Building a Brand Online
Answers to Email Interview for Senior Market Advisor
My definition of brand:
There are two things we generally refer to as "brand." One is the physical representation - the company logo.
The second is the bundle of qualities that we hope people have in mind when they see our brand image or think about the brand name. For example 3M = innovation, major corporation, high quality products, etc. The second brand is not wholly under our control, for example Enron = . . . . . .
That is why I maintain that to create a brand you need to live it.
What it means to build a brand:
Your brand is in the eye of the beholder, so building a brand means creating an image of your service in the mind of your marketplace. Building a brand consists of three elements: Creating brand awareness; Communicating the desired brand; and, most importantly, ensuring that the customer experience is consistent with the image you wish to create.
On the Internet what it means is to be "other oriented" in your communications. The website should have the information and structure to meet the needs of visitors to the site. Email messages should address the needs of the subscribers or clients. Inconsiderate treatment such as spam, adds "inconsiderate" to your brand in the mind of the recipient.
Easiest way to build a brand:
Piggy back on an existing brand like Microsoft did. Latch onto the coattails of a category killer and let them launch your brand into the stratosphere. The problem with that tactic is that it isn't often that you catch a major brand asleep at the switch the way IBM was.
Best way to build a brand (print, radio, jingle, TV, etc.):
All of those will build brand awareness, but none of them will build a brand. The only way to complete the brand building is to have customers experience the desired brand attributes, so you have to have sales and/or give service in order to build a brand. As to which medium best builds brand awareness, it would depend upon whether you are going for a local or national brand and where your likely audience hangs out.
I disagree with marketing people who differentiate between "direct marketing" and "branding." Any touch point helps to build the image of a company in the mind of its audience. Whole businesses and brands, have been built through direct mail. Whole businesses have been built and branded on the Internet without aid of marketing, except for PR. Amazon grew a well known online brand in a year without spending a dime in advertising. Then they started advertising and took over their category, online bookseller.
The Internet can be a powerful brand building medium, because it allows interaction. People receiving regular email newsletters or participating in moderated discussion groups feel a personal connection to the newsletter writer or discussion group moderator. The quality, consistency and personality of these communications develop a brand for the individual and sponsoring organization.
Cheapest way to build a brand:
PR is the cheapest way to build brand awareness, especially if you have a great PR person in house. Krispy Kreme is an example of a bricks and mortar company that built their brand primarily by PR. When they would move into a community they sent boxes of freshly baked product to every radio, TV and print newsroom and sat back while the media got the word out for them.
On the Internet PR and word of mouth have been key tools for start up companies to get an audience and for established companies to gain traffic to their sites. We regard building links into a Web site as part of online PR. Being listed in every search engine and directory is a fundamental of online PR - giving your brand a presence. Then getting your story out through traditional news sites, relevant discussion groups and blogs performs the online PR function to raise brand awareness and begin to communicate your story.
The experience at the Web site is key to online brand building. Once visitors come to a Web site the brand experience is established, either reinforcing the brand message or refuting it, depending upon the experience for the visitor. The brand experience will build customer referral which is the most powerful method of building a brand because customer referral builds brand awareness and validates the brand experience.
The best way to build a brand with unlimited funds:
Make sure that your company lives the brand at every touch point with the customer and community. Even if money is not an object you cannot successfully build a brand without delivering on the brand promise. Then use your vast resources to promote brand awareness by every means available, advertising, direct marketing, PR.
How to etch your brand name into clients' minds:
Make sure the brand name is relevant and memorable. Keep it in front of your client by way of newsletter or other means. It is best when your brand becomes synonymous with your product or service. Kleenex = tissues; Scotch = tape; PostIt Notes = sticky notes, etc.
What works for Rapport Online Inc:
Because our services are delivered on the Internet, we give our prospects and clients little document holders with our name on them to keep beside their computers. We have had companies approach us years after having received one of these for Internet marketing service.
Become the go-to person for your area of service. Whenever our clients have a question regarding the Internet or computers, they tend to think of us as the first place to turn. They know we will point them in the right direction if we don't have the answer.
How is the senior audience different from, say Gen X (i.e. bus benches, Nightly News, instead of the Internet, etc.)?
Most seniors that I know are on the Internet, at least to some extent. (Homeless people are on the Internet; they get access from libraries.) If the majority of advisors are using other channels because they don't believe seniors are on the Internet, then the Internet is just where I would head - have the whole field to myself.
The Internet is segmented by interest, not by demographics. Finding the seniors you want to do business with involves finding sites that are most likely to appeal to them. If you are interested in finding seniors who follow financial information closely, head to the top financial sites; your seniors will be there. If you want to reach US senior travelers a lot of seniors are RVers. There are many RV related sites and publications online.
The Internet has a lot of potential for personal branding through networking the many special interest communities that can be found on the Web.
You know your brand has been created when . . .
You know that you have brand awareness when people recognize the brand name. You know your brand has been successfully created when you hear someone, who does not know you personally, describe your brand the way you would like to have it described.
Once established, why is it important to keep building your brand?
Many factors work to change the consciousness and perception of a brand. I mentioned Microsoft earlier. Although the brand was launched into public awareness by IBM, by the time they introduced Windows, especially Windows 95, it had become the brand that people loved to hate. There is nothing like the experience of seeing hours of work disappear when the system suddenly advises that the "software has attempted an illegal action and Windows is shutting down" to add "arrogant #@%!!" to the attributes of the brand.
To keep its dominant position in the microcomputer industry, Microsoft has thrown themselves into combating hackers and improving customer support. While they are busy touting their security and service, they are also spending money to make these brand attributes a reality.
Microsoft = PC systems, but they are still working hard on their brand perception.
Is there anything else you'd like to say about brand building?
We use a graphic to represent what Rapport Online Inc does: View Marketing Graphic.
Ad agencies tend to think of "branding" as advertising. In fact, in 2000 and 2001 when click through rates of banner advertising were plummeting, they began to justify banner campaigns based on the "branding" their customers were achieving.
In 2004, Overture (now Yahoo Search Advertising) did a study that showed that the text ads and top results in natural search placement had a greater brand awareness effect than banner advertising!
The Rapport marketing graphic divides Internet marketing tactics into "Advertising" tactics and "Rapport Building" tactics. It is our contention that the Rapport Building tactics are more effective for building the brand than the advertising tactics. The category killers on the Internet - Amazon, Travelocity, Expedia, Yahoo, eBay, etc. - use all of the tactics plus traditional advertising to build and maintain their brands.
