online branding - practical ways to reach your customers

Online BrandingPractical Ways to Reach your Customers

& Transform them into your Brand AdvocatesEmpower Series

“A Brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships

that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

– Seth Godin

“Online Branding is a thoughtful process of creating consistently positive, attractive branding images and

messages in the RIGHT Mix of Online Channels, to influence your target audience.”

– Rk

Factors Affecting Online Branding

• Choices

• Opportunities to research online• Supermarkets

• Consumers are confused – “Confumers”? ;-)

• Digital clutter

How to step up? Be Distinctive.

What hasn’t changed?

• Big brands are trying to create a life-long relationship with their TG

• Brand Represents “me”: • Starbucks cap

• Reebok T-shirts

• even Harley Davidson Tattoos!

What has changed?

• How you get there:• using various digital channels

• How consumers can research a brand: • Search

• Social

• Hashtags

• Videos

• Amazon reviews

Google Search:

120 billion searches per year.

2 billion internet users.

60 Internet searches per year per user.

Most of it related to products and brands.

7 billion hours watched last year.

2 billion internet users.

3.5 hours per year per user.

Most of it related to products and brands.(Car reviews, product unboxing, product comparison, etc.)

Eliciting Emotions

Eliciting Actions

Eliciting Actions

Practical Ways to Reach your Audience

• Equal Opportunity - No matter how small they are.

• Challenge Status Quo - Thinking that only HUGE brands can access the channels of branding, is dead.

• Zero-Dollar Budget is now possible!

• Understand Your Customer.

• Come up with the Top 3 ideas:• launch it

• get the feedback

• iterate from that

• Then restart.

• Don't think about branding as a "Clever" or "Catchy" piece of advertising -but focus on the overall customer experience

Top 5 Channels for Online Branding

• Search• Organic

• Paid

• Videos

• Social• Organic

• Paid

• Retargeting

• Email Marketing (Permission based)

Dealing with Multiple Channels

• Success in online branding depends mostly on your choice of channels used, and the targeting options.

• Fail to target, fail to get results.

• Focus on conversions

• Optimize until you get it right

• Start lean. Experiment.

• Listen closely to your audience. Spend more time with them.

• Track everything.

• Innovate.

Google Analytics for Tracking Conversions

Turn Loyalty into Advocacy!

The Benefits of Online Branding

• Cheaper than traditional branding activities (TV/Newspaper/Radio)

• Measurable results

• Demand a Premium pricing

• Higher market share

• Reduced threat of competition

• Greater employee satisfaction

• Stronger recognition by your target audience

The Steps

• Identify your super fans

• Listen to their conversations

• Bring them inside your circle – Woo them!

• Delight them

• Make it easy for them to share

• Create communities for super fans

5 Effective Ways

• Post-Purchase communication - Drip mails to keep them engaged

• Build a community to keep the together

• Affiliate Marketing

• Rewards program

• Contests

Take Away: Five Actions to Build Your Brand

• Articulate: Define the brand’s social identity, so you communicate with a unique,compelling and authentic voice.

• Connect: Find your best and most likely customers and give them a reason to followyou in social channels

• Engage: Interact with people by making brand communications and content morepersonally relevant and engaging.

• Influence: Inspire and enable people to share stories and messages about yourbrand. Give them reasons to share what your share with them.

• Integrate: Build Social into the brand and product experience to make it cohesive anduseful.

Take Aways• Online branding is NOT about visibility, ubiquity and functions - it is about bonding

emotionally with online users.

• A brand's strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctivevalues and mission.

• Online branding is all about a cause - People need to connect with your mission.

• Branding = your business identity

• Ensure your brand is associated with credible sources.

• Focus on creating relationships - because relationships lead to opportunities. A sale isjust the beginning.

• Your network is your net-worth. Build it right.

• Maintain a consistent posting and publishing schedule.

Take Aways• Play your strengths. Outsource our weaknesses.

• Know your audience. Build a strategy around your audience. You don't need toplease everybody.

• Position your brand - and bring consistency.

• Be honest about your product or service. Negatives spread faster than positive.

• Manage your online reputation. It is very important to listen to what your audiencetalks about you. Use social monitoring tools and products like Google Alerts.

• Blogging is the most powerful and effective way to get started with online branding.Develop your unique voice, and base it around your mission and values.

• Optimize your website for keywords that your brand stands for. Inbound marketing isthe best way to get people to know about you.

Here’s How Apple Does It

• Why? Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently.

• How? The way we challenge status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly.

• What? We just happen to make great computers.

Want to buy one?

Next Steps:

• Learn about your customers

• Position your brand. Make it stand for something.

• Learn Guerilla Marketing

• Learn Copywriting

• Always be testing and experimenting

What's Your cause?

What's Your belief?

Why do You EXIST?

What will the world miss when you Cease to Exist?

Why do You get up everyday in the morning?

Some powerful questions. For you and your brand.

Connect with meTwitter: @wealthyminds

Facebook.com/kgradhakrishnan

LinkedIn: Radhakrishnan KG

Questions?