important to the customer. Your brand message is a key building block to gaining quantitative results your content marketing.
Spread the word about your company by inserting your brand image into every aspect of your business. Wherever your company appears, your brand message, logo, tagline, and voice must act as a siren song for customers to click onto your website links, visit your blog, contact you for more information, and of course, make purchases. Formulate a stealth brand message, spread it wherever your target customers roam online, and you’ll see an increase your profit margin.
Online branding requires a thorough understanding of how to put your company’s best foot forward in the digital marketplace. Rely on experts to get it right the first time—Our Moore Than SEO team accumulated years of knowledge and experience executing technical, and non-technical content design, writing, and marketing. Contact us for your free consultation to rock your sales efforts at 559-978-4096.
