Building a Strong Brand
Marketing Mondays with Marci B.
Google. Apple. GEICO. Target. Netflix. Pepsi.
What do all of these companies have in common?
They are all successful companies with strong brands.
None of these companies were the first to enter their industry, but they are each leaders that changed their respective industries. Similarly, most new business owners face the challenge of entering existing industries and separating their company from the competition. In order to survive, a business must have a strong brand within the industry and use that unique selling proposition to gain market share.
Here are a few tips to consider when building a brand:
- Begin with a SWOT Analysis
Understanding your company's internal and external challenges and triumphs relative to the industry will create a foundation for distinction.- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
- Conduct an Environmental Analysis
What are the factors that influence the industry? Uncovering the elements that affect the business environment helps you understand the limitations of your industry's current state.- Political Factors
- Economic Factors
- Social Factors
- Technological Factors
- Legal Factors
- Environmental Factors
- Uncover your Unique Selling Proposition
Reviewing the SWOT and Environmental Analyses should help you discover market gaps. Utilize this information to differentiate your brand and create the unique selling proposition. By now, you should know your industry position based on the following:- Pricing
- Packaging
- Quality
- Customer Service
- Reputation
- Complete your brand with a logo and tagline
This should be given much thought, as it will be one of the most permanent staples of your business aside from the name. Do research on color psychology before deciding on a logo design. Consider the emotions and messaging you want to convey to your audience. Determine if you want typography, graphics or a combination of both. Make sure there are no trademarks or copyrights associated with your ideas. - Develop marketing materials
Make sure your business name, tagline, and logo are consistent across all forms of media. The only acceptable variation for logo design is to have separate versions for light background versus dark background. - Create a brand experience
Make sure your brand extends beyond marketing and into the customer experience. It's not enough to gain new customers. The key to sustaining business is retaining your customer base while consistently acquiring new customers. Businesses successfully accomplish this when they fulfill their brand promise and create value.
For more information on brand building, contact Marci B. Marketing & Management at 248-838-9458 or marci@marcibmarketing.com
Further Reading:
SWOT Analysis
Environmental Analysis
Branding Basics
Brand Awareness
Brand Building
Color Psychology
Webinars offer business owners an opportunity to interactively engage with many customers at once, which saves plenty of time on individual consults. You also have the ability to host a Q&A session where prospects can answer questions that can be applicable to other webinar attendees.
A strong digital footprint is a great way to attract attention to your business. Although social media presence is good, it is important to have a website when establishing credibility as a business. Here are a few web design fundamentals to consider when creating or updating your website.
Creating marketing messaging should make a business owner wonder what their customers would do, and it is essential to have the answers before heavily investing in ads.
Consider the different types of customers you have or want, and how their needs for your product may differ.
Creating buyer personas and tailoring messages to each customer segment will help you increase conversions, reduce churn and increase brand loyalty.
Despite many options for digital marketing, email remains a fundamental part of any campaign. Email marketing is one of the easiest ways to get your content directly to traffic you own,
whether your message is promotional or conversational. You can easily share information such as corporate updates, sales, product launches, free downloads and more.
Key Performance Indicators are aligned with high-level business goals, ensuring that marketing efforts contribute to overall business success. In order to have proper marketing KPI, you should also have a business plan, as it is the main reference point for indications of marketing KPI.
Every business owner has to invest to acquire new customers. Maximize your opportunity to interact with excited customers who already have their credit cards in hand. Recommend other products to enhance your customer's buying journey and increase your return on investment for customer acquisition costs by upselling customers with impulse buying.
Many companies spend money on advertising but fail to benefit from a profitable return on their investment. They lose prospective customers when they fail to provide a funnel for nurturing leads. The two biggest pitfalls for an advertising campaign are tracking results and converting leads. Landing pages give customer more information specific to their promotion of interest and capture customer information.
Today's customers are bombarded with marketing messages all day, every day. They have learned to easily tune out traditional advertising such as radio and television by changing the station or choosing commercial-free stations. In
a digital age where everyone wants information at their fingertips but no one actually wants to be "sold", how does the business owner connect to an audience to give them information on demand without being "salesy"?
Marketing and advertising are terms that get easily confused or misunderstood.
Advertising is an element of marketing, but it does not encompass how broad marketing can be.
A common mistake is developing a marketing plan that only consists of advertising. A true marketing strategy impacts many departments including product development, research, sales, customer service, operations and more.
Traditionally, creating an ad for television costs customers thousands of dollars for production and distribution. Cable providers and streaming sites are offering customers the option to remove or fast-forward commercials. Mobile devices, tablets, and the growing popularity of new media has given business owners the unique opportunity to produce distribute video for little to no cost. Technology, editing software and video-based websites have made it easier than ever for businesses to create and share videos. According to HubSpot.com : 2016 saw a surge in the popularity of video as a content marketing format. From 360-degree videos to Facebook Live , marketers are responding to audiences' shorter attention spans by making content more interactive and visual -- and it's paying off. Video is growing to dominate your audience's online activity: 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% watch videos online every day. If you don't already have a video marketing strategy in place for your website and social media, you're missing a tremendous opportunity to reach and engage with your audience. Consumers are bombarded with marketing messages all day long, and as a result have become increasingly impatient when it comes to advertising. Videos are a quick way to share lots of information. They let you communicate through words, images and motion all at once. You can even include typography and imagery to insert things like websites and logos. According to Dan Griego with Video Editing Sage , there are five main uses for video. Corporate Webinars Company Culture Videos Event Videos Video PowerPoint Presentations Sales and Marketing Online Marketing Videos Promotional Videos Testimonial Videos Giveaways Videos Product Videos Information Training Videos Video Tips Series Animated Explainer Videos Educational Videos Entertainment Music Videos Travel Videos Documentary Videos Legacy Videos News Digital (Online) Journalism videos Interview Videos Video PSAs (Public Service Announcements) Here are a few different styles of video to consider: Animation: Uses illustrations and special effects. Often used for corporate branding, entertainment or information. Presentation: Uses presentation software such as PowerPoint for creation. Often used for education, sales and news. Photo Collage: Uses photographs with transitions and narrations. Often used for entertainment and news. Motion Picture: Uses video footage to create video, may include narration and photographs. Most used style of video. For more information on how to integrate video into your marketing strategy, contact Marci B. Marketing & Management at 248-838-9458 or marci@marcibmarketing.com Further reading: http://www.videoeditingsage.com/types-of-video-productions.html https://blog.hubspot.com/ marketing /2017-year-of- video - marketing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/swati-joshi/why- video - marketing -is-th_b_9230342.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/02/03/ video - marketing -the-future-of-content- marketing /#6e0422c86b53 https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/5-secrets-super-successful- video - marketing https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2017/02/01/lights-camera-engagement-2017-is-the-year-of- video - marketing /#692848832315 https://www.wirebuzz.com/video-marketing-trends-2017/ https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/ video - marketing -ads/4-predictions-for- video - marketing -in-2017/ https://blog.bufferapp.com/video-marketing http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/7-video-marketing-trends-2017-and-what-they-mean-you
