Utilize the power of Google Adwords and social media ads: The more you get your brand in front of your potential customers’ eyes, the more they will become familiar with and recognize your brand as the authority in your market. You can use Google Adwords to strategically place your brand toward the top of the search engines so your company will be the first thing people see when searching for a specific product or service. By using social media ads, you can place your brand inside of your preferred customers’ daily activities, reminding them of who you are and your products or services. It can take approximately seven engagements, such as seeing an ad, for someone who isn’t familiar with your brand to take action, so make sure your ads are being shown more than once or twice.
Remember the SEO (Search Engine Optimization): In today’s world, just having a website isn't enough. It must be optimized and maintained on a regular basis. Having your brand and company name pop up in search engines above your competitors can be a bottom-line game changer.
Reviews: Use Google Reviews and Yelp to help boost your brand’s reputation. These sites have fantastic SEO, and with enough positive reviews, will organically boost your brand's name toward the top of search engines.
Reviews sidenote: If you ever receive a negative review, always respond. Your followers will read it, and what you say will matter. Even though it may be hard, never be defensive with your responses, always respond with kindness and try your best to problem solve. For every one-star review, it takes five new five-star reviews to push that negative review down. So take caution when asking customers to leave reviews.
Keep It Simple
Are you ready to learn the number one secret to successful marketing? Simple sells.
Donald Miller's book Building a Storybrand has a fantastic analogy for keeping the details simple and focused:
Imagine your customer is a hitchhiker. You pull over to give him a ride, and the one burning question on his mind is simply, Where are you going? But as he approaches, you roll down the window and start talking about your mission statement, or how your grandfather built this car with his bare hands, or how your road-trip playlist is all 1980s alternative. This person doesn’t care.5
You don't want to confuse your customer. You want to ask them the simple question, “How can I help you?” Better yet, “Where are you going and what can I do for you? I'm going to assist you in getting to where you want to be.” That's what you want to convey with your brand message.
The Five Second Rule
You want your target audience to be able to know exactly what you're offering in five seconds or less. If your brand is not understood in five seconds, then there's a significant disconnect. Your brand’s mission has to be obvious. If your customer cannot tell you what your product or service can do for them, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board and try a different approach.
What action are you wanting your customer to take? Is that call to action clear? The goal is to define the mistake a potential customer could make if they don't spend their money with your company. For example, let’s look at Allstate Insurance. Allstate’s commercials show their potential customer exactly what could happen to them if they aren’t covered by Allstate’s insurance specifically. An advertising character was created by Leo Burnett Worldwide, and played by Dean Gerard Winters, called “Mayhem.” Mayhem shows up in various accident scenarios and also adds a bit of humor to what could be a potential disaster. Allstate brands themselves as the insurance company that will have your back if anything happens, literally, from Mayhem itself. And there’s also their tagline: "You’re in good hands." Even their logo has a clear message of hands ready to hold you, if ever you should need them.
Identifying Your Target Audience
Your target audience is a group of people to whom you are marketing your product or service. Assume your customer knows nothing about your brand and you have to educate them in five seconds or less.
If you’re not exactly sure who your target audience is, start with this question, “Who will benefit most from my brand, service, or product?” Determine your target audience by answering the following questions:
What is your ideal customer's age?
What gender are they?
What do they look like?
Where are they located?
What is their average annual income?
What are their goals?
What is their education level?
What are some of their occupational interests?
What are their religious beliefs?
What are their pain points?
What problem can you solve for your target audience?
For example, let’s take a look at Mercedes-Benz. Who will benefit most from the brand? People who want to live a luxurious lifestyle, right? It might appeal to real estate agents, people who have an income of $100,000 or more, men and women between age 30 and 60 who live in metropolitan cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
What problem does Mercedes solve for their target audience? It makes them feel good about themselves. It creates an identity and a lifestyle they want to live. What pain or stress does Mercedes relieve for their customers? They can feel confident in themselves because they drive a quality vehicle. With a higher status symbol, the customer can sit comfortably (on their new leather seats) and embrace their new identity and luxury lifestyle.
Take the time to create your target customer profiles. You may find you have more than just one.
Brand Social Media Marketing Tip
Let me fast track some social media advertising for you. You’re unlikely to sell a $5,000 product through social media to someone seeing your brand for the first time. This is what we call cold traffic. It’s more palatable for the consumer who may not be entirely familiar with your brand to purchase a $25 product through social media. From there, once you have captured their information and email address, you can lead them into a strategic sales funnel, providing them with a wealth of free and valuable information. Eventually, this may lead them to purchase your product or course that sells for $5,000 or more.
How do we target those people? By using custom audiences and split testing. More on that in a bit.
Testing Your Target Audience
Even though we think we know who our target audience is, at times we can be completely wrong or pleasantly surprised to find a different demographic engaging with our brand. In my experience, the best way to test this is with social media ads. The primary reason social media is the perfect place to advertise for most companies is that it allows us to have complete control over audience targeting. We can be sure the ad is being seen by individuals most likely to take the action we are wanting, resulting in conversions.
Not sure where to start? Here are a few simple steps to setting up Facebook ads:
Create a Facebook business page (https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/set-up), and Facebook business ad account (https://business.facebook.com/).
Create custom audience(s) or target audience profiles.
Place pixels on your website.
Create an ad, with the correct dimensions provided by Facebook, complete with your brand’s logo and message.
Monitor and review your results and make adjustments accordingly.
The world of Facebook and social media advertising is very complex, wildly in-depth, and ever-changing. It can be overwhelming to learn which social network and targeting options are best for you to reach your preferred audience, and unless you’re passionate about learning the ins and outs of Facebook’s famous newsfeed algorithm, aka Edgerank, I suggest you hire someone to assist with setting up your custom audiences and ad creation inside your company’s social media business ad account, so you can keep a close eye on your campaigns.
Lifestyle & Logo
Now that you've developed your target audience, you know who you’re after, and you know what lifestyle your business is selling, you can create your company logo. If you've done it backwards, and you've
already developed your logo before you defined your target audience, you may find you need to make some changes.
Luxury brands like Rolex, Prada, and Cartier are selling more than just the items. They're selling a way of life, a prestige, a refinement that comes along with the item.
You might really love the way your current logo looks. But does it make sense to someone seeing it for the first time? It's okay to do a rebrand. Sometimes companies have to change their look and their voice to cater to their aging or growing target audience. I wouldn't get in the habit of doing it often, but if you're finding your company started out as a homegrown little company and all of a sudden you realize that your product actually caters to the upper echelon, you must grow with your audience.
The Power of Color
If you look at large brands involving food or drink, they use a lot of red. Fast food companies pretty much all use primary colors. The reason they do that is because their purpose is to grab your attention immediately, especially while you're driving. If you look at luxury brands, it's a lot of fine lines, text-based fonts in black and white. You don't want to have a luxury brand and use bright primary colors because it might not grab your target audience, and it may convey the wrong message.
Look at history and see if there is something from a brand or a competitor you want to emulate. Are there certain colors you personally gravitate toward? Color can evoke emotion when we don’t even realize it. Take a look at Amazon and Paypal. Both companies always want someone to take an action. Somewhere down the line they have figured out that a yellow “buy now” button encourages people to take action and purchase. It's bold, in your face, and promotes a feeling of optimism and clarity. If you look at social media, you might recognize they all use a similar color blue. This color is perceived as trustworthy.
Elle & Co’s “How to Create a Distinct Color Palette for your Brand” presents detailed information about how you can use color for your brand. This fantastic article explains the psychology of color and shares common color associations. Below is a quote revealing how important it is to understand the way color relates to your brand:
Color is a powerful communication tool and is often used by designers to encourage action, influence mood, and tap into emotions.
It’s a tool that gets your audience to see what you want them to see, feel what you want them to feel, and do what you want them to do.
In fact, research has confirmed that 60% of people will decide whether or not they’re attracted to a message based on color alone. How you use color also affects the visibility of your brand and reinforces brand recognition by up to 80%.6
The article also shares four steps to deciding on colors and shades for your brand’s image:
Gather color inspiration
Determine the color combination you’re starting with
Include both light and dark tones
Choose dominant and accent colors
Color is extremely powerful in influencing potential customers, so take a little time to become familiar with color theory, and don’t hesitate to get outside input from experts when it comes time to make a color choice for your brand.
Storefronts
When you have hundreds or thousands of cars driving past every single day, depending on where you're located, it’s important that you're able to stand out amongst the rest of consumer options. If you have a spot where you can erect a monument sign, do it. Remember to have lights on the sign at night so it can be easily seen as drivers pass by, even if you aren’t open because they may return when you are open. It's real estate you're paying for, why not utilize every square inch to your advantage?
If you have a special or a monthly offer you’d like to promote, get a banner out there. However, you don’t want to come off as tacky or undervalue your product or service. So, you will have to decide if it’s appropriate for your overall brand.
Lobby
Make sure your lobby is clean. It doesn't matter what service business you have, people want to come in and feel good about themselves. They want to be in an environment that feels nice, and they can tell their friends about.
What creature comforts do you have in the lobby? Are there TVs on? Is nice music playing? Is the music a little too loud? What kind of music is it? Do you offer coffee and snacks?
If you don’t already, think about your lobby as a way for you to generate revenue. If you have a service business where people are going to be waiting for a period of time, put similar items to your industry inside the lobby for people to purchase. There’s a reason car washes have such packed gift shops in the waiting area. There’s always something for everyone, and they are practically stranded at the location. Why not offer them an opportunity to spend a little extra with your company for the convenience of them not having to make another stop?
Rather than regular TV running, have a video playing with photos of before and afters of the service, along with upsell products or services you want to encourage people to ask about.
The type of music playing in a lobby can say so much about what's happening behind the scenes. If your employees are playing loud rock music in the lobby of a hotel, maybe that's not the best choice. It might be better to go with softer jazz or classical music, encouraging rest and relaxation. If it's an Italian restaurant, stick with the theme. Play Italian music. Music can transport people into a different head space, fully immersing them in the memorable experience you want them to have.
Always be thinking one step ahead; what is my customer going to want when they walk through this door? Will you greet the customer immediately? Offer a bottle of water if they're waiting. That personal touch goes a really long way. Offering a bottle of water is cost effective and shows the customer you care. Why not put your own branding on the bottle so when they walk away, they're going to further remember your business? Perhaps someone else might see it, encouraging them to spend money with your company.
Mini-Makeover
Remember how we learned about stepping your business into the 21st century? This should apply to your decor as well. If you've been in business for fifteen or more years and you've never updated your lobby or office, it's probably time to change it up. Modernize it a bit, but do so without losing its charm. Even if the aesthetic is traditional, you still need to make updates. Perhaps new chairs or light fixtures will give the place an updated, clean feeling. When is the last time you changed your AC filter? If you can’t remember, it’s way past time. Does it smell nice in your building? Think of all the things you want to have in your home, and bring that style and level of comfort to the general public (as well as your employees), so they will continue to come back. Your business, your brand, the quality and cleanliness is a direct reflection of you as the business owner, so how do you want people to see you?
If you have old magazines, throw them out. People touch those magazines all the time; get rid of them and get new ones each month. Stay current! Don’t forget about those who want to read the daily newspaper as well.
I'm all in favor of using what you have and making the most of it. If your budget is limited, paint can be the hero. I have encouraged the majority of my clients to start with a fresh coat of paint, not only on the outside, but on the inside as well.
Do you have an outdated POS (point of sale system)? It might be time to upgrade. You may also be able to save thousands of dollars a year on credit card transaction fees by doing a bit of research. Is your company PCI compliant? PCI stands for: payment card industry data security standard. If you swipe a lot of credit cards for your business or intend to store that data, you need to be compliant. This protects you, as the business owner, and your customers. Don’t yet have a chip reader yet? You will need to look into updating your system to be within compliance.
I recommend companies like Rebel or Clover. This can establish even more credibility with your customers because it shows that you actually care about the data they're providing you. They may not even realize that when their card is swipe
d, that data goes somewhere, but by upgrading, you are having the customer’s best interest in mind.
Another simple way to be sure your customers are happy while at your location—provide free WiFi. Be sure it’s on a password protected network. Your customers will thank you for it!
Change is Good
For many of my clients, there's a fear around change: changing the logo, changing branding, changing the tagline. Maybe it's changing the way the website looks or taking a new headshot. These changes can be anxiety-producing for many business owners.
Is this something you struggle with? If so, I can promise you once you make the decision and embrace the changes, you're going to feel so much better. Know you’ve prepared, researched, given it your all, and then let go. You don't have to agonize over every last detail. Projects get put off for months and sometimes years because the business owner isn't happy with the way something looks. Even though something may not be perfect, it’s useless to you and the business if it continues to collect dust on your desk. Put a deadline on it, stick to it, and launch it.
Establishing Branding
Action Steps
Building a brand is so much more than just a logo and tagline. Your brand is defined by a customer’s overall perception of your business. Be clear with your brand message, and the rest will follow. Keep it simple!
What is your brand’s logo and tagline?
Does it help your target audience understand how your business can help them?
Always be sure to put the customer first; make them the hero in your company’s mission. If done correctly, they will always come back and think of your brand as the authority.
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