You too can build a living and popular brand. And it pays off many times over: According to the survey, 70% of customers spend 20% more money on a brand if they like it and share its values. You can gain popularity for your brand at the same time. We will share with you 5 tips on how to do it.
What are branding and brand awareness?
Do people know your brand? And if so, what do they think of it? What characteristics and qualities do they associate it with? It is precisely these questions that are covered by the term brand awareness. Branding is then an effort to build and expand this awareness. The goal is for people to associate your brand with certain characteristics and remember it. When they need the service or product you offer, they will immediately remember you.
You can use various means for branding, from logos to newsletters. Let’s introduce the most important of them.
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Logo: face and soul of the brand
The logo is often the most important element that represents you in products, in presentations, and in the minds of consumers. When it’s not original and distinctive, people won’t remember it. If you choose the wrong shapes and colors, the clients will associate completely different properties with you than you would like.
“The black and white logo takes less than two-thirds of a second. A color image, on the other hand, will hold the customer’s attention for two seconds or more.” Source: Colorcom
The logo must be unique and easy to remember. It should be different from other brands operating in the same market. If it contains numbers or letters, they should be easy to read. At the same time, the logo with its shapes and colors should evoke the emotions that you want to associate with your brand. If you succeed in working these rules into your logo, people will remember it when they shop, and you will be their first choice.
Pro Tip: The best logos are often the simplest.
You don’t have to come up with multi-word names or complicated shapes when creating a logo. On the contrary – you often reap success with even the simplest logo. Don’t you believe it? Think of three stripes, a pipe, or a bitten apple.
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Turn your business into a love brand on Facebook
Social networks are a powerful branding tool: according to statistics, women aged 25-40 are the ones to spend the most time browsing them. (Interested to know how much? Read 66 brief facts about social media marketing.) You can use the networks to reach out to them, engage them in a discussion, and get them to share. You can build more informal relationships there than, for example, through your website. But above all: you will gain popularity on social networks. Why is it so important? Customers who love your brand are more likely to buy from it. At the same time, they will share your advertisement on the networks – voluntarily and free of charge.
But how to gain such popularity at all? First and foremost, you need to find out who your fans are and tailor the page to them. Share original content that interests you. Be consistent and use visuals like photos or gifs. Write short and catchy texts and give customers a reason to read them – they should be funny, interesting, or maybe show a little of “behind the scenes” of your company. Engagement is also the key to positive brand awareness.
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Corporate blog as an effective branding tool
Unfortunately, having a perfect product or service is not enough. You have to offer customers something extra – a reason to buy from you. Communicate with them and tell them about yourself, your brand, and your products. Fill your company blog with tutorials, tips, and useful information. Give your followers the content they want to make sure they appreciate your knowledge, the quality of your products, and that you can solve their problems.
This is how we do it on the blog:
“80% of customers say that authentic content is the main reason why they start following the brand.” Source: Pardot
What should company blog articles look like? Above all, they should be readable, truthful, and in line with your marketing goals. Choose the content and style of communication according to your target group and adapt keywords and formatting to SEO principles – even the best text will be useless if no one ever sees them.
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Branding offline: Spread brand awareness at events
Remember the last time you were at an event and a brand there offered an interesting product or activity that just couldn’t be resisted? The best way to make customers aware is by giving them the most valuable thing: the experience. Arrange participation in an offline event and set up a company stand. Do you sell beverages? Let customers mix their own drinks. Do you make scooters? Build an obstacle course that customers can cross. Hold a contest. Attract visitors to your booth with bold colors and ask them to share their experience on social networks and use your brand name as a hashtag.
“On average, the customer needs 5-7 interactions with the brand to remember it.” Source: Pam Moore
Organizing your own conference or participating in a trade fair can also work well.
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Remind clients about your brand with a newsletter
At a time when customers have almost forgotten about you, you can remind them again – with a newsletter. When you create interesting enough content, they’ll even be looking forward to receiving an email from you every week. But the trick is added value – thanks to the newsletter, customers have to get something they would not otherwise get. These can be:
- industry news that has not yet been published anywhere,
- useful tutorials to help customers with their problems,
- tailor-made special events that simply cannot be missed.
How to fine-tune the newsletter to be as effective as possible in terms of branding?
Polish the graphics and use corporate colors. Always place your logo in the header and at the end of the newsletter. Think of the font as well. Choose the one that suits your brand – for example, a technology company is sure to shine more with a modern futuristic font than with elegant, rounded letters. Add icons to your email that link to your social networks. Set the sender’s e-mail address so that the customer recognizes who is sending the newsletter at a glance.
Pay the most attention to the content, which must be original, interesting, and useful. The communication style should correspond to your target group and to the style you use in other company texts – for example on the web.
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Branding using PR
PR is an indispensable part of branding. It will make you more visible and catch the eye of the right audience. PR is about contacting relevant media and providing them with the material they can publish. The goal is to write about and talk about you. If customers read an article about you in their favorite magazine or newspaper, they are guaranteed to remember you.
PR is, among other things, so effective because it usually doesn’t cost much. Journalists are often very busy and are constantly looking for new topics to write about. When you give them a written article about your company, which just needs to be published, you kill two flies with one blow: you make the job easier for the journalist and you get publicity for yourself.
Pro Tip: Don’t try to be seen everywhere at all times.
Positive awareness of your brand will help the most when you appear in the right place. What does this mean in practice? If you are an airline, contact a magazine about airplanes. If you are organizing a regional event, contact regional television. In short, be where your target audience is.
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Banner ads
As we have already mentioned above, on average, a customer needs 5-7 interactions with a brand to remember it. Therefore, it does not hurt at all if you remind him from time to time with a banner ad.
Why is banner advertising so effective in branding? Unlike PPC ads on Google, which are purely text-based, banners are based on visuals. This gives you the opportunity to use the company’s colors and logo, show yourself in the best light and present your brand exactly as you need.
The success of such an advertisement depends on the quality of graphic processing. Advertising should be professional and creative, it must be visually interesting and easy to remember. For example, the popularity of animated banner ads has been growing recently.
Have you heard of banner blindness? Then know that this is not always the case. On the contrary, surveys show that if you run an ad on relevant sites, the results in building brand awareness are excellent. What do you mean by a relevant site? You must promote the same thing with PR: the flowerpot on the gardener’s website, not on the aircraft website.
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Thanks to remarketing, your brand will always be seen
Remarketing is an excellent branding tool. It is simple:
- You install Facebook pixel (or similar).
- Thanks to it, you will find out which users visited your website / added something to the cart / spent more than 10 minutes on your website, etc.
- You will then target these customers.
Surveys and statistics show that remarketing multiplies the chance that a visitor will buy from you. In addition to showing him the goods he is probably interested in, you will also remind him of your brand, and the customer will likely not forget you.
Do you also want great branding?
Branding is a long-distance run, and if you don’t focus on it, all your efforts will be in vain. Don’t have time for it? MyTimi will create an unforgettable logo for you, write eye-catching texts, tweak SEO, attract fans on social networks and design an original stand at the fair.