Brand Focus – Big Message, Small Package

If you think that the Internet has fostered an international epidemic of attention-deficit syndrome, you’re partly right. On nearly every web page, enticing links can make it hard for distractible surfers to concentrate.

But the “teasers” that cause us to click around are just the logical extension of the pre-‘net advertising culture. In advertising, complex ideas are slashed down to simple taglines, slogans and symbols. When all these elements are presented repeatedly to a target audience, it creates a branded identity. Branding is good for recognition, and recognition is good for business.

So if you’re looking to brand your online business, you should take a page from the advertiser’s notebook. To deliver your message successfully, you’ve got to distill it – into a byte-sized format that captures your target audience’s attention, before the next distraction comes along.

Take A Pop Quiz

When you were in school, you probably experienced the dreaded “pop quiz” – an unexpected reckoning of your knowledge, based on short answers to a series review questions. Well, if you want to create a brand for your business, here are three short questions for which you’ll need a ready answer:

• Why are you in business?
  What do you offer, and why should customers do business with you, rather than with your competitors?
• What words should come up in customers’ minds when they think of your business?
  Ask around. If your employees, colleagues and customers all come up with the same associative words – and these are words you actually want linked to your business – then your branding is on target. If not, you’ll need to adjust your branding image.
• What advantages should people associate with your business?
  A short list of advantages will help you focus your communications strategy and help you determine where your business fits into the wider market.

Focus, Focus, Focus !!

The best branding is based on one concept – not a laundry list of advantages. Identify just a few words that truly represent you and the identity you wish to project (Spokey’s – Honest Bike Repairs; Zippy’s – the Fastest Pizza Deliveries). Then make sure you can actually deliver services to match.

A logo or graphic image is another important branding element. Select a visual “personality” that reflects how you want customers to feel about your business. For example, if you want to inspire trust and respect for your professional authority, make sure your choice of colors, fonts and images reflects this goal.

Conduit Toolbars – Your Brand at a Glance

Conduit toolbars are an excellent way to reinforce your brand image, by presenting current customers and prospects with a highly focused set of words and images that encapsulate all that is attractive about your online business.

A completely flexible platform that can be updated in real time, Conduit toolbars can include logo-emblazoned features that your target audience will love. Your tagline or slogan can be built into the toolbar messaging, either as part of a newsfeed, or in a radio station or video channel. And any toolbar “extras” you choose to include can carry the same look and feel as your branded image.

Best of all, because they sit in the browser window, Conduit toolbars follow your subscribers around to all their online distractions. This not only enhances brand recognition – it increases the payoff you get from your online branding strategy.