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Tag: building a brand

  • Tips For Content Optimization by Platform

    Creating content is hard. Between staying true to your brand values, cultivating engagement, and being creative, you’ve got your hands full. Even harder yet is keeping your content fresh across platforms. Why is content optimization so important and how do you do it? Let’s examine!

    Selecting the Right Platforms For Content Optimization

    a person consuming too much content

    Part of the challenge of consistently creating engaging content is selecting the right platforms. You have to not only know who your customers are and what they want but also where they spend their time. The latter part is especially important; you don’t want to be wasting time creating content few people will see or interact with. 

    Selecting the right platforms for your content goes beyond posting on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. It’s choosing the most effective media types to raise brand awareness, drive engagement, and engineer more conversions. That means taking advantage of things like videos, blogs, events, and even interactive content. 

    For example, maybe a blog would help interested customers move closer to making a purchase. But creating and implementing a blog on its own isn’t going to move the needle. What you need is content optimization. That means creating the blog post as part of a series directed at specific customer personas–and supplementing it via other platforms and channels. 

    Content Optimization Tips

    The most important thing to remember about content optimization is that you’re creating content not for your brand but for your audience. That means what you find interesting might be boring to your audience. Know your customers inside and out. That means knowing what they want, why they want it, and who they want to be. You’ll get more people interested in your content, which will ultimately drive more folks through the conversion funnel! 

    an infographic showing the different kinds of digital marketing content across channels like social media and email marketing.

    In terms of content optimization, be sure you’re using the right platform for its intended purpose. For instance, blog posts don’t belong on Twitter. A blog would be better suited to your website, supplemented by links and posts on Facebook or Instagram. The actual copy itself stays on your website.

    Another way to keep your content fresh and interesting is to lead with emotion. Whether that’s humor, empathy, or something in between, getting your customers emotionally involved is the key to creating an effective relationship with your brand. After all, emotion is the most important driver of purchasing decisions! Look to connect with your customers beyond their wallets and create emotionally-driven content. 

    Properly optimized content is effective content. If you plan your content optimization strategy in advance, however, you’ll be able to stick to your calendar to help create an effective plan. For example, you might want to improve website traffic and unique visitors–content optimization will help ensure all the content you create aligns with these goals. 

    Don’t Forget About User-Generated Content!

    The best part about user-generated content is you don’t have to create it yourself. The next best thing is, if properly optimized and implemented, it can be more effective than branded content.

    an infographic displaying the power of word of mouth marketing as a branding tool

    Plus, user-generated content shows that there are others with a connection to your brand. Real customer testimony is many times more likely than any brand messaging to inspire other customers to take action because it’s impartial. Why else would word of mouth advertising be so effective? While customers may doubt the authenticity of branded statements and messages, they’re more likely to believe the objectivity of a random customer who isn’t being paid to create that content. 

    User-generated content captures the attention of both your brand’s followers and the creator’s following, which means it’s a great way to boost your visibility! While you might not be able to nab a big-time influencer to create content on your brand’s behalf, sometimes quantity can trump quality. In other words, if you can create buzz around your brand from average people, it’ll be just as effective as if you landed a celebrity spokesperson!

    No Content is Bad Content

    Your brand can’t survive if your customers aren’t aware you exist. You also can’t expect to build a relationship with customers without having a personality for your brand–a personality you build through effective content marketing. Your content tells your customers not only what you do but who you are and why you do it, both of which are significantly more important than what products or services you offer. 

    Unless your content is out of left field, hypocritical, or contradictory, it’s probably not bad content. But if you can optimize your cross-channel content to drive customers through your conversion funnel, you’ll essentially be automating the sales process and building relationships simultaneously!

  • Plant the Seeds of Brand Growth with These Strategies

    Building a brand can be downright overwhelming. Between establishing who you are, what you do, and how you do it differently, a challenge presents itself: why should your audience care? If you can excel in three key areas right off the bat, you can plant the seeds of brand growth and watch your business blossom! So what are those three key areas? Let’s take a look!

    Brand Growth Starts With Trust

    Trust is instrumental to brand growth. The more customers trust you, the more they’ll think of you as the go-to when they need your product or service. At the same time, how can you earn customers’ trust while you’re just starting out?

    The most surefire way to build trust is to create a great product. If your customers come to trust what you have to offer, they’ll associate that trust with not just the product or service in question but your brand as a whole. 

    two people making a business transaction

    Remember, brand growth is built around relationships. Customers have to care about the message behind the brand, not just what they can find on the shelves. Be transparent with your brand values and back up your words with actions. If your brand purports to care about a social issue, show your customers you care about it–don’t tell them. 

    While the bottom line is most important–especially in the early stages of branding–never put a sale before a customer. Offering a “money-back guarantee” shows customers two things: you stand behind your product/service and customer satisfaction is paramount. Be a brand you would want to do business with and start building your brand growth around trust. 

    What Do You Do Differently?

    What will really ignite brand growth is showcasing what your brand does differently. Let’s face it, if you don’t have competition, you probably don’t need much marketing to begin with–you’ve got the market cornered. For everyone else, why should a customer do business with you versus one of any number of competitors? 

    The answer is your point of differentiation. Whether it’s lower prices, better customer service, faster delivery, or a combination of attractive elements, show your customers what you can do that no one else can. 

    an infographic displaying customer feedback in digital marketing.

    Your point of differentiation doesn’t have to be limited to your product or service offerings. If you can create content or value that no one else can, that can work as a point of differentiation! For example, if you sell a product that comes with a “how-to” manual or other valuable literature, customers will have more incentive to buy from you than from your competitors. 

    Listen to your customers. Find out what parts of the customer journey they enjoy and which parts make them apprehensive. Focus on minimizing their pain points, providing value from start to finish, and reinforcing their decisions with confidence. 

    Brand Growth and Content Marketing

    a robot and a human, symbolizing automated marketing

    Brand growth can only happen with increased brand awareness. In other words, your brand can only grow if more and more people become aware of not only your brand’s existence but why other people are so keen on doing business with you. What better way to foster more brand awareness than through content marketing?

    If folks are liking, sharing, and engaging your content, more and more people are seeing it. Try to create content other people aren’t creating, find insights others aren’t finding, and do what others aren’t doing. 

    Creating valuable content doesn’t just help plant the seeds for brand growth, it’s a crucial part of search engine optimization. People can’t find your brand online if you have no content–or if your content is poorly configured for SEO purposes. The more your content helps solves problems and adds value, the more highly it’ll rank on search engine algorithms, meaning the more likely folks will find you when they search for relevant queries. 

    Start Planting the Seeds of Brand Growth!

    You don’t build a brand overnight. The most successful brands today got where they are through an efficient approach to delivering excellence on all fronts. At the same time, there are a few common links between the most successful, renowned brands: we trust them, they do something unique, and their marketing is consistently on-point. If you can deliver on these fronts, you can start seeing more brand growth!