Brand awareness is one of the most important intangibles your company can have. Everyone recognizes Coke, Microsoft, and Google, for example. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you know what “promised experience” you'll get with these companies.
But how did they get there?
If you’re shaking your head and thinking “Billions in advertising,” you’re not wrong. But there are ways to develop a memorable, trustworthy brand in a fraction of the time – and the cost – if you define your goals and approach them methodically.
What makes a strong brand?
- Awareness of its own strengths and specialties.
- Consistency in products and customer service.
- Clear communication with a distinct “voice.”
- Effective aesthetics like the use of colors, design, and visuals.
All four can be integrated into your digital strategy. Memorable branding won’t happen on its own: It requires solid, strategic effort to gain momentum before it sticks in customers’ heads.
Five Steps to Truly Viral Marketing
Marketing that customers engage with and spread themselves is viral marketing. Just as Facebook or McDonald’s are unmistakable parts of the landscape, your brand can be the same. You don’t have to shoot for nationwide recognition: Industries have their well-known brands, too.
What are the pillars of viral marketing?
Strategy
Brands that want to compete in 2016 have to get on board with an aggressive, but structured, content strategy. Timely, helpful, relevant content is how you answer customers’ burning questions, establishing your industry expertise at the same time. That gives people something to share.
Social media amplifies your ability to share that content throughout the Web, attracting new prospects and inspiring current customers to tell others about your brand. When content and social engagement work together daily, they create a virtuous circle.
Consistency
Customers may think branding starts and ends with a name and logo – and it’s true these are distinctive. To go viral, though, you have to draw lines in the sand: Consistency means always knowing what your goals are and moving towards them on schedule, whether you’re building a sales funnel or improving social media visibility.
Consistency should extend beyond design elements to clear standards for how, when, and in what format you communicate with
your market. Even amateur bloggers know that to stoke viewers’ fire for what they have to offer, they need to update on time – if it’s true for blogging about tomato plants, it’s probably true for your world-class brand.
Analysis
In a world of limited resources, data-driven analysis is key to figuring out where ROI comes from. Brands of all sizes have access to a wealth of analytics tools, not least is the free Google Analytics. Data is key to seeing if campaigns are successful and testing hypotheses about what can make them better.
Involvement
Successful branding isn’t driven by the marketing team alone. Marketing should collaborate with sales to feed campaigns a steady stream of “front-line” insights on customers’ objections. Product developers should stay in the loop to ensure service offerings are on trend. Insights should filter up to executives so they can stay focused on the big picture.
Awareness
Awareness means not only knowing what your direction is, but getting serious about competitive analysis. Rivals can’t help but give you all the information you need to learn what works for them – their entire digital strategy is out there on the Web. Pay close attention to both foes and business partners, adapting your own work accordingly.
A strong brand is more valuable than any one product. By focusing your efforts, you can achieve distinctive, memorable branding that will keep you "top of mind" in your areas of expertise.
Related Blog Posts:
