Being successful in making sales online starts with branding your business. To establish and build your business brand online, you will want to focus your efforts on increasing awareness and familiarity of the name of your business and the products or services that you offer by distinguishing the identity of your company from competitors. Your business brand identity is more than just the name of your company and your logo. You should have a distinct personality or character associated with your business to make a memorable impression on your current and potential customers.
Be Consistent
As you plan to launch your brand-building campaign, expect to keep some key elements consistent throughout your efforts. You shouldn’t redesign your logo midway through so, if you think that it isn’t going to be memorable and make an impact, update it now.
Differentiate from the Competition
Brainstorm with key creatives in your company and get in touch with people in your satisfied customer base to determine the best messages to use in representing your company. Is it quality that beats your competition? Do you have a product or service that is different in a way that will get attention?
Update Your Online Presence
Pulling together all of your best ideas, consult with your graphic designer and website developer to make sure that your message and brand identity are clearly communicated on your website. Your social media accounts should be personalized with graphics that repeat the message and design elements that appear on your website. This entails more than just having a standard square logo graphic to upload on social media profiles. Make sure that you maximize the visual real estate on each venue. For instance, Facebook lets you have a profile image and a cover photo. Twitter allows for a large graphic background image file.
Join the Conversation
Online marketing has changed from the days of duplicating your product brochures in website format. Consumers are having conversations about brands and their buying decisions online in social media and in product reviews on many websites. It’s a conversation that you need to listen in on and join, not one that you can start and expect people to just listen to you because you say you’re an authority. Think about how you might join a conversation at a party or a business convention. You don’t just walk up to a group of people and start talking about your fantastic ideas. You come in respectfully and listen to what they’re saying and think carefully about how you can contribute in a way that will be best received. Your online communication strategies should be just as carefully strategized.
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Participating in the conversation, through listening and thoughtful interaction and responsiveness, is an ongoing process through which you can refine your message and the way you communicate your brand’s identity. When you have a pretty good idea of how your online marketplace works for your line of goods and services, you can begin to research and consider how to spend your advertising and marketing dollars. Is your website content sufficient enough to be generating traffic from organic web search results? Do you need to start some pay-per-click advertising campaigns and, if so, what are your most valuable search keywords and key phrases?
Establishing and building your company brand online is a monumental task, but a good strategy could make all the difference in your ability to compete and stay in business. It goes beyond having a nice-looking and memorable logo. Your strategy should include several methods of communicating your company’s personality through engaging in the online conversation about things that are relevant to your customers.