How to Manage your Brand Online.

Customers are selfish lovers. They want to receive a lot more than they want to give, but treat them right and they’ll stay with you forever.

Advertising, reputation and great offers have always been at the forefront of all marketing; but the world is changing. TV spots and billboards aren’t enough anymore.

In a digital age, where choice is encouraged and variety is celebrated; how do you keep your customers’ eyes from wandering? Let’s take a look at some key aspects of ensuring your brand stays strong online.

Domain names

Make sure your web address is as simple as possible. Leave no room for error in spelling, reading or punctuation of your company’s web address.

Learn from the mistakes of French tree-surgeons ‘Les Bocages’: ‘www.lesbocages.com’.

 

And never be afraid to abbreviate to make the address more memorable and remove any room for error, as in Cancer Research UK: ‘www.cruk.org’.

Authentication

Customers love a brand they can trust. Featuring endorsements on your page from other trusted online service providers can be a ringing thumbs-up in terms of brand appeal.

Authentication exists for both payment transfer services and any sensitive data entry services.

In any case, having an international corporation’s logo as a stamp-of-approval on your site can only help to improve your brand’s reputation in the eyes of your customers.

First Impressions

First impressions are everything in business. You wouldn’t want a customer to walk into your shop and be met with a messy, confusing or overwhelming store layout and the same should apply to your website. Matt (?) gives an excellent idea on how not to design your website right here at the Datadial blog. For an idea of a nice way to design a website, look to your own favourite websites. For me, the Reddit interface is massively simple and uncluttered; while Facebook seems to be in an eternal battle for usability, updating several times each year.

 

Reddit Takes ‘Understated’ to the Extreme

Customer Service (e-chat)

Customers like to believe you’re willing to help them whenever they might have a problem. Many online services offer a kind of helpline in the form of e-chat services. This would be especially useful in cases where technical support is likely to be required, but don’t overlook the benefit of offering this facility for things as simple as order tracking or site navigation. Simply offering a helping hand can be enough to encourage your customers to trust in your brand.

Take Rewards Online

We’re all familiar with that sly loyalty trick: coupon collecting. Collecting wrappers and tokens from sweets, drinks and cereal boxes is nothing new, but linking these items to exclusive online content will drive traffic to your website and revamp your presence on the web. Encouraging social media users to Tweet, Share, Like and Comment on your competitions will further increase involvement and exposure to a wider audience.

Create Content

If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you 1,000,000,000,000,000 times: Content is King. In the big bad world of internet marketing, the only guaranteed way to get people to engage with your brand and thus build your brand’s reputation is to create fresh new content that is relevant to your target audience. If you’re offering the latest industry news; the best competitions and the most entertaining media, you’ll see a high amount of traffic and a big boost to your reputation.

Viral Content

In the same vein as content creation is viral marketing. Suddenly the greedy customers who only want to receive are paying you back with page views and backlinks. And they don’t even realise how much they’re helping! If you post a totally original super hilarious video on your site and it goes viral, you’ll see the page (and your site) grow in strength as interest grows.

Think of something like the not-even-slightly household name ‘BlendTec’. You’ve probably already forgotten the name, but you’ve definitely seen their viral marketing campaign. ‘Will It Blend?’

If videos aren’t your thing, you can take advantage of the spreadability of online content by sharing stories about your brand. Whether intentionally or not, Sainsbury’s were on everyone’s digital lips last year when they followed a 3 year-old girl’s advice to change ‘Tiger Bread’ to ‘Giraffe Bread’.

Whatever your brand, don’t look at Online Marketing as a challenge to overcome. Think of it as a tool to increase your exposure and improve your reach.