Posts

How to Boost Brand Awareness for Your Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Brand Awareness|How to Boost Brand Awareness for Your BusinessLaunching a business is never a simple task, but building your company and taking its success to the next level can be even more of a challenge. Attracting new customers and increasing sales is vital to expand your business and to ensure you achieve sustainable long term growth. But, understanding exactly how to get your brand out there and let everyone know about your products can be difficult. Boosting brand awareness can play a significant role in growing your business’s success and ensuring that it gets noticed by your target audience. In this article, you will discover how you can boost your brand awareness and reach your target audience effectively.

Keep Your Branding Consistent

To build brand awareness, your brand needs to be easy to identify and stand out from competing brands. The more consistent your branding is, the simpler it will be for your target audience to recognize it. Having a recognizable brand ensures that your products become familiar to your customers.

When you build your brand, you need to ensure consistency in every area, from your corporate colors to your logo’s positioning. Writing brand guidelines will help you to ensure that everyone in your organization knows how to use your branding consistently to ensure that your business is always represented correctly.

A consistent brand image should be apparent in your social media packages, marketing collateral, and most importantly, your product packaging. In many cases, the product packaging is the customer’s first interaction with your brands, which is why it’s integral to time and resources to develop custom packaging that displays consistent branding. First impressions last; thus, you want to make it count.

Start With Your Website

Almost all businesses have a website, but not every company uses its website effectively. Your website is often the first point of contact a customer will make with your business and creates their first impression of your brand. To ensure that you create a positive first impression of your business that leaves your potential customers wanting to know more, you need your website to encapsulate the essence of your brand. The appearance and feel of your website should be perfectly aligned with your brand’s personality, as this will ensure it is easily recognizable for website visitors. Having an attractive website that features plenty of engaging content will make it far more likely that website visitors will become customers.

Spread the Word

Having a fantastic product and an amazing brand is excellent, but you will need to let everyone know about it to help you achieve success in your business. Setting up social media pages and posting on them regularly is essential. Don’t forget to use your brand personality throughout your social media posts to keep your messages consistent.

Social media is a fantastic place to start when promoting your business and offers many opportunities to engage with audiences across the world. But, taking a multi-channel approach is the most effective way to develop the highest level of brand awareness and to boost your business above competing brands. Working with TV advertising services to build a campaign designed to maximize reach and build awareness of your brand is sure to get your brand noticed by a far wider audience. Advertising on this scale should translate into a boost in sales and healthy return on your investment, as well as increased awareness of your brand.

How to Develop a Clear Brand Strategy

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | How to Develop a Clear Brand Strategy

Whether you’re a new brand starting out or an established brand in need of a makeover, a clear brand strategy is always necessary to ensure that your message is clear, and strategy is consistent and effective. Without this background work, you might find that one or more aspects of the strategy don’t work well enough, which can lead you back to the drawing board. Below are some of the key aspects you need to premise when developing your brand strategy or rebranding project.

Purpose

Every brand makes a promise to their customers regarding the product they provide or standard of service. Implicit in this promise is also a marketing angle, a differential that separates one brand from another. This may serve to create a USP and help your brand stand out, but in today’s saturated marketplace, it isn’t quite enough.

Along with your promise, you must also provide a purpose, a statement of intentionality that runs deeper than your commercial interest. Customers today will want to know that your business has an authenticity that stands above the drive for profit. This could be the deeper values your business was founded on, but presented in a unique way.

Consistency

When branding your product or service, consistency is very important. Consistency refers to how relevant your advertising is across different platforms; this means relevance to your brand’s meaning or message. Good brand consistency continually reinforces your message and inspires consumers in the right direction.

Conversely, poor brand consistency might confuse customers and put them off. Coca Cola is one brand that has excellent consistency. Whether you watch advert on television, visit their website or Facebook page, the images, colors, and slogans all feed into the brand’s core message and overall appeal.

Emotion

Researchers have found that people have an innate desire to build and maintain relationships. This is relevant in every walk of life, including brand marketing and advertising. For instance, why is it that people decide to buy a Harvey Davidson bike over another bike that is cheaper but has an equivalent spec? The reason is the word ‘Harley’ and it’s associations.

Harley Davidson, among many other brands, are onto this phenomenon and use it effectively. Harley Davidson, for example, has created a HOG or Harley Owners Club, this is a close-knit community of owners who share their knowledge and experience of Harley bikes. The HOG not only connects customers with the brand, but it also grows a community of like-minded Harley owners.

Flexibility

Flexibility is a close cousin of consistency; both must be used wisely to achieve your brand’s success in the marketplace. While consistency is about creating a style guide that is relevant across platforms, flexibility refers to the need for marketers to adapt to changing technological innovations to enable better results.

One example of marketing flexibility is the popular brand of aftershave for men, ‘Old Spice.’ Before it’s a rebrand, Old Spice was recognized as a product for older men and distinctly unfashionable. They then enlisted the help of a team of flexible marketers who effectively repositioned the brand for a new customer base.

Employee Involvement

Employee involvement is a strategy that is closely aligned with consistency. If your brand has a bubbly and exciting image, like Fitness Marketing Companies, for instance, it wouldn’t make sense for your customer service representatives to be monotone and dour. This will create a brand inconsistency that will confuse customers and put them off. This idea also includes transparency to bring employees closer to customers.

The first step in creating excellent employee involvement is to assess your brand’s core values and decide what tone you want to implement. This can be outlined in your style guide. A tone consistent with your values or mission statement will strengthen your brand voice and deliver a positive customer experience. In terms of transparency, create photo shoots that include all back staff and out them front and center across platforms.

Loyalty

Loyalty is always important for brands, but it doesn’t just mean creating loyalty; it also means reinforcing the bond that’s already been established in some customers. Brand loyalty can be created by rewarding new customers with points or discounts, providing the service advertised, and following up with friendly enquiring emails.

Over time you will build up a customer base, people who have responded well to your product or service and have spread the word about what you do. Don’t ignore the power and relevance of these free brand ambassadors. Retain their services with more excellent rewards, discounts, and personalized messages.

How Can Brand Identity Boost Your Online Business?

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Brand Identity|Brand Identity Design and How It Boosts Your E-CommerceIn the world of the internet, developing and maintaining a compelling and authoritative brand identity for your e-commerce organization is paramount for driving success and staying competitive. The e-commerce business environment is fiercely competitive and overwhelmed with too many businesses.

So, if you want to start your own business online, effective branding can help you achieve your business and marketing goals. Your brand identity allows you to attract the target audience, convey your brand message most effectively, project your values, and get ahead of the competition curve.

The success of your brand depends on how effective your brand identity is. This identity represents your business in all its splendor. Think of it as your business ID in the online business world. It’s how you present yourself to the world of consumers and one of your business’s most valuable assets.

The Importance of a Strong Brand Identity

There’s much more to your brand than just a logo. Although brand identity is the very personification of your business online, it’s just one aspect of effective branding. However, building a strong brand identity is the very foundation of your branding.

Here are a couple of good reasons why building a strong brand identity matters considerably for your success:

  • It allows you to develop a brand personality that your customers can relate to.
  • It helps shape the way your consumers perceive your business.
  • It projects the promises and expectations your business extends to your consumers in terms of trustworthiness, reliability, service, quality, and authoritativeness.
  • It helps establish a meaningful relationship with your target audience.
  • It helps create loyalty and trust from both your partners and customers.
  • It helps you become more relevant and competitive in your business niche.
  • It helps your consumers differentiate your brand from the competition.
  • It positively affects the purchasing decisions of your customers, directly resulting in higher profitability.

The Benefits of an Effective Brand Identity

A strong brand identity benefits your e-commerce business in several different ways.

1. Branding Makes Your Business Look Bigger and More Serious

We live in a visual world, where the average consumer’s attention span is no more than 5-10 seconds. Therefore, you need something captivating to grab the attention of your target audience.

When consumers see a professional brand that’s continuously providing consistent and relevant content on social media, website, and business cards, they start visualizing your company as worthy of their attention.

Modern consumers look for brands that offer real solutions to daily problems. More importantly, they won’t have any issues paying more if they perceive your business as well-organized and established.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Brand Identity|Brand Identity Design and How It Boosts Your E-Commerce2. Your Brand Identity Gives You a Relatable Persona

Building a brand around your business is as much about you as it is about your consumers. They need a brand they can relate to, put their trust in, and get more than they expect with each interaction.

If you want to stand out from the rest and make people buy your products or hire your services, you’ll need to work on your branding efforts. A good brand identity is what gives your business a personality that your consumers can relate to. With a good relationship comes trust and, ultimately, respect.

3. Trust and Loyalty

If a brand develops a loyal following, they won’t be having any trouble with getting ahead of the competition. More importantly, a strong and unique brand makes a difference in the marketplace too.
By conveying your brand’s values, you can build a meaningful and emotional long-term connection with your target audience. The main result of that connection will be improved customer loyalty.

When customers are loyal and happy, they tend to talk about you and recommend your brand to people they know. After all, word of mouth is still the number one marketing tool.

4. Conveys Stability

Building and investing in maintaining a strong brand identity allows you to present your business as authoritative, successful, prosperous, and stable. A well-organized and defined brand identity speaks volumes about your business and sends a clear message that you’re the one consumers should be talking to.

5. Makes Your Brand Memorable

Modern consumers are all about consistency. They appreciate brands that invest in an effort to satisfy their needs and overcome their expectations. Building a brand identity is all that and more.

Aside from providing your consumers with exceptional customer service and user experience, a strong brand identity helps your consumers memorize you and remember your business.

If you consistently keep your brand identity accessible via all available communication channels, your prospects will see your brand. The more they see your business, the more likely they are to reach out and contact you.

Tips on Developing a Strong Brand Identity

Since a strong brand identity is one of the main driving factors of success, the following tips should help you develop and take control of your brand identity in a way that matches your business and marketing strategy.

Start with a visual identity!

The first step toward developing a strong branding is creating your visual identity. It has to align with your business and marketing strategy and goals, as well as your business vision.

More importantly, it has to send a clear message about your company, culture, and mission. Hopefully, it will be enough to entice your target audience to start being interested in what you have to offer.
Pay special attention to your online reputation!

Regardless of how successful you are or how strong your brand identity is, monitoring your online reputation should always be your top priority.

It puts you in control over how potential prospects and loyal consumers perceive your business and allows you to take advantage of ongoing and upcoming trends in your industry.

It also allows you to contact satisfied consumers who will be more than happy to say a few positive words about you online. You can never have enough positive reviews.

Always Deliver Top-Quality User Experience!

Modern consumers are more demanding than ever. They expect you to exceed their expectations. Therefore, aim to deliver the best user experience with each interaction and across all available communication channels.

Conclusion

Starting a business online is all about creating a strong brand identity design. Having everything you need for your business is one side of the coin while getting everything you need for building effective branding is the other.

Only by putting the two pieces together will you get ahead of the competition curve and keep your consumers happy. Keep in mind that your business focuses and vision have to be aligned with your brand identity.

Focus your brand on your customers, and you will reach a broader target audience. If you need help with your brand identity design, hiring creative design companies is the best way to get on top of your brand identity game.

They have both skills and knowledge it takes to come up with an effective and competitive design that will put your e-commerce business on the world map.

9 Reasons to Hire a Design Agency

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Design Agency |9 Reasons to Hire a Design AgencyYou have seven seconds to make a good first impression.

As a business, you must have a strong brand identity so consumers know about your product and whether your business’s ethos appeals to them.

A fantastic way to do this is by hiring a design agency that can help your branding. Not sure whether to hire one? Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place.

Here are nine reasons to hire a design agency.

What Is a Design Agency?

A creative design agency offers a mixture of design, technology, and advertising to help clients with branding.

Another term that’s popping up is DesignOps. “What is Design Ops?” You ask.

Known as a design operation team, DesignOps optimizes design teams by improving workflow and streamlining many processes like recruiting. This means designers can focus on their job instead.

The 9 Reasons to Hire a Design Agency

Before you Google “design agencies near me”, it’s important to understand the advantages of hiring a graphic design agency.
Many can help establish a strong brand identity and give essential advice. Consider these reasons, for example:

1. Branding Is Different From Marketing

You must hire a brand design agency as it’s completely different from marketing. Branding helps you design your business and product while marketing lets you reach your desired audience.

Branding plays a major role in every business as it builds business recognition, boosts business value, and generates new customers. According to the experts associated with this company, the style and functionality of the design can ensure success for all your branding plans.

Further, branding makes you ask fundamental questions about your business regarding your vision, target audience, and how to stand out.
Once you have these questions, you can roll out your marketing campaign.

2. Fresh Perspective

It’s difficult to ask your internal marketing team to be objective about branding as they’re exposed to your company’s aesthetic every day.

But when you hire a logo design agency, they give you a big-picture analysis of your business from an objective stance. As a result, they can brainstorm innovative ways to bring your brand to life.

3. Cross-Industry Experience

Agencies have worked across a wide range of industries which gives them a broader perspective and skillset.

Because of this, agencies can bring new ideas to your industry to help differentiate your business from competitors.

Don’t be turned off if a creative agency hasn’t worked in your industry. Instead, look at their portfolio and see whether they’ve successfully solved challenges across a range of industries.

4. The Right Expertise

Branding agencies are unique because they’re experts in researching, the lifeblood of branding.

When you hire a creative agency, you access a design team that creates unique branding based on strategy and research. This is because the agency has had the experience with an array of projects so you end up with a strong brand identity that eclipses your competitors’.
Once the agency has created your brand, they’ll post the end result on their blog and social media channels so it’s free advertising for you.

5. Adds Consistency

A consistent presentation of a brand has increased revenue by 33% and creative agencies know this.

It’s crucial that your business’s marketing material is consistent from the typeface to the color palette. A creative design agency ensures your ideas are coordinated and consistent as it’s the foundation of a successful business.

6. Alleviates Training Costs

If you want your marketing team to expand to branding, it’ll require extra courses and another employee to train them. Not only is this expensive, but you’ll lose a large chunk of time which isn’t ideal for a business.

And there’s a chance your employees won’t have good chemistry working with each other which means there’s less chance of producing outstanding branding.

Instead, hire a creative agency for your branding as they’re guaranteed to produce high-quality results.

7. Helps You Stand Out From Competitors

Creative design agencies help you differentiate your brand so you stand apart from the rest. Branding lets you highlight the products you offer that are unique compared to what’s currently on the market.

When you outsource your branding to an agency, you’ll have a new voice, style, and feel. Because of this, you’ll get new opportunities which will bring in more revenue, making it a fantastic return on investment.

8. Lets You Connect With New Audiences

When you hire a creative design agency, you’ll reach new customers. But this can only happen thanks to the agency’s strategy and fresh perspective.

Once your new branding is established across all platforms, you’ll reap the benefits. Plus, design agencies ensure their work like logos is ahead of the curve so customers are attracted to your brand.

Further, your business can increase your network by working with a reputable design agency. And because the agency has worked with companies across a variety of industries, they know how to create a strong brand campaign.

9. Follows the Latest Trends and Technology

When you hire a design agency, they stay atop the latest trends and use technology to do so. This saves you money as you don’t have to invest in purchasing new technology or software.

No business wants to be outdated so use the agency’s expertise so this doesn’t happen.

That’s Why You Should Work With a Design Agency

Those are the nine main reasons you should work with a creative design agency.

Their team has the expertise and ability to bring a fresh perspective so your business can stand out from competitors. Hiring a creative design agency also saves you time, money, while producing fantastic results. Happy hiring!

Did you find this article helpful? If so, check out our other finance-related posts.

3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Boost Brand Awareness

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Boost brand awareness|3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Boost Brand AwarenessAny small business wants to boost brand awareness, but often they do not have the budget to create and launch a nationwide marketing campaign. The pennies are simply too tight to justify spending them on something that may or may not work. For a small business, substantial investments can often be a risk. So what if there was another way? The good news is that there is another way, and even small businesses can boost brand awareness without chipping away too much of their budget.

Freebies

No matter how much money you have or how successful your business is, a freebie is a freebie. For small businesses, this is a fantastic way to spread the word about your business.

There are a variety of ways you can do this, too. From pens and pencils to personalized water bottles to car air fresheners, your logo can travel across the country, letting everybody know who you are and maybe enticing them to use your service.

Freebies are a subtle marketing technique that will trigger recognition for anyone who has come across your logo before. From here, you can expect to see a remarkable boost in engagement, and you can find an increase in business, too.

Guest Blog Posts

Guests posts from founders and CEOs are a superb way of letting people in your industry know who you are and confirm that you understand what you’re talking about. As a business owner, you should have studied your industry, and hopefully, you have plenty of insights on how to improve the way things are run. With a guest post, you can get your message out there.

You can also use these guest posts to conjure up interest in your brand, especially if you have a unique story. You can write about your struggles and how you overcame them and provide advice for other businesses who may experience the same problems when trying to get their fortunes off the ground.

Work With Local Businesses

Local interest is vital for cementing a small business as something to look out for, so you must take advantage of local companies to spread the word. There will be a variety of established companies in your area, and rather than try to compete with them, work with them in events and discount partnerships that will be mutually beneficial.

As locals will already trust these established businesses, they will also trust their judgment about you. By offering discounts and deals by showing flyers or coupons picked up in other stores, you can see an increase in awareness and profits, which will help establish you. All you need to do is prove that yours is a business worth using and provide a quality service to ensure that you generate the brand loyalty you need for growth.

Spreading the Word

Failing to boost brand awareness means that your little startup will remain little. Entrepreneurship is all about innovation, though, and by considering the potential for budget-friendly brand awareness ventures, you can witness an evident improvement. By increasing awareness through these budget-friendly means, you can experience an increase in profits, which will allow your startup to redistribute these funds towards more prominent campaigns and see even more growth.