Your brand is everything when it comes to online marketing and it’s one of the main factors that consumers weigh up when making a decision to purchase your services. Brand perception is far more important than the actual quality or prices of your services.
Time and time again history has shown us that it’s not the best service that beats the competitors, but the perception of that service, in other words the brand perception. For these reasons it’s crucial that you build the best possible perception of your brand possible and in this article we’ll discuss the best options available to really make your brand stand out from the crowd.
Let’s look at an example case study of a company called California Fly Drive Company that offers tailor made holidays, in particular fly drive holidays to California and we’ll go through the steps they’d take to increase their brand presence online, and in particular how they can increase the perceived value of their brand in the eyes of consumers.
The Website
The first and most important part of any online brand awareness campaign is your web site and the name of your company. You have two options for your company name: you can either pick a general name like Blue Dot Travel that has personality and is easier to remember, or you can pick a name that describes what you do; California Fly Drive Company.
The main advantage with the second option is people will find your site on the search engines much easier because you can have an exact match domain like californiaflydrivecompany.com, which is in a strong starting position to rank for “California fly drive”.
The first option is better if you plan on offering a wider variety of services and will allow you to scale your online brand. It’s also easier to build a stronger brand perception with a catchy name like “Blue Dot Travel”.
Excluding SEO factors, the differences in terms of brand perception are that the first option gives you instant recognition for what you offer, but over the long term you won’t have such a strong personal brand. With the second option it’ll take you longer to associate your company name with your services, but in the long run you’ll have a stronger, more personable brand.
Social Media
Social media is at the heart of an online brand and your perception on the major social media sites will make or break your brand. The most important sites you need a presence on are Facebook and Twitter. In all your online efforts you should strive to get people to like your Facebook page and follow you on Twitter. Offering additional benefits like coupons and specials offers through these mediums are just some tactics you can use to get likes and follows.
For our example company our Facebook page and Twitter page will be called “California Fly Drive Company”. Since we’ve picked a name that describes exactly what the company does, we’ll get additional search traffic in from Facebook, Twitter and Google from people searching for California Fly Drives.
Facebook Page
The first thing you should create is a Facebook page for your business. This will allow you to start building up a list of people who like your page that you’ll be able to communicate with through your Facebook page.
You’ll also be able to gain a lot of excellent exposure by using Facebook’s paid advertising services. You can list your Facebook page directly in an advert on Facebook and have people like the page directly in the advert and then visit your page. This has the added benefit of the additional trust you’ll get from Facebook users because they’re remaining within the overall Facebook site as opposed to being redirected to your external web site. Additionally on your advert inside of Facebook people will be able to see if any of their friends have liked your page, which can help to create a viral effect for your new Facebook business page.
Twitter Page
Your twitter page is your direct line of communication to your customers. To create a successful Twitter page you need to engage your customers. It’s not enough to simply create a page, get some followers and then make the occasional tweet. Your Twitter page should be the heart and soul of your company and be full of personality. It’s where you’ll have the opportunity to really stand out from your competitors and bring back that “local business” feeling that’s been lost with International commerce.
The most successful Twitter feeds don’t sound like corporate drones, but rather they inject some personality and life into what would otherwise be just another tailor made holiday company. You should encourage your customers to ask you questions via Twitter where you can respond to them for all your followers to see. Not only will you be making potentially useful information available to all your followers, but you’ll create a community feeling and make your customers feel like you care about them. Making your customers feel like you care is the number one way to build a strong, positive brand.
[box]This is an article by David Veibl. David writes for Timeless Travel, a site specializing in california fly drive holidays and other awesome traveling packages.[/box]
