5 Ways to Strengthen Your Brand

Five easy steps are all it takes to create a stronger, positive brand image

Brand image is largely based on how customers and prospects associate with the business. Customers and prospects form a certain perception of the business based on their interaction with it. That becomes the brand image of the business. The brand image is one of the most important assets a business has. A business’s success is largely dependent on how its prospects and customers perceive it as a brand. Here are 5 steps that will propel your brand towards creating a positive image.

Know Your Customers: Understand your customers. Knowing the target audience well enables a business to have well-directed, relevant communication with them.

Consistency: Be consistent in your approach to customers. Consistency has to be on two accounts—frequency of communication and the content. This influences the customers, to associate certain words and images used consistently in company communication, with the brand.

Build Brand Presence: Today there are various tools available for customer interaction. These include e-mails, live chats, webinars, blogs, Videologs, Social media and so on. Be available to your customers across these various touch-points.

Add Value: Provide your customers with something they perceive to be of value. Some examples are free tips in your domain of expertise that would be of use to your customers, going that extra mile to simplify the buying process for the customers etc.

Innovate: Be unique in your product/service offering. Constantly innovate so that your brand is a class apart from your competitors. If you are dealing in a product that has way too much competition, innovate on other fronts. An example would be offering customer service on social media or at home customer service, that would set differentiate you from your competitors, lending a unique feel to your brand.

By following these simple steps, a business can significantly influence its customers and prospects to associate positively with its brand.

Content Syndication

Content syndication is a way of getting web contents around the internet. In simple terms, content syndication refers to distributing your content on various websites. Making content syndication a part of online marketing strategy helps in generating high traffic, brand awareness and improved SEO rankings. Content syndication helps in getting qualified traffic which in turn results in high in-bound links to other contents on your website or blogs. 

     

Successful content syndication process includes several steps like:

Content - People surfing the net are usually looking for information pertaining to their search. Hence it is vital that the content published is relevant and meaningful and non-sales like. The information reaching your audience should be educative and should help in converting prospects into loyal customers.

Networking – Reach out to your targeted audience and make it easy for them to subscribe to or share your content. Keeping them updated on new content published is also important. Join various social networking sites to reach out to a varied range of audience.

Web feed – Web feed refers to making the content available from a site to provide others with the summary of the website’s newly added content. With RSS feed there is a steady flow of syndicated content to your readers. Web feeds allow your website visitors to subscribe to and receive frequent updates on the content added by you recently.

Publish – Publish fresh content to all major article, newsletter, and social media sites. Make sure that you refrain from publishing duplicate content. Also, encourage readers to post comments on the content you publish.

With content syndication it is easier to spread word about your business and brand to many people at once. More content you generate, more the visibility enjoyed by your business which, in turn, will generate more customers

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E-mail Deliverability

Every marketer understands the importance of creating and maintaining e-mail lists to send out e-mail campaigns regularly to their prospects. However, the success of every e-mail campaign is governed by the senders’ reputation and e-mail deliverability rate. To ensure that your e-mails are successful in establishing your relationship with your recipients, you have to first make sure that your e-mail reaches its destination i.e. the recipients’ inbox.

Of the thousands or millions of e-mails sent out, it is not unusual that around 10% of the recipients don’t get your e-mail. This is where e-mail deliverability plays an important role. Though the concept of e-mail deliverability may sound simple, the process can be complex.

To ensure optimal e-mail deliverability here are some best practices that every marketer should be well aware of.

Permission – It is a good practice to get confirmation from your e-mail recipients to be included in your e-mail list. This will ensure that your e-mails are not blocked or unsubscribed by uninterested recipients.

E-mail content – Recipients look forward to significant and relevant content. The more relevant and meaningful your e-mail is, better it is received by the recipient.  Avoid using typical spam phrases and too many images to evade your e-mail from being flagged as spam.

One to one marketing – It takes more than to simply insert the recipient’s name in an e-mail body or the subject line to personalize it.  An advanced marketing automation system like MindMatrix’s AMP will enable you to personalize every graphic and text in the e-mail going out of the system. Moreover, it will also allow you to customize e-mails based on the contact’s past behavior.

Plan your campaigns – Sending too many e-mails in close intervals will result in more bounces or unsubscribed rates. But too little can also lead to no results. Hence it is important to make sure that you send out e-mails at least once every 90 days.

Option to unsubscribe – Make it easy for the recipients to opt out of the e-mail list and all future e-mails by providing an unsubscribe button in the e-mail body.

Request to white list – You can request the recipient in your e-mail to add your e-mail address to their ‘Safe Senders’ list. It is advisable to use only one e-mail address to send out the e-mails every time.

Testing – Many recipients may block images in the e-mails they receive. Hence, it is always better to test your e-mail before mass sending them to check whether your e-mail communicates the message without displaying the images.

Bounce management – Handling bounces is very vital for better e-mail deliverability.

E-mails sent to recipients may bounce back for many reasons. It could be because of wrong e-mail address or it could be due to technical glitch.

Monitoring e-mail campaigns – Every e-mail sent out needs monitoring to ensure maximum deliverability. Reports on open rates, click thru rates, bounce rates, unopened rates will help you to know how well your e-mail has performed and also help you to device a better e-mail campaign to be sent out next.