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To build a strong brand presence, your communication needs to be global. Hence the internet is a vital facilitator in any branding exercise since it has the power to deepen the relationship between your enterprise and your customers worldwide.
In this piece we'll talk about how you can integrate your website into your overall branding strategy.
The ultimate goal is to ensure that the name of your product, service or website finds a special place in the mind of your customers. How will you achieve this?
Have an attractive storefront: If you sell online, use images to your advantage. Employ an innovative website model with a focus on display backed by a description of your product. Visitors to your site are more likely to remember your product if they see pictures.
Choose a catchy domain name: This point needs your attention. Visitors recognize you by this name, hence choose a unique name that is easy to remember. It need not necessarily relate to the products that you sell, but must leave an impression. For example, Amazon doesn't relate to books or any other products that they sell, but it sure conveys a certain image. Incidentally, if your company has a long name, consider shortening it for use as the name of the website. Remember that many successful brands are three-letter acronyms such as IBM, CNN and BBC.
Design a memorable logo: By this we don't mean that you have to commission a complex work of art at great cost. Think of eBay, Google or Yahoo. All these companies have distinctive logos that most people are able to describe from memory. A logo creates a lasting impression in the mind of your consumers and brings worldwide recognition. Display your logo at all important locations on your site to enhance brand recall. A tagline as part of the logo may be a good idea, provided it reflects your business. Think of Wal-Mart's tagline "Always low prices. Always."
Consider the following values before actually developing or refining the website.
Be consistent: A complete branding exercise requires targeting customers through various channels (radio, newspaper ads, event management, etc). Your message should be consistent across all channels. Only then will your identity be established uniformly in the minds of the audience.
Be creative: Branding is all about originality. So, you need to come up with new ideas to become a favorite. Think of ways in which you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. Can you be novel, without being wacky?
Reflect your qualities: The product or service that you offer is the real hero, and the website must reflect its personality. Sometimes the website has little resemblance to the other important business elements and this only serves to confuse the customer. Projecting the qualities of the product, service or company in a consistent manner will help people remember them.
Talk about yourself: The About Us section must also be an integral part of the branding effort. Think of what information will interest visitors, and compose this section accordingly. Generally, a brief description of origin, founders, size and important business milestones is appropriate.
Include a copyright statement: Your exclusive rights to your brands, trademarks and other intellectual property must be stated on the website. Not only does that give you legal protection but also another opportunity to remind the customers about who owns the brand. This is particularly important in cases where product brands are much better known than the company they belong to, and are often used in a generic sense.
A brand is quite often the most valuable property that a company may have. An online branding strategy goes a long way in cashing in on that value.
When it comes to ebusiness most of us take one side or the other: Business owners are either viewed as helpful visionaries or evil devils. The evil view feels that the heads of major corporations exist to fleece our pockets and take our money. They'd roll us in the alley given the chance. If you're looking for a bad guy, few compare to the faceless evil of corporate America so often portrayed in today's media. The evil corporation is out to get your money!
If you ever bother to take a second look with the good light turned on, you will have to admit that successful businesses are there helping us fulfill our needs and desires at every turn in ways we could never achieve without them. Are they being good and helpful, or are they evil and opportunistic?
Well here's the low down. Are they in it for themselves? Absolutely! Are they also in it for you? Absolutely! Fundamentally successful businesses are started for two reasons.
1. To help themselves (selfish devils)
2. To help others (kind-hearted angels)
Is it possible they could do both? Yes, they can do both. In fact they need to do both to remain useful to themselves and to remain useful to others.
Think about your favourite store. It doesn't matter if it's on-line or in the mall downtown. It could be a stereo shop, your favourite eBay vendor, even a grocery store. What happens if they raise their prices so high, or hire such rude sales and support people that you and your friends stop going there? They start losing money and go out of business. You probably wouldn't care, but they would no longer be able to help themselves, at least not with that business.
Now what happens if that same business hires lots and lots of really nice people to spend extra time with you, and then lower their prices so you get everything at near cost? They start losing money and go out of business. The only difference is this time you care, because now you can't go back to that friendly store. Now you can't return that item you didn't want, or get it fixed under warranty. Because they didn't help themselves enough, they can't help you any more either.
So what do businesses do? Simple, they help themselves by helping you. Or they help you by helping you. It doesn't really matter. In a rare twist of fate, evil companies with all their worst intentions are forced into doing good and helping others to stay alive.
The fact is, the business that figures out how to help others the most becomes the leader. It makes no difference whether the owner's motivation is evil desire, or helping others. The only way to achieve long term success is to help others. There is no other reason for people to patronize a business, other than to get something they either need or want. If a business doesn't help you get that as much as their competitor up the street then they go out of business. If a business helps you so much they can't make a profit, they also go out of business and are not much help to you in the long run. Every successful business helps itself by helping others.
Who says the world is evil. Score one for the good guys.