Archive for month: May, 2016

How To Bring Customers Into Your New Website

31 May, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog /by supermonkeystrength

You’ve got an amazing new design that’s built to rank in the search engines, your branding is taken care of, and your social media profiles are setup, so what now?

Now, you start driving traffic to your site so you can get to business!

Without having a solid digital marketing strategy in place, though, you’re going to be left wondering what to do next, and typically end up wasting your time (and possibly money).

Long gone are the days where you can rely on traditional marketing methods alone to get traffic coming into your business.

These days, you can spend as little as a couple of hours a day working on your digital marketing strategy, and funnel more visitors into your website than you probably ever dreamed possible.

This article will help you fast track your way to seeing the traffic on your site start going upwards, and your monthly revenue increasing on a consistent basis.

Included below is a finely tuned, 7 step strategy designed to help you get your newly built website started off on the right track:

Step #1: Make sure your pages are optimised for the search engines.

Step #2: Get your social media taken care of, then utilise it.

Step #3: Setup paid advertising campaigns, then track and analyze the results.

Step #4: Find sites willing to let you to buy banner or native advertising.

Step #5: Create a direct mail campaign targeted to your local clientele.

Step #6: Get creative, and then let the media know about it.

Step #7: Create listings on Craigslist that are targeted to your offer.

Search engine optimization is priority #1.

Every day, customers are searching for businesses just like yours. Except, right now, they are probably finding your competition.

When you’re ranking in the top of the search results, the leads and customers are going to come to your website on autopilot.

While it does cost money to get to the top, once you’re there, the strategy begins paying for itself — often, multiple times over, month after month.

The amount of leads you can generate from high placement in the search engines more than pays for the cost of getting there, as long as you’re doing it right.

The first step to ranking higher in the search results is to optimize each page on your site for a specific keyword. Every page should have it’s own keyword to target, to ensure you’re casting the widest net possible, and have the highest chances of completely taking over your market.

To get started, visit Google’s Adwords Keyword Planner. Enter in a few basic keywords that you think customers would use to find your site, and the Keyword Planner will return a list of other keywords that they deem relevant to your business.

You can also input your website’s address and have Google generate ideas based off of the content that’s already on your pages, waiting to be optimised to rank. Then, all you have to do is go through each page and optimise them so that the keyword appears in the right places.

Google’s generally accepted best practices dictate where you should be placing the keywords in your code and content. The most effective locations on your pages are in the following areas:

Title tag.
H1, H2, and H3 tags.
Within the first few sentences.
Within the last few sentences.
Inside of the “alt” text in an image on the page.
Internal links pointing to the page on the rest of your site.

Now, keep in mind. It’s easy to over-optimise your site. By placing the keyword into the content too often, you could end up getting the page penalised, effectively keeping it from ranking on the first page.

If you notice that your pages seem to be stuck on the 2nd page of the search results and won’t move any higher, go back through the content and de-optimise it. Remove a keyword, or two in the content, or the internal links, and then analyze the results after a few weeks.

De-optimizing the pages is often enough to move them into the first page of the search results. This sounds counter-intuitive, but actively checking for over-optimised pages is a strategy Google uses to keep the spammers from being able to actively game the system.

Social media isn’t going to get any smaller, and requires a unique approach.

Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest tend to get a bad wrap, as far as obtaining new customers goes, but we’re here to tell you that, with the right approach, you can tap into the millions of active visitors that spend their days on these sites.

Each platform has a different strategy that you need to use to get the most traction from it.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of visitors you’re going to approach while you’re on each site:

Facebook: Facebook is a treasure trove for reaching the masses as quickly as possible. To get started, make sure that the content you’re going to be sharing is worthy of getting clicked, and then create a fan page surrounding your business.

Once your page is complete, you can either pay Facebook to “boost” it for you, or you can join groups related to your business and promote the content yourself, for free.

Twitter: Twitter is great for getting in touch with bloggers and other business owners that already have a substantial following.

Instead of simply promoting your content, business, products, and services, spend your time on Twitter connecting with the people who will have the biggest impact on moving their own subscriber base towards your website.

A lot of bloggers and marketers hang out on Twitter, giving you the perfect opportunity to tap into ready made audiences looking for businesses just like yours.

Instagram: Instagram is quickly rising as one of the superpowers in social media.

If you run a visually based business, and can provide photos of the products or services you offer, get on board as quickly as you can. Use hash tags, and find the influencers who have the largest following, then work on getting your message in front of them.

Pinterest: If your target market is women, Pinterest is a gold mine for you. However, even if your target market is primarily men, you can still create content geared towards women that will get them to either make a purchase for the man in their life, or get the man in their life interested in your business.

Paid advertising on platforms outside of Google’s Adwords are becoming more important.

There’s no denying that Google’s Adwords advertising program is one of the best ways to instantly tap into your target market. However, in the past few years, it’s gotten incredibly expensive to advertise.

The expense of posting your ads to the top of Google’s search results pages means that you not only need to have a well designed website, and a solid sales funnel backed by proven data, but that you also need to track, analyze, and optimise every single advertisement you’re spending money on.

Advertising in Adwords gives you both instant brand recognition, as well as direct sales, but there are other platforms that can give you nearly the same results, without the heavy expenditures .

If you have a properly built sales funnel, and are already spending on Adwords, or realised how expensive it can be, here are some cheaper alternatives you can use that will deliver the same instant results that Google does. You can use the cheaper sources of traffic to test your campaign and then transfer it to AdWords.

Bing Ads: Bing Ads works exactly like Adwords does. You choose the keywords that you want to bid on, and then when users enter those keywords into the search engines.

AdRoll: AdRoll keeps track of the visitors who have already come to your website, and then inserts a “cookie” onto their computer that follows them around the internet.

Anytime an advertisement is displayed that AdRoll has control over, your ads will be put in front of the user again, and again. This works great for keeping your products or services fresh in the customer’s mind.

7Search: 7search is great for mobile traffic. If you know that your potential customers may be browsing around on their mobile devices, and you can entice them to visit through to your mobile optimised or responsive website, it’s a great source of traffic.

The rates on 7search are highly affordable, making it easy to test your ad copy without blowing through your entire advertising budget in one day.

Outbrain: Outbrain places your ads directly underneath the content on large, authoritative sites, and blends your ads in with other “related posts” that users may already be inclined to click on.

That means your click-through rate is going to be through the roof. However, it also requires that you have a solid content marketing strategy in place, in order to convert these leads into sales.

Display advertising on sites in your market is an affordable solution.

If you’re advertising through Outbrain, you’re already going to be familiar with display advertising.

If you’re not, what display advertising means is to buy banner spots on sites that are related to your business, or sites where your potential customers spend their time.

A lot of sites will allow you to place advertisements, for a small fee. Placing your banner advertisements, or even advertorials (in some cases) on these sites has two distinct benefits.

First, you’re going to tap into an existing audience and start funneling them over to your own business website. Second, you’re going to be gaining authoritative links from sites that are related to your own, which helps increase your rankings in the search engines.

To get started finding sites that allow you to place ads, go through the search results using the following queries.

Your niche “advertise with us”
Your niche “sponsored post”
Your niche “sponsor a post”
Your niche “advertise on this site”

Remember to replace “your niche” with the topics that are relevant to your business. For instance, if your website is based around travel products or services, replace “your niche” with “travel” and other related keywords.

When you find sites that allow you to place an advertisement, reach out to them with an offer. In most cases, you can get away with sponsoring a post for a one time fee of $50 to $200, depending on the size of the site you’re attempting to advertise on, and the size of their existing audience.

If you’re local focused, don’t rule out direct mail. EDDM mail is effective still.

The United States Postal Service has been feeling the crunch during tough economic times.

To help stay profitable and competitive, they’ve opened the doors to what’s known as “Every Door Direct Mail”. It’s a program that allows you to get your advertisements into mailboxes in your local area for much less than what you would normally pay for postage.

To get started, you’re going to have to figure out a list of the zip codes that you want to target with your advertising. Then, you’ll have to put together a brochure that will be sent to generalised “Postal Customers”.

You will need to include a certain type of labeling on your mailers, so before you actually have the brochures or mailers printed, make sure to read through this guide, directly from the USPS: https://www.usps.com/business/pdf/quick-reference-guide.pdf

Once you have these two completed, reach out to your local post office. Let them know that you are interested in the EDDM program, and that you already have the mailers ready to go. They will ask you how many mailers, and which zip codes you want them to go to.

After dropping off your mailers with them, it will take 2-3 weeks for full delivery to be finalised. During this time, your incoming leads will continue to rise, until they peak towards the end of the mailing.

Get the media talking, and watch your traffic start climbing rapidly.

Think you have what it takes to “go viral”?

If you have a bit of creativity, or happen to know someone who does, you can get your business in front of the local media outlets and create a story that takes off on social media like a wildfire.

Even something as small as sponsoring a local cub scouts pack, or hosting a charity event for senior citizens in your small town is enough to get the media talking about your business — putting you in front of thousands of people.

Before you set out to make your business the next big headline in the local news, though, you need to sit down and think about a proper strategy, how you’re going to pull it off, and any potential backlash that may come from it as a result.

A lot of times, going viral can leave your business without the manpower available to handle the amount of inquiries and orders coming in, which can, in turn, create a customer service nightmare for you. This would have the internet talking about how bad your customer service is, instead of speaking your praises from the rooftops.

When you have your campaign together, you can either reach out to local media stations to let them know about what you’re doing, or hire a “press release” service that will spread your message across the internet for you. Once you have the message in place, you can give it a bit of help by “boosting” the post on Facebook.

Craigslist is still a viable solution to driving hot, ready to buy traffic to your site.

When you think of Craigslist, what pops into your mind?

Most times, it’s going to be listing free stuff on the curb for someone in your area to come pick up. Or, perhaps, even trying to find a car or truck for sale in your local area.

Maybe even some of the less than savory sections of the site, if you’ve read about a few of the recent horror stories Craigslist has been putting out.

It’s these horror stories that have given rise to the massive amounts of negativity surrounding Craigslist. However, if you’re able to get past them, though, there is still a large, active market of hot, ready to buy leads that you can funnel into your website.

To get started, browse to the sections of Craigslist that pertain to your products or services.

Then, craft a targeted message, and come up with a specific offer that’s exclusive to Craigslist users, post your listing in the proper area, and wait for the calls and emails to start coming in.

You want to make sure that you’re not spamming, though.

You also need to make sure that you’re actively monitoring your listings, because competitors will, sometimes, flag the advertisements as spam and Craigslist will automatically remove them without doing any further investigation.

The platform can be cut-throat at times, but it is still a viable choice for delivering hot leads that are looking specifically for what you have to offer. If you get the right offer in front of them, and make sure that your listing stays active, it’s a huge source of free leads.

Now, it’s time for you to start implementing each strategy.

Each step that we’ve just laid out for you requires a unique approach in order to get the most traction. That means you can’t just take a blanket approach and hope for the best. You’ve got to go into each with a precise plan of attack to keep from wasting time and money.

To sum up the overall strategy provided, here is a list of quick tips to help you get the most out of each piece of the puzzle.

Search Engine Optimization

Build a list of keywords that are specific to the products and services you offer, and your local area (if you’re promoting to local clientele). Then, optimise each page of your website to include these keywords, making sure not to over-optimise and potentially get your pages penalised. Search Engine Optimization is a complex topic, so sometimes its best to hire an SEO expert that can help you obtain the results you are after.

Social Media Marketing

Develop your social profiles on each of the four major platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Then, use Facebook to reach critical mass by “boosting” your content, and Twitter to get in front of influential people who have a target audience similar to the type of customers you want to bring into your business.

Next, jump on Instagram and start getting visual with your products and services. Post pictures, and find hash tags that are related to your business, then start promoting your content.

Finally, get on Pinterest and create “boards” that contain your “pins” and help female based audiences either purchase your products and services, or recommend them to the men in their life.

Pay Per Click Advertising

To instantly place your website at the top of the search engine’s results pages, consider placing advertisements on major platforms such as Bing Ads, AdRoll, Outbrain, and 7Search.

You can use the same keyword lists that you generated when you began the search engine optimisation of your website.

Native Advertising

To gain high quality links pointing to your website that will help increase your organic search rankings, as well as send targeted, qualified traffic to your website, reach out to other websites that are related to your own, and have a target audience that looks similar to the types of customers you’re marketing to.

Contact the webmasters by using the search queries we’ve provided, and request placement of “native” or “banner advertising”. Remember that a one-off fee is always preferred to a monthly cost for placement.

Every Door Direct Mail

Getting into your customer’s mailbox is easy with the United States Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) program. Put together a brochure, flyer, or mailing piece that contains a message specific to your audience, with an offer that they can’t refuse. Then have the flyers designed and printed with the proper labeling, and drop them off with your local Post Office.

Press Releases

Get the media talking about a small campaign, fundraiser, or charitable event that you’re running for your local area. Spend time making sure that you’re able to handle the new influx of business, and that your marketing campaign is going to shine a good light on your company.

Then reach out to a press release service, or your local media offices and journalists to let them know about what you’re doing.

Craigslist Leads

Craigslist, even having a bad rap, still provides businesses just like yours with a huge source of fresh leads that are ready to buy.

If you position your products and services in the right categories, monitor your listings to ensure they stay alive and don’t get flagged as spam, and give the users of the site an offer that they can’t refuse, your business will tap Craigslist power to generate new customers.

Use the strategies we’ve laid out for you to start seeing leads coming into your website every day.

How to Nail Your Branding Like Boss

16 May, 2016/0 Comments/in Blog /by supermonkeystrength

What makes a good boss anyway? In a word: delegation. An effective boss can’t do it all, but does have a vision on how it can be done by all in a cohesive way. How does the vision for your brand fit into these crucial components of successful branding? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but make sure each of these spokes are strong to keep the gears turning towards success.

If your brand isn’t garnering the kind of recognition and returns you had envisioned, you might be considering overhauling your brand or marketing strategy, or even rebranding all together. Before you take that leap, consider the fact that using consistent branding is critical these days. The companies that benefit from a drastic change in branding are either too big to fail, or are returning to the branding strategies that they abandoned in a losing gamble.

When a brand deviates from its original colors, symbols, product, or message, the risk rarely pays off. One of very few brands that have been able to alter their logo frequently (daily in fact) is Google. Even with the Google doodles, the word is still implied in each image, and the brand overall is highly recognizable with its red, green, and yellow color scheme creating a visually consistent presence across Google’s brand.

In other brands, a change can sometimes cause a spike in revenue, but often causes a long term failure which ultimately leaves the company scrambling to reclaim the attention of customers who wonder where their favorite brand went. Brands need to be accessible often to the market, and sometimes even a well-established and seemingly infallible brand can suffer from a shift in branding.

Consider the “New Coke and Coke Classic” fiasco of the 1980’s, or Kentucky Fried Chicken’s recent plea for customer’s to give their “chicken a second chance” after a switch away from their original concept nearly crippled KFC years ago. The re-introduction of their mascot, Colonel Sanders, played by contemporary comedians, has given the brand relevance once again.

These major corporations can tolerate and rebound from near-disastrous marketing efforts, but for smaller businesses or new brands, lack of consistent branding can crush a company beyond recovery.

Conversely, those with solid branding campaigns have become so recognizable that they no longer need words to announce their presence, with their signature colors and symbols carrying the persona of their brand. The Nike swoosh, the Coca-Cola wave, and of course, Apple.

As the internet evolves, web designers, social media networking specialists, and writers are realizing something that the first franchisees of restaurants knew decades ago: customers need to feel the comfort of familiarity, regardless of where they may find you.

It is important to brand clearly, consistently, and early to achieve maximum customer recognition and loyalty. Your customers need to feel like they’re on the same site, regardless of where they find you. Seamless integration of all platforms is the goal.

Ever increasing social media options and the availability of information on a mobile platform means that more sites have customizable themes to match your existing brand. There are still many ways to make your site and brand unique and highly visible while making use of the existing tools and templates. Even though you are using the same tools as everyone else, stake your claim to the facets of branding and use them ceaselessly.

Let’s take a look at your toolbox.

Color is a strong design tool which makes an instant impact on how your customers feel.

Most designers are cognizant of at least the basic effects that colors have on the emotional response of their customers. And the customers are subconsciously aware and responsive, even if they have never heard of color association by instinct or social conditioning.

We all know the big ones: red is stimulating, blue is soothing, stereotypically pink is for girls and blue is for boys, etc. (See more specific examples below.) However, the viewer’s context and the rapidly changing social contexts must be considered when choosing a brand color.

The acknowledgment of gender fluidity has many parents rejecting “pinkwashing”, and manufacturers are responding. Some colors have contrasting meanings, as black can be both a symbol of mourning or of glamour, of authority or mystery. Subtle differences in hue, luminosity, saturation, and texture can send a detailed message to customers’ subconscious cannot be smoothly delivered any other way.

Colors that Elicit Emotional Responses

Red

Active, passionate, trustful, love, and intensity. Coca-Cola, Target and Red Bull

Yellow

Energy, optimism, and joy. Ferrari, Shell, and Best Buy

Orange

Creative, determined, unique. Home Depot, Fanta, Firefox

Pink

Often associated with feminine brands. It means love, warmth, sexuality and nurturing. Think Barbie, T-mobile, Oprah’s Oxygen Network.

Blue

Depth, stability, calm, trust, comfort, and reliability. Samsung, IBM, Intel, GE and Ford.

Green

Relaxing, peaceful, hopeful and natural. Think Starbucks, BP, or Heineken.

Brown

Associated with the Earth, reliability, support, dependability. UPS of course.

Black

Formal, mystery, bold, luxurious and serious. Even shadows of shapes in brighter colors can achieve a similar effect.

Purple

Royalty, opulence, and pleasure. Wealth, quality, and creativity. Cadbury and Hallmark (though Hallmark is more about the gold crown than the purple field).

The 2016 death of iconic musician, Prince, (or, as he was later known due to a legal battle over his personal brand with Warner Brothers, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”) highlighted the effectiveness of a color to captivate an audience and become iconic in a global way. On the day of his death, Niagara Falls was illuminated in a purple mist.

Originally this display was meant to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, but people instantly associated the color purple with Prince and assumed it was for him. Historically, purple has always been associated with royalty, so the musician made a logical and long-standing choice in alignment with an existing association.

His 1984 biopic film, “Purple Rain”, revived this association, and purple has become synonymous with Prince ever since. This was an epic example of controlled personal branding, wherein a musical Prince attained social hierarchy over the actual Queen.

Your brand may never be legendary for a generation (or maybe it will), but a timeless logo should be more than “pretty or cool.” Determine what feeling you want your brand to evoke and then choose your colors wisely.

If you select a color but it seems too intense, play with transparency, hue, shadows, and other subtle color design tricks to get it just right. Tiffany’s teal didn’t happen by accident, and their brand has been around since breakfast. (If you ever get a chance to make a movie that supports a brand, take it! Space Jam, Purple Rain, 8 Mile, come to mind.)

What’s Your Type? Typography: What’s In a Font?

See how those differing fonts caught your attention, but then maybe made you wonder if you were still reading the same information? Creative people are drawn to different fonts, but most have been conditioned by click-bait and scammers to be suspicious of radically or even slightly different fonts. Is it an ad? Is it a knock-off? Is it real information?

While it may be tempting to use dazzling new fonts to grab attention, consistency of your font is an important part of branding. With the exception of languages that have different alphabetical characters, the globally renowned brands that have their own unique font are instantly recognizable. (Think Disney, Coca-Cola.)

Until your brand transcends the need for words (McDonald’s, Apple, Starbuck’s), the next best thing is a font that is your brand’s signature. With some brands, the font is very similar to a commonly used font, but subtle differences make it uniquely theirs. Combined with the use of color, a unique font is achieved.

Consider the Facebook, Youtube, and LinkedIn fonts with other examples here: https://99designs.com/blog/creative-inspiration/fonts-behind-famous-wordmark-logos/

Logos might mean something completely different to your audience than they do to you. For example, there was a logo for AT&T (or maybe it was Sprint or Singular. I don’t know because they CHANGED it, proving my point…). This logo was a small blue square which appeared flexible, with the impression of a circle or most of a circle inside of it. One could not help but see a condom package, but I wonder if that was a phone company’s way of pandering to the “sex sells” mantra, or if it never crossed their minds and represented only a merging of 2 logos during the many convergences of phone companies after their monopoly was fractured.

Logo choice speaks volumes about your business and mission, but it also relies somewhat on the context of the viewer. What will yours say, and how will they relate?

Your logo has messages you specifically intended, as well as some you may not have intended. A streamlined, simple, or serious logo sends a different message than a silly or busy logo that “pops”. The old standby of “sex sells” can even sometimes backfire, as StarBuck’s discovered when their split-tailed siren was met with rebuff in a 2008 rebranding flop.

Tone. Tone? Tone! T.O.N.E. tone . . .

What tone will you use in your content? Consider your literary syntax, the audience’s lifestyle, and the occasion for the remarks. Witty, funny, professional, sympathetic?

The tone used to address your audience can make or break your brand. The balance of hooking potential customers while keeping your content engaging to your target demographic requires the finesse of a skilled wordsmith.

Well-crafted content is invaluable, so don’t skimp here. It is better to invest in quality content that will maintain relevance and generate revenue right away than to cut corners and have to revise your content later. The logo, colors, and font are ways to pique your customers’ interest. Now, what extraordinarily compelling information do you have to share?

Content done wrong: content that excludes a certain demographic, or alienates existing customers for new or vice versa , content that switches tone for no particular reason, content that is reactionary instead of responsive
Content done right: acknowledge and welcome, engage empower encourage, viral emotional hooks

Design is all about ease and comfort of the interactive experience.

Your design needs to be functional. Errors in functionality leave negative emotions in your customer’s brain, with you or them realizing it.

Most of your customers are accustomed to and prefer a vertical design with simple tap-and-go functionality. Make sure you can accommodate this. Few things will make a person back out of a website so quickly as having to navigate a wide format website on a mobile screen.

Easy navigation is critical, considering the micro attention span of most of your customer base. Certain features like a smart cart (one that saves customers’ selections) might cost more up front, but pay off big on the bottom line with brand loyal customers and repeat business.

This article shows some strong examples of functional designs and some that are too cluttered or do not support smooth navigation:

http://www.awwwards.com/6-web-design-trends-you-must-know-for-2015-2016.html

A word about card sorting or card stacking formats: These styles work well with customers who like to compartmentalize their experiences. For the viewer who likes things to be more cohesive and flow intuitively, this design can be enough to chase them away.

When it comes to customer service, your brand color should be gold, metaphorically speaking. Treat others the way you would want to be treated (or even better, the way they want to be treated). The ways you handle customer service say a great deal about your brand. And you can bet the customers will have a lot to say about it too, either way.

Consider the big picture here. Unless your brand has no competition, a high level of customer satisfaction can give the edge needed to succeed in a tough market.

Both amazing and poor customer service can spread like wildfire these days. Some burns are good, and they will regenerate the forest you are cultivating. Others just leave you blistered and in shock, trying to soothe the wounds. Hire people who can put out the damaging fires and rekindle the warm ones, and make contacting them as easy as possible for your customers.

Ads Gone Mad?

There are differing schools of thought on whether advertising bolsters or cheapens a brand, and how to advertise without being a nuisance. While some sites are plastering their pages with ads and assaulting the news feeds of customers with direct offers, others are embracing the viral video subtlety that can be a boon to any campaign.

Videos with humor, emotional hooks, or that seem like they were sourced from a real person instead of a crafted ad campaign are all valuable advertising tools. Using hashtags for crowd sourced content can work well, but be vigilant for trolls who can put that strategy in a tailspin if not handled right away.

No matter what you do, you will never please or appeal to everyone, so use your ad budget in a way that garners the attention in a memorable way.

Maintain the same branding in your advertisements that you use onsite, but if you are going for something intuitive and almost osmotic, consider including it in the background or at the end. Does your brand assimilate well with all of your marketing platforms? Does your logo look as good as an app icon as it does on the website or in print? Does it translate well in size?

Intuitively, it makes sense to market a brand to subcategories of the market through specific demographic appeal. This approach can backfire if it seems too much like pandering to the crowd. Present a cohesive concept and your brand will automatically attract the appropriate audience.

A consistent flow from one platform to another is critical. Is your brand as clear in a short tweet as it is in a viral video or a succinct ad? Anything that is a component of a branding element should be able to stand on its own, such as a gif or snippet from a longer video, a color or shape from the more detailed logo, the font that gives your brand’s tone its style.

Certain platforms can be opportunities to experiment with new ways to drive traffic. If that platform has a font they use for new deals or whatever, try it out. When in Rome! BUT, be prepared to integrate and implement your original elements too.

Social media managers are a thing now.

Maintaining your content tone on social media is critical and time consuming. Whoever will be tethered to social media for your brand needs to be a quick thinker (responsive but not reactionary) who is apprised and available always. Your brand voice should have a unique personality and tone, but nothing that is difficult to replicate by multiple authors or changing circumstances behind the scenes.

If sometimes you are funny and sometimes you are serious, readers may not know when to engage or on what level. Whatever tone you choose for your brand, always respond to your audience promptly. If a customer feels ignored, they will make sure others know about it.

Business cards: Relic or Relevant?

All this talk about ways to make your brand strong online neglects a tried and true element, and ignores customers who rely on and revere their sense of touch. There are those who will always prefer tangibility over technology, a book over an e-reader.

These people have a loyalty to the presence of a brand. These are the people who will accept and use your business card or free promotional item. Remember to use relevant tangible items as often as the opportunity arises.

Fortunately there are services that will seamlessly print your elements on everything you need to present a cohesive tangible marketing strategy for your brand. And remember the original great idea, the free t-shirt. Short of those who will actually tattoo your brand on their body for the world to see, an eye catching t-shirt will get the word out for years, in all sorts of locations.

Making all of these facets of the branding gemstone shine takes talent and perseverance. It all comes down to the old decision of “diversify or specialize?”.

If you nail your branding right the first time and adhere to your formula, you won’t need to wonder because your brand will outperform your expectations. Reflecting upon the persisting brands in the national and global economy, one can clearly see that crafting a brand without barriers that seems to transcend time and space is all about perseverance. Just keep doing you and it will all come together.

Most times, the value of forethought is only apparent in hindsight. It is not until these strategies have been implemented for a while that a comparison can be made on the effectiveness of any one element or the overall branding campaign.

Do it correctly now, or do it over later. Choose wisely though, because if your branding consistency is impervious to the temptation of change, you will be stuck with that brand when it is iconic and globally recognized.

Be:

Consistent in your branding strategies, and keep at it even if the pay-off isn’t immediately as visible as you had hoped.

Colorful with your logo and your font. Not necessarily several colors or bright colors, but YOUR brand’s signature color.

Concise in your message. Between the short attention spans and distractions, brevity id the order of the day.

Credible in your reputation and customer service. Conduct your business in such a way that if anyone were to deride your brand, no one would believe them.

Clear in your mission. Imagine the market as a muddy pond, and your job is to filter out all the confusion and competition through clear and accessible design that makes buying easy for your customers.

Cognizant of your demographic’s desires, resources, and abilities. Engage with them, not at them.

Contemporary and constant in your social media approach. This is a delicate balance, as one day you are in and the next you are out. One troll can cause an avalanche of negativity online. Be ready with responses for the what-ifs.

Classic in the strategies that always worked, and always will. Face to face interactions, business cards, free stuff, certificates. Work that face time.

Complete in your branding strategy. A wheel won’t turn for long if it is missing spokes. Keep all the elements tight and toned and turning!