The Best Most Effective Branding Tools for your Business
What are the best and most effective branding tools for your business? They might not be what you think they are…
It seems that branding has become the new mantra of every business recently.
“To get noticed, I have to build my brand!”
While, I agree it is true that building a brand will help your business get noticed, what does it really mean to build your brand? More importantly what tools will allow you to successfully build your brand?
You might be on the Wrong Track if you think these are 3 of the most effective branding tools:
1. A Logo for Your Business
One of the most prominent branding tools for your business is your logo.
I’ve heard this a LOT! Yes, a logo may be the first step towards building your visual branding, but it’s most certainly not a tool for building your businesses brand. An attractive and meaningful logo will help your business establish a sense of credibility, consistency, and acceptance.
Remember, “Your logo is only one piece of your branding strategy. Your logo is a symbol that can provide consumers with instant and powerful brand recognition of your business and the services or products that you offer.”
2. Business Cards
I recently read an article on Entrepreneur that indicated business cards might still be a key component to branding. I do agree that many times you have to meet people and handover your business cards to make a possible business relationship. For many people, who are not regularly online, the business card may very well be the first impression about your brand; however, I hesitate to classify them as one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE tools for building your brand.
3. Business Presentation Materials
“Whether it is a business meeting or one-on-one customer interaction, to explain the products and services, the most effective tool is a presentation.”
This statement is true, but often misinterpreted. The theme, font style, and language of the visual business presentation such as; Microsoft PowerPoint is only a visual component to your brand – NOT a tool. Your presentation skills may play a prominent role in the whole process and it’s true that you don’t want to forget the power of visual branding in your over all strategy, but what tools should you be using to build your business?
What are the Goals of Building a Strong Brand?
You have to have goals to know what tools you need!
What is the goal of your brand? For most it’s to generate leads, carve out a niche with less competition, and sell at a more profitable rate. That is what you’re after too, right?
“An effective branding tool is a t”
You’re not looking to be just another egg in the carton, you’re looking to the be the Gordon Ramsey version of scrambled eggs!
So, What Are Effective Branding Tools for Your Business?
Also, why are these effective branding tools?
1. Your Website
Your website plays a vital role in your brand journey and is definitely an effective branding tool. Why? It is arguably the most important marketing tool for your business.
Your website is the primary way in which your customers engage with your content. Your website is the hub of all online marketing efforts.
- Your email marketing
- Delivering Your brand message
- Lead generation through ads, organic seo, or even social media
- Blogging to deliver content your customers crave
- Opportunity to connect with customers whenever and wherever they are
If the goal in building a brand for your business is to generate leads… your website is THE primary tool.
Taking your website a step further as a branding tool for building your business you could do the following to establish yourself as an industry leader.
Start Blogging – Blogging is an effective branding tool and an integral part of any online content marketing campaign making it an essential part of brand development strategies.
Regularly contributing to a blog is a relatively low cost way to provide deeper connections with your customer base. Not only is a blog a great way to build out your website for seo, but your blog posts offer a more personalized channel of communication with your audience. By offering information that is both interesting and informative, your blog gives another way to build trust with your consumers. Establishing trust is key component for establishing authority.
Publish a Newsletter – A newsletter is a great way for you to provide essential industry insight that may not be readily available elsewhere. Speak to the people you serve with a highly focused and highly useful newsletter to make it an effective brand building tool.
2. Social Media
Social media is another effective branding tool that can create amazing results in the branding process. The goal of branding a business is to be recognizable to your customers wherever and whenever they are. Well, the chances are – they’re on social media right now.
Social posts and social media ads are great ways to communicate with your audience about your products and brand. A focused approach to engaging content is the most suitable social media strategy. Social media strategy is a major selling point of virtually every business.
One very important thing to remember with social media is that the goal of your business and the goal of social media are two entirely different things. You want customers and people want a meaningful way to connect with others using social media. These two goals don’t often align and that’s why it very important that you know what you’re doing on social media.
Read this post on Inc. before you attempt any brand building through social media.
3. Content Research
If I had to pick one tool to help your brand building efforts with social media it would be Buzzsumo. This is a very effective branding tool to help you find the right content for your audience, and you can also use it to analyze and monitor your Facebook pages. You can metrics around each individual post and more interestingly you can see what content performs best.
Buzzsumo will also give you insight into what day is the best for you to post, how long your posts should be, what type of content works best, and monthly stats over time.
Conclusion
Branding is a continuous active journey in building rapport with your target audience. If you stop; you’ll eventually be overtaken by others in the industry. Therefore, be an early bird in your industry and stay ahead in the race.
