Branding and marketing practices are almost as old as human history itself. You’ve got something to sell. There are people who could use your product and/or service. So how do we tell them about it? In the modern age, this problem is complicated by market saturation, information overload, and much more. To stay ahead of the curve, here are seven (7) key branding strategies that any business can use to increase brand awareness.
1. Emphasizing Brand Personality
There is perhaps no greater trend in marketing than the focus shift away from brand identity to brand personality. While the colors, fonts, logos, and imagery of a brand can certainly convey a strong message, the underlying personality is more important to consumers now than ever. Is your business built on luxury and decadence or honesty and reliability? Your brand personality reflects not only your core values but also what customers can come to expect from your product(s).
2. Engage Users on Social Media and Other Platforms
When it comes to customer engagement, social media has taken its rightful place as the king of the hill. Yet so many brands fumble this opportunity to interact directly with their customer base. Strong brands follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to social media presence: 80 percent content and 20 percent ads/deals/promotions/etc. Social media is also perhaps the best platform to express your brand’s personality, social responsibility (more on this below), and to come off as a relatable brand rather than a faceless corporation.
3. Brands Give Back (Social Responsibility)
In recent years, customers have become more concerned with doing business with conscientious brands. This doesn’t just need to come from areas like charitable donations or directly giving back to the community. Brands may also choose to select their business practices in a thoughtful manner. An example of this might be consumers who avoid palm oil due to the deforestation practices associated with its manufacture. However, companies who only use RSPO Sustainable Palm Oil have shown that this method of extraction is actually beneficial to the environment.
4. Harness the Power of Influencers
Whether or not you are a fan of influencers, their…influence…cannot be overstated. Influencer marketing uses already established celebrities or authority figures within a certain industry and uses their voice and platform to spread your message. The key here is to work with the right influencer(s) for your brand personality and products. Unlike large corporations, influencers have a direct and impressionable audience. It has been estimated that influencers deliver up to 11 times the return on investment when compared to traditional digital marketing.
5. Focus on Customer Experience
The modern customer still values quality products. There is no replacement for this necessity. Yet the prevalence of customers who value customer experience over actual product specifications is on the rise. Improving customer experience can range from meeting and exceeding basic expectations like delivery dates to anticipating customer needs via consumer feedback loops.
6. SEO & Mobile Indexing
As more and more businesses rely on e-commerce to drive sales, SEO, page speed, and mobile indexing will remain at the forefront of any branding strategy for the foreseeable future. Your site can be the best and most profitable website on earth. This won’t do you any good if no users are able to find you on Google. On the flip side, you can rank #1 on Google across the board only to be bounced by users when your page takes 10 seconds to load or your site looks terrible on mobile devices. A well rounded digital media marketing strategy should always include user experience on desktop and mobile devices.
7. Adaptive Branding Responds to Consumer Feedback
Last but certainly not least, adaptive branding practices are all but required in 2019 and beyond. Customer opinion is as fickle as the wind. In this modern firestorm of ever-changing public opinion, brands are stuck between staying too rigid and looking heartless or adapting too quickly and losing their recognizable brand features. The key is to recognize when problems and/or feedback necessitates change and when it does not. Customers expect their favorite brands to listen, and adapting to reasonable customer complaints in a timely manner is a great way to show that your company cares.
Clock Tower Insight Branding Strategies Earn Businesses Loyal Brand Advocates
At Clock Tower Insight, we turn data into business solutions. By maximizing brand positioning, CX management, moments of influence, and more, we help build our clients brands in the short and long term. Clock Tower Insight believes that happy customers equal a happy business. We work closely with clients to tailor their brand from top to bottom in order to maximize positive image, exposure, and sales.
To learn more about how we may be able to help your business grow, read about our 15 plus years of focused experience working with brands such as Starbucks, Kraft, McDonald’s, and much more.