MAXIMIZE Your Branding
Big name companies do it.
Celebrities do it.
And, yes even political figures build their own personal brand.
Why?
Because it positions them in the way that they want to be perceived within the eyes of their audience. To that end, I highly recommend that anyone building a business of any sort focus on 10 key elements within the branding process.
2 Core Ingredients of Your Brand
Before you can truly start building your brand it is essential to define your purpose, your reason for being. The who that you are and why your audience or potential new followers should be interested in either staying or becoming connected with you.
In other words, you need to establish your mission.
1. Mission Control
This will help on two fronts. First, with a clear mission you have a full understanding of exactly what you are wanting to accomplish. Some may even make a mission statement around their project and ask a simple question before ever creating a single graphic or article or video or anything.
That question would be, does this content fit my mission?
If it doesn’t then scrap the content or at least table it till you are ready to expand into that direction. However, if it matches your mission, it is time to move into other points discussed within this article.
Before we do, may I ask, what is your mission? Share it in the comments section at the bottom of this page.
72% of marketers believe branded content is more effective than advertising in a magazine; 69% say it is superior to direct mail and PR.Click To Tweet
2. Audience Demographics
Once you have established a good frame work for your mission it is important to remember to make your brand understandable. In this regard, don’t try to be everything to all people. Instead, target your brand to a specific demographics so they truly believe you are speaking with them.
This doesn’t mean that you won’t be reaching other people too. But you know that you are truly speaking with your ultimate target audience.
The Amazon Associates affiliate program ensures that this happens by allowing their affiliates to create outreach opportunities around their given product. For example, let’s say you sell popcorn. Would popcorn machines or computers be better to offer to your audience? The closer that you keep connected with your visitors the greater the possibility that they will listen and buy from you.
4 Ways to a Brandable Style
Now that we have established your mission and demographics it is time to delve into concepts that define your style.
Do you remember Dear Abbey, Paul Harvey or even Dick Van Dyke?
No matter if you liked them or not, why do you remember them?
That answer, while having multiple fronts boils down to one component. They offered their own unique style. This is a lesson we would be well advised to move forward with in our own ventures.
3. Uniquely Personable
It starts with being different. It starts with creating a persona that reaches the hearts of people while being uniquely original.
Don’t be just another faceless drone spouting off the same rhetoric.
While educating your audience, tell your story. Give them something to remember. That way the last thing they will forget is you.
4. Show Your Human Side
The more real you are with your audience the more real they will be with you.
Are there challenges that you have experienced within your brand building? Talk about them, let your audience see that you are human just like everyone else.
Have you had trouble in finding your voice or mission? What have your successes been?
What are those things which your audience doesn’t expect you to talk about?
Talk about them and they will build a stronger affinity with your brand.
5. Listen, Learn & Grow
More on this in a moment but approaching your audience as one who is willing to expand on your current expertise and authority increases your value within those who are following or going to be following you.
But wait!
If you are the expert, shouldn’t you already know everything about your niche? Won’t you be seen as weak if you learn and grow from your followers?
No, you will be far stronger in the eyes of your audience when they see’s that you are willing to listen and consider their positions within your targeted niche.
6. Take Time
Especially in the early days of starting your business you want to get everything done.
There’s social media to connect with, your blog and/or website to build, eMail marketing campaigns, content marketing strategies, and…
And nothing, SLOW DOWN!
You may be in a hurry to get everything going. However, if your audience perceives that you are in a hurry, things will not go well for you.
They need to know that you are vested into them. Their needs, their concerns, their requirements. If this is not clearly understood within everything that you do, then you will start losing connections that could have otherwise have become clients.
Creating Your Branded Platforms
Even if you create the correct persona with your audience so that they will clearly understand your mission, you are still not off to the races if you have nowhere for your content to be presented from.
7. The Power of Blogging
In the early days of the Web this meant you needed a Website. Thanks to the invention of such platforms as WordPress all most companies really need today is a blog.
Perhaps that can be debated to a certain extent, but the bottom line is that you need to be able to have some type of platform to communicate with your audience from.
It needs to be easy for them to navigate.
Easy for them to read.
Easy for them to act on your CTA’s.
The easier you make the entire process for your audience the greater chance that they will both use and remember you for having done so.
8. Implementing Social Media Marketing Channels
If you are alive today and haven’t heard such words as Facebook and Twitter, one must wonder which rock you’ve been hiding under.
Hearing about these platforms will do your venture no good.
It is only by acting to incorporate them into your own offerings where they thus become invaluable components to you.
Be sure to complete the profiles completely which includes creating images that fit with your brand. The more that they see that you are a living breathing entity that really cares about the business you are building on the Web, the more they will correspondingly care about you.
9. Consistently consistent
Just building your Web properties is not enough. In order to catch Google’s attention or the eye of your reader you also need to participate regularly.
One of the best ways to participate is found by providing regular content on a consistent basis.
When I first started, I was created a new piece of content daily.
I am now at the point where people are beginning to provide content for me. While it is important for me to monitor the process in-order to keep my mission statement in check, I am able to focus much more on off-page type work link writing guest blogs, building backlinks and more.
However, I still need to be showing up on my site with new content regularly.
If I do not do this then how will I be able to keep my voice heard and at the forefront of my audience’s attention?
10. Engage
Speaking of keeping a pulse on your audience’s heartbeat, be sure to ask them questions.
For example, what more would you add to building a successful brand?
Tell them how to interact.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
And let them know that you are available for answering questions.
I will be pleased to answer your questions, comments and concerns about building a business on the web.
Simply put, let them know that you care. Once your audience is convinced that you really do care about their well-being they will be more likely to consider you an indispensable part of their life as it relates to your involvement within that targeted niche.
Concluding Thoughts About Branding
If you are looking to build yourself or your business into an authority in the eyes of your audience, it will take work and lots of it. Fortunately, thanks to the power of the Web this can happen faster than traditional types of businesses.
However, if you are thinking that you can bust into success with little or no related work I highly recommend that you think twice about that happening. Finding your success will take patience, initiative and perseverance.
Consistently holding onto these attributes can produce amazing results in the long run if you maintain focus and keep speaking to your audience in ways that they will resonate with your message. However, building a brand can take more than just these 10 ingredients.
What would you add to thoughts on how to launch a successful brand?
Please leave your comments below and let’s create an optimal game plan for succeeding in the world of creating a brand that will be remembered and followed here on the Web.
Guy Siverson – Author, Blogger and Online Marketer. He has been a celebrated Online SEO Marketer since the early 90’s. Guy’s greatest joys are his family and friends as well as helping educate and inspire others by coaching and speaking engagements that target other peoples success in their own entrepreneurial careers.
