The Who, Where, What, When, and How of Building a Brand

So, you have decided to start your own on-line company; good for you! One of the first steps you will need to consider is determining what types of goods or services your new company will provide. Since there are infinitesimal varieties of products and services you could potentially offer customers, it makes sense to narrow down your parameters.

Choosing the “Who”-Your Target Audience and Competition

The “who” is your targeted audience and they must be clearly defined. Any goods or services you wish to market must be relevant to your targeted audience. You will first need to focus and define that audience.

Who would you like to target as a potential market for your goods or services?

Is there a particular group such as hobbyists that seems appealing? Are you an expert on a particular subject that could be marketable to a suitable customer base? Depending upon potential product and services, your targeted audience could be anyone from anywhere.

Ask yourself if you want to target your brand to other businesses, to private consumers or both? What age group, sex, race, etc. would be more inclined to use a proposed product brand?  The choice for picking a target audience is as large as the imagination, but an essential first step.

Pick a “who” and then perform a careful detailed market analysis to narrow down your target by interest, demographics and common trends.  Determine if current market conditions are favorable for a particular brand of goods and services to this audience.Find out what barriers might hinder your new brand’s success and what things might be done to overcome those barriers.

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Internet branding is as important as any other marketing tool used to establish a reputation. Webmasters contribute to the success of well-designed websites by adding that technical element that shapes the users experience. Webmasters add that visual impact needed to draw and retain visitors. If a website is designed well, visitors return. If visitors return, it’s likely that they will tell others about the site. Pretty soon, the site will be promoted as the number one site for that particular service.  Improving Internet branding can be obtained by consistent advertising. Internet branding can be an affordable tool that strengthens the corporate identity. The online reputation of a company is crucial nowadays.

With the multitude of layoffs and corporate failings, companies are seeking to push affordable branding methods to regain the public’s trust. Typically, Internet branding can be quite costly. Although the payoff is attractive, it can pinch corporate budgets. There are several companies who offer consultations on Internet branding with affordable branding as an option. In today’s economic climate, affordable branding ought to be a necessity!

Affordable branding and corporate identity are two crucial elements that new businesses seek. These affordable branding packages that websites and companies offer include web design and development, hosting and some programming. If affordable branding is what you seek, make sure the value is high. Affordable branding includes items like a toll-free telephone number or printed merchandise with your corporate brand.  Other affordable branding products include notepads, mouse pads, lip balm, or laptop accessories.

Selecting a Domain

A prime example of effective Internet branding is Google’s website. Google would be called something like thebestsearchengine.com if it were not for its Internet branding. Google created a simple, seemingly affordable (no Flash or superfluous web design tricks) brand via the Internet. The success of the site took place the first time the visitor used the site. The ease of use and optimum search results made Google retain customers. That is the goal of Internet branding.

Choosing a great domain name is a vital decision in starting your Internet presence and establishing your brand. Domain names are a great example of affordable branding. You have the choice of up to 67 characters, although that is not advisable! There are several websites to choose from that allow you to find out  if a domain name has already been registered, or offer you options if the commercial extension is taken. In Internet branding, the domain name should be clever, easy to remember and say something about your website’s content.  The other factor is that with an easy to remember domain name, visitors can come directly to your website instead of going through a search engine.

A webmaster has the technical expertise to select a web package that best suits the company’s needs. Affordable branding options are available in terms of hosting, ftping files and overall technical configuration. It’s just a matter of research and keeping in mind the corporate brand.

Designing for Internet Branding

In order for a company to start its Internet branding campaign, a design team needs establish the company’s virtual ‘voice’.  That ‘voice’ in Internet branding equals the uniform corporate theme, colors, print media, logo, etc. This aspect of Internet branding would not necessarily be lumped into affordable branding. In bigger, more established companies, much of the corporate design budget is allocated to web design. Affordable branding can be accomplished though! Expanding aspects of a website or maintaining its growth can be achieved at a lowest cost. Regardless of the affordable branding tips that you find or hear about, the goal of Internet branding is to manage the company’s reputation.

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Every business owner wants his or her company to stand out in the vast sea of online retailers. Branding is a crucial part of gaining new customers and seeing high profits month after month. Branding is not simply creating a theme for your company, but creating an overall image. Branding is an encompassing term that relates to five specific topics - your logo, your slogan, your web design, your marketing theme, and you overall company attitude. For a business owner, especially a small business owner, branding can seem like an extremely daunting task. However, branding is really no more difficult than any other aspect of running a business. Like anything else, branding is a skill that just takes a little time and a lot of practice to master. Here are some branding tips to get you started.

Logo - A killer logo is the first step in successfully branding your business. Companies like Coca-Cola and Apple Computers know this, and that is why more than half of the world’s population can recognize their logos immediately. Never simply go with clip art or your company name in a bold font. Work with a professional designer and really brainstorm an image that will stick in the heads of potential customers.

Slogan - After the logo, your business’ slogan is the second most important part of branding your company. If I say the words “just do it”, you immediately think of Nike, right? That slogan doesn’t only improve sales for Nike, it aids in it’s overall branding. As in, Nike doesn’t just become a retailer where people buy shoes, it becomes a strong background of athletic culture. You don’t just associate this company with footwear, you associate it with the overall athletic experience. That is a good example of successful branding. Your slogan shouldn’t just relate to your product, it should relate to the overall experience that customers can look forward to when using your product.

Web Design - A great web site is an important part of branding. Everyone in the Western world is familiar with Apple Computer’s simplistic and user friendly web site. In today’s digital age, more and more people are choosing to obtain most of their products and entertainment via the internet, which is why a strong web design is crucial to the branding of your business.

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The Internet has transformed customer buying behavior as never before. Branding your new on-line business involves much more than simply choosing a brand name and asking customers to choose your brand over your competitor’s.

Companies participating in e-commerce compete for customers in an ever expanding marketplace. Understanding how on-line consumers develop familiarity with a brand, and ultimately loyalty to that brand, is crucial to any new e-brand’s success.

These image branding tips will provide ideas to help you choose a name for your new e-brand and ways to distinguish your brand from other similar brands on the internet.

Image Branding Tip #1-Understanding SEO: The 1st key to branding success

Appearing among the top-ranking search engine results is the single most important factor affecting new e-brand recognition. Real world brick and mortar businesses used to rely heavily on branding strategies like advertising on radio and television, or in printed newspaper and magazine ads.

These older branding strategies are relative ineffective for marketing new e-brands. Successful on-line e-branding may lead to real world brand recognition, but rarely visa-versa. One of the most rewarding things any new e-business owner can do is to learn everything they can about search engine optimization and how to optimize their website.

Image Branding Tip #2-Provide quality site content.

The quality of site content is the primary thing that draws on-line visitors to your website. Never forget that a competitor’s site is just a mouse click away. Visitors are looking for information. Provide them with what they want and they will return for more.

There are thousands, if not millions of websites offering the same or similar products and services. These websites often have very little to distinguish one from another. Unless you convincingly show site visitors your e-brand is somehow superior to the competition, your new brand and on-line business will not withstand the competition.

Image Branding Tip #3-Know what your customer wants

Don’t just produce a product and then try to brand and market it on-line. First, find out what your targeted audience wants or really needs. Then, try to meet that need with either a new product or service, or a better version of an older one. What can you provide that your competitors aren’t offering? What can you do better?

It is much easier to convince visitors to your website that you have the solution to their problems than to try and convince them to buy something they don’t really need or want.

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What do Nike, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola all have in common? If you said that they were well-known corporations that would be half true. All three of these corporations utilize corporate branding and have a recognizable image that the public knows without having to reveal the name of the company. Their corporate branding and image have been built with such strength that everyone knows what they sell. In business, this term is called corporate branding. In cyberspace it can spell dollars. It’s the consistent message that you market to the public and the emotional response or perception that people have when they think of your business. Successful corporate branding and image branding translates to customer loyalty, increased revenue and image marketing. Corporate branding and image branding should be consistently maintained and should stick in the consumers’ minds.  Often, consumers will remember the colors or the logo of a company - the image of the company. Corporate branding is the public relations of the business world. And there’s no better place for PR than the company’s website.

Building a Corporate Brand

Corporate branding and image branding are all around us. It’s in printing, logos and on the Internet. We cannot use a mouse pad or come across a refrigerator magnet without seeing a company’s image branded on the product. The purpose of image branding and corporate branding is to repetitively market your product or idea to the customer so that they recognize it instantly. More importantly, companies want that brand recognition to build revenue. Webmasters who own or run a website should approach image branding as a marketing tool and if an e-commerce website, a revenue generator. Deciding how strong an image brand for your site should be depends upon your objective for the website. If your website was designed to build and attract consumers, than image branding is a needed tool. On the other hand, if your website plans to draw visitors as an intermediary to a bigger website, than there’s no need to heavily invest in image branding. It’s easier to keep existing visitors than to attract new ones.

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The importance of branding should hardly come as any surprise.  Brands and logos are some of the most resonant images in the minds of consumers today. This is splendid if you, like McDonald’s or Coca-Cola, already have well established brands that practically serve as their own advertising.  But how does a startup company establish and create its own brand?  Here are a few important strategies for developing your brand.

Establish your brand’s dominance in your niche

Initially you must determine what your niche is.  This is extremely important; you don’t want to be one of the many businesses in your niche, you want to be the only (or best) one.  So look for areas where there is a relative vacuum, and launch your startup’s brand there.  In some cases, it may be best to define your brand geographically.  If you can target your startup to a particular region or community, not only can it help define your niche but it can also help establish the dominance of your brand in the minds of your target audience.

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The Internet has been an integral device in changing the face of brand marketing. It shifts the burden of advertising from an outsourcing industry, where a separate company is used to target the needs of marketing a product. The Internet has taken a traditional industry, and opened it up to a new world of possibilities, adding new strategic ways to market businesses, products and services.

Web based marketing ties together the creative aspects of development and design from old school advertising techniques, with the technical aspects of the information superconductor that is the internet, to give birth to a whole new genre of marketing. The Internet has forever changed how marketing and advertising are handled.

Traditional Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail marketing is a strategic approach that has been used for decades, and involves directly soliciting clients, repeat business and new business through a letter or postcard delivered by mail. This is an effective way to reach a large volume of people, at a fraction of the cost of a magazine, billboard or radio advertisement.

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A main component of a successful Internet branding marketing campaign is visibility. Marketing a product is a way of increasing the product or slogan’s visibility, raising awareness and getting the word out about your fabulous product or service. Once you are able to do this, you can then determine how best to entice potential customers. But first, they need to know it’s out there.

The Blog

A Blog is a type of online journal where people can freely express their ideas and interests. They can be about anything in particular, or nothing at all—blogs are often a forum for people to share ideas and information, and develop a community of people with similar thoughts and interests.

Blogs as Advertising

Blogs, in a sense, are an inherent way of advertising. If you are blogging about your life,  your new job, or a new house, you are actually advertising something – it’s just that you are advertising yourself. T

Creating a blog for your company is a powerful marketing technique that is a popular way to bring attention to your products and services. Blogging is also a strategic way to raise branding awareness and offer insight to your company and products. Blogging can raise brand awareness for your product by spreading the visibility of your company. A blog is another forum in which to impart information – and by having a blog for your company, you may reach potential customers who were not previously on your radar.

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Brand image is the perception consumers have of a particular brand. Just how important is a successful brand image to a company involved in e-commerce? Well, ask yourself, “What’s really in a name?”

A rose by any other name, would smell just as sweet. And while this may be obvious to the olfactory senses, consider this: Close your eyes and mentally picture a beautiful fragrant long-stemmed rose. Now, across that mental picture stamp the word “daisy” in bold letters. True, both are flowers; but this new mental image doesn’t seem very believable now, does it?

Successful Branding Creates Unforgettable Mental Images

The human brain tends to mentally reject new names for well-recognized images once a mental picture and name have successfully “branded” together into our memories. That is why some common products are recognized synonymously by their brand name. More often than not, most people refer to a box of facial tissues as “Kleenex” because that name is “branded” into our minds synonymously with an image of facial tissues.

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Developing a business online is all about building an online presence. The popular term “your reputation precedes you” is highly relevant and significantly true on the Internet.

There is nothing more important to your online presence than your slogan. This is the witty one or two line saying that will be uttered and it shall illicit thoughts of your business. It is the enduring image of your business online. Your slogan is the way that your business will live on and grow through out the Internet. It is for this reason that you will want to make sure that your slogan says the right things about you and your business.

Step One

Find a single area of your business to focus on when it comes to your slogan. A slogan that is too general will not be easily remembered. When you focus on one aspect of your business to create an online presence, you are choosing to place your best foot forward.

Step Two

A slogan should be focused around a product or service. If your slogan does not direct leads to your product or service then it is not maximizing its potential.

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