Online Brand Consistency - Brand Marketing
Most website publishers believe that branding is beyond them. I’m just a little online company, they might say – what do I need branding for?
Here’s a news flash: Branding is important for every kind of company at every stage of development. Even if you don’t aspire to worldwide brand recognition – Coca Cola and Levis come to mind – branding affects how customers think and influences their purchasing patterns.
But harnessing the power of branding requires discipline. If you really want your brand to take off, you need to be consistent about your image and the way it’s projected.
Online Branding - And Beyond
Let’s say you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in creating a new website for your business. The text is clear, the tagline is catchy, the layout and color are attractive, and the domain name fits your business to a “T”. But back in your office, you’ve got a box stuffed full of those image brochures you designed last year. Shouldn’t you include one of these with every order you fulfill?
No, you shouldn’t. Here’s why.
Effective branding means that every time a prospect gets an impression of your business, that impression should be consistent. From your letterhead to your in-store décor, to the way the secretary answers the phone, it’s up to you to make sure that you’re projecting who you are, in a way that generates a positive mind-set in your customers. By establishing your brand, you’ve mapped out a very specific path to marketing success. Step off that path, and you’re undermining your own efforts.
Look, Feel and “Brand-Name” Service
Branding involves projecting a consistent look in all your marketing materials. In branding, a set of colors, a logo, and a font are doing more than just getting your message across. They’re reinforcing the message that’s already been delivered, creating an ever-stronger impression in the customer’s mind.
Words count. The popular music site CDBaby.com could have chosen to adopt a “Fortune 500” tone to reflects its solid financial success. Instead, it went for consistency – maintaining its informal, jokey tone in every communication, right down to the order confirmation emails.
Actions count, too. Godiva chocolates, once marketed as a boutique luxury item, are now available in chain stores, packaged in that instantly recognizable, “branded” gold box. But Godiva executives know better than to cut corners on quality. If they did, their brand – associated with excellence – would be irreparably damaged.
Creating Brand Consistency with Conduit
Conduit community toolbars are a cost-free way to ramp up the effectiveness of any website branding campaign. By creating a Conduit toolbar and offering it as a download, you will be installing a reminder about your site in the browser window of all your subscribers, something that serves as a platform for continuous, branded impressions.
Designed for dynamic update with customized newsfeeds, audio, video, games and applications, the Conduit toolbar enhances the browsing experience, while at the same time, consistently reinforcing your brand image. This makes selling easier, because daily use of the toolbar helps customers get to know you – making your site, among all others, the one they turn to when they need to do business online.