As of 2013, there were approximately 10 million brands in the world with 1 billion websites that are active. That’s clearly a lot of brands providing potential customers with a huge number of choices. With an average daily exposure of 170 advertising messages there is a good amount of messages battling for mindshare for a customer’s attention.
The sheer size and magnitude of this situation makes it easy to feel overwhelmed for any brand owner. That said, there is no better tool for building your brand than a clearly thought out strategy that brings high value to customers with whom you would like to start doing business. By spending the time to develop a winning strategic plan you can establish a high-value brand within your target marketplace.
Here are 5 quick, innovative, DIY ways to improve your brand’s performance.
1. Determine your core strategy for all messaging
To increase the impact of your brand and its exposure, incorporate content-rich value that will attract the most interest among your target customers. Since much initial attention comes from a wide variety of sources – especially when a potential customer is considering your products or services for the first time – you want to make sure you’re presenting the most compelling advantages that your brand offers. When determining optimum strategies, it is critical to select one primary strategic advantage and build all of the supporting benefits from it, versus presenting a long laundry list of services.
2. Improve your brand’s social media presence
Your social media outlets should function as an extension of your brand. Not the other way around. Whatever you have defined as your brand’s personality and profile should be actively marketed the same across your entire brand enterprise. Far too many brands are promoted differently in each of their media outlets thinking that “variety if the spice of life!” Nothing could be further from the truth. The key to increasing your brand’s presence is integrating one primary message among all of your social media outlets to present a strong, unified brand presence.
3. Get sticky
One of the most often overlooked tactics is to write titles and lead-in messages that will be extremely interesting to target readers and industry writers alike. Two quick ways to accomplish this is by using short punchy titles with interesting word choices that demand attention. Think of ways to make this content of interest to both your intended target customer as well as writers who can re-tweet, share, like, etc. your messaging. Websites such as Upworthy and Buzzfeed can provide you with additional ideas on how to increase the interest of your readers.
4. Purchase traffic
Although this is not a first option for any brand necessarily, it is a good one for brands that rely on high daily traffic to remain competitive and financially sound. The paid branding that you might consider could include the pay per click (PPC) model, a basis of increasing traffic through internet advertising which brand owners pay for every click they receive, and only paying for actual traffic driven to your website. Based upon your particular budget and marketing objectives, this can be a very good option for brand owners who would like swift results. Other ways to extend your brand’s reach might include platforms such as Google Adwords, Facebook’s PPC platform, and Outbrain Amplify. These platforms can greatly assist you in spreading your brand’s messaging to a new audience who might not be searching for exactly what you are offering.
5. Provide true value
All of the above ways can help you greatly expand your brand’s reach, but the most important technique is to inspire your customers with content that is truly useful, relevant, unique, and timely to meet their needs. Remember, branding is about your customer’s interests, needs, and wants, not yours. This singularity of focus will guide you in producing brand messaging that is grades above what is typically presented by brands everywhere.
