5 Tips to Get Your Brand Noticed Online in 2015

The search marketplace is saturated for nearly every vertical I come upon. Social media marketing takes an army and still your brand may fall along the wayside. So how the hell do you get noticed online by your target audience? I want to share with you my top five tips you and your organization can use to make your online branding efforts more successful.

1. Build a Highly Functioning Site

Today, pretty much everyone (or their assistants) goes online to research products and services before they contact the company, which means you need to make your Web presence known. How are you going to make your site stand out so the consumers come back to you instead of your competitor? The functionality of your site has to be flawless, because if it is slow to load or too difficult to navigate, consumers will not wait – they’ll click off if they aren’t viewing usable content in a split second. If your house is in order, make sure your content is capturing users’ attention. You can achieve this by digging into data you have on your audience, learning what they want, and delivering it to them.

2. Don’t Get Pushy

Nothing will turn a potential customer away faster than an obvious sales pitch. Consumers today are extremely wary of pushy sales tactics, so try to build a relationship with your target market, build up the trust, and then you’ll inspire more confidence in them to consider your product before your competitors’. One way to do this in an online branding campaign is to provide your visitors with useful information that educates them about your industry. This is now crucially important, as items like Facebook Like-Gating have closed. Instead of pushing your products or services, offer an insightful view of the industry as it stands now and where it might be heading.

3. Email Marketing Still Works

Not everyone in your target market is going to know to visit your website, so you need to go to them. The best way to do this is to build up a quality contact list and send out emails that entice them to visit your site. Online branding really gets a boost when the emails include something timely, like a special sale or sneak peak at a new product.

4. What the Coffee Giant Did

There is a reason so many people shell out big money at Starbucks, and it’s not just because of the great coffee they serve – much of it has to do with the way the company positions itself in the public eye. Starbucks has a massive online branding presence through social media pages.

On their Facebook platform, more than 27 million users are now “fans” of Starbucks. By offering a place where consumers can become educated on a variety of topics, the company has created a platform that is more about the user than about the company. For instance, interactive consumer polls give users a real time glimpse into trending topics. One of the most important things to note here is that Starbucks rarely if ever mentions their products on this site. Instead, they focus on offering a central place of engagement to the consumer.

5. Have a Strong Online Branding Plan

Confused by the process of getting your brand noticed online? You aren’t alone. The best way to safeguard yourself and your business from a lonely branding experience or worse, a terrible online branding reputation is to first have a plan. It may be wise for you to review the steps for building an Online Branding Plan.