Why Branding Is Important

Brand Awareness Is Designed To Generate Customer Loyalty

It is the choosing of one brand versus another. Brand awareness and identity are components of a strategy to persuade a customer that its brand is reliable and trustworthy. Branding is no longer just the idea of logos, color schemes and a company's tagline of who they think they are. It is now tied into the perception of the customer and what they think and say about the brand.

What does your customer think about your company and brand? It matters what your customers are saying. Customers are using social media groups to share their thoughts about a company's products, services and brand. They are asking where they can get a particular product and getting answers back from tweets to Facebook posts. Is your brand being tweeted about, posted on Facebook or talked about on other social networks? It's not what you know, but it's who you know in today's social media marketing.

Why did you choose to purchase a Dell computer intead of a Gateway computer? Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Macy's, Tiffany's, Target and other companies are excellent examples of having the ability to win customer loyalty. Building brand awareness is more than providing a product or service. Customers want to purchase from reliable and trusted sources.

The customer's perception is an idea that they have or do not have about your company. All too often, companies strive for short-term results rather than long-term relationships that cultivate brand loyalty. A company that builds a strong brand is better protected from the impact of competitors. It also serves as a way to differentiate a company or product.

Wasting Money On Search Engine Optimization

In a recent report by a Conductor, a New York Company, that analyzes paid and organic search strategies, they found that Fortune 500 companies spend $51 million per day in aggregate on 88,792 keywords but only 20.8% rank in the top 100 of natural search results. This means that 80% of the $51 million a day, $40 million a day is completely waste.

The study measures the maturity of natural search efforts in comparison with the pay-per-click spending. The study also examines whether investments pay off for paid search terms made by Fortune 500 companies while looking at the top 200 and branded keywords.

"It remains alarming that more than the lion's share of pay-per-clicks are not showing up anywhere in search results for their most important keywords," said Seth Besmertnik, Conductor CEO. "As a group, the Fortune 500 continues to remain largely invisible in natural search results."

While your company isn't among the Fortune 500, are you too wasting money on pay-per-click keywords?

Integrated Marketing

Companies selling their products or services to manufacturing professsionals face the challenges that marketers in any industry do: determining who, exactly, the audience is and how best to reach them. These hurdles can be particularly complex in the manufacturing market, however, because business has rapidly moved online, and many marketers are struggling to keep pace. Because buyers are gathering so much information online, they're contacting suppliers much later in the buying cycle. By the time buyers contact them, they've probably filtered out a few companies. They've extended the buying process deeper without asking any questions.

This shift makes in-depth product information more important than ever. Many times, you're dealing with an engineer who needs very technical, specifications-based data. Is it big enough; fast enough; does it cycle this many times? There better be good information for them - and it better be within your web site.

Most important, marketers need to drive prospects to their web site. Marketers should be using an integrated approach that incorporates traditional media such as print advertising, as well as online tactics with vertical magazine web sites and search engine marketing.

You can't assume there's one best way to reach your audience. Even within a particular company, you might have one guy who's been there 20 years and is not getting online when researching products. But there may be an up-and-comer at the same company who's downloading podcasts and attending webinars to learn about things.

Don't Gamble With Content Marketing

Most marketers work hard to create great content that can be used to create sales leads, drive web site traffic, promote brand, and educate customers and prospects. Unfortunately, not all content is created equal. To get the most out of your content marketing efforts, you should follow these rules.

It is not promotional. Promotional materials will neither excite nor inspire -- both critical components of content marketing.

It is relevant. Generic materials that are not highly relevant to a prospect will not result in increased success. When writing content, you must make sure it will be useful to the end-user.

It closes a gap. Content marketing should answer a question or problem. Giving information about topics where there is no need will be a wasted effort. An added benefit of "useful" information is its ability to be used in lead nurturing.

It is relevant to your company. If the content does not support business objectives in any way, it is a waste of resources. Keep business goals in mind when creating content.

It gives proof. Since you write to support a business goal, your content may seem biased. Make sure that content you create gives proof either through quotes and testimonials or through actual metrics and statistics.

More Myths About Branding

Myth No. 3: Branding is just fluff.

Brand equity can make or break a company. That's the reason people will pay three times as much for a white T-shirt at Nordstrom's than they would at Target. Brand translates into bottom-line sales when done effectively.

You shouldn't deny that if you build a strong foundation and communicate it to the right people at the right time, you will attract just the interested customers you seek. A strong brand guides all the other marketing decisions that drive your company's growth: where to advertise, whom to partner with, how to price your product.

Myth No. 4: Branding Works Immediately

Prospects need to experience your brand multiple times before it sticks. You have to have it out there, present in all your customer touch points, before deciding whether it works.

Branding is about awareness and "mindshare"--the spaces you occupy in people's minds when they see your logo or hear your name. That takes time to build. The Nike swoosh had no meaning during the first many months after it was introduced.

Avoid the temptation to change branding every few months in an effort to chase quarterly sales growth. Yes, if you get feedback that things are not working, you should made changes -- but, hopefully, you will have put the up-front thought and effort into the brand strategy and messaging before implementing it so that only slight tweaks are required.

Some Myths About Branding

When business-to-business marketers think of branding, often they think of just a logo or business card. Or they think of the opposite extreme, such as Apple or IBM, so they assume they will never have the budget to brand effectively.

Although dazzling branding is more than just pretty pictures, it also is something that is easily attainable if marketers put the right thought and effort into it.

Myth No. 1: Branding is Hard

Branding is not rocket science. It simply requires focused thought about what you want your company to stand for and to whom, and then what commitment to communicate that message through everything you do visually and experientally. You need to constantly be vigilant and regularly do a "system check" on your materials, business practices, customer service, and messaging to ensure your brand is clear and consistent.

Myth No. 2: Branding is Expensive

Effective branding can be done on any budget whether it's $5,000 or $10 million. The real key to effective branding is making sure that you have defined, in detail, your ideal audience and that your messages speak directly to their needs and the benefits they value. Consistency and clarity in messaging, not how much money you spend promoting your brand, is what makes that brand effective and creates loyal fans and evangelists. You may not be able to do expensive ad campaigns, but with clear, consistent, and strong messages, you ensure that even those three or four activities you can afford to do are laser-focused.

More myths with my blog next week.

Five questions for effective ads.

If you honestly evaluate your advertising using these five questions, if your adverting doesn't provide compelling answers, start to think about how you could change it so that it does.

Why are you bothering me?

Advertsing in an interruption. Your ideal prospects don't wake up in the morning, get out of bed, and say, "Wow, I sure hope someone advertises to me today." Your ideal prospects, however, get out of bed with business problems, goals, and things that are important to them. If your advertising doesn't grab their attention with a compelling reason that's important to them (not you), it will be ignored.

What does it have to do with me?

After you capture the prospects' attention, you must get their interest. You can do this by telling them waht the advertisement's information has to do with the things they consider to be important. Again, this is about what they think is important, not what you consider to be important. A tried-and-true way to capture interest is to state the biggest benefit or promise you're able to make to your target market.

Why should I believe you?

Decision-makers default to skepticism, not belief, about your claims. If you don't give your prospects powerful and compelling reasons to believe your claim in your advertising, they won't. If your advertising doesn't provide proof, get to work to add it in. My three favorites are testimonials, case studies and photographs.

What should I do about it?

Just having a phone number or website URL isn't enough. Have you given prospects a specific step to take to begin the process to becoming your customer? The key word here is "specific." Tell the prospects exactly what to do, how to do it, and what they'll get as a result.

Why should I do it right now?

A cute theory by many is that decision-makers will remember your company when it comes time to take action, even if they don't take action right away. But reality shows that notion to be utterly false. If your prospects don't take the action you want when your message is in front of them, it's highly unlikely they'll come back to it at a later date. Sure, they might file the ad in a pile of things to do, but the end result is usually that your message is put aside and forgotten. Your advertising must give prospects a compelling reason to act immediately. What will they gain if they do? What will they lose if they don't?