Every brand faces fierce competition. For business owners, persuading customers to take the next step is one of the most difficult challenges. If you’re growing your business in 2023, or you’re looking to boost sales and generate more profit, it’s essential to make sure that your brand stands out. Here are some tips to help you turn heads and convert more leads.
Innovative, consistent branding
Branding is all about giving your company a distinctive identity. It is telling people all about what you do and how you can help them. Also, branding can make a hugely positive difference in customer engagement, sales, and client retention rates. But some companies are much more successful than others. Branding can have a positive impact, but it can also have the opposite effect. If your branding is unclear, muddled, or inconsistent, it can put customers off. When working on a new branding campaign or revamping existing ideas, try to be innovative and original, be consistent, and always bear the target market in mind.
The way you present and market your brand should appeal to your ideal customer. It should also be relevant to your business and the types of products or services you sell. Consider who you’re trying to target and how you want customers to perceive you. Branding covers everything from your name, logo, strapline, and packaging design to the themes and fonts you use on your website. Also, it includes the tone you adopt when you send emails or share posts on social media. A branding campaign for a fun pet toy company, for example, should look very different from that of a financial organization. Or a legal firm trying to portray a professional, reliable image.
Market Research
If you are launching a new company, or you are considering rebranding your business, it’s incredibly beneficial to conduct extensive market research and test ideas and concepts before you make a final decision. Get to know your target audience, find out more about the brands they like, and what makes them choose certain companies over others. Additionally, ask for ideas, opinions, and feedback. It’s a brilliant idea to organize focus groups or run online polls and surveys to test packaging ideas or new logo designs. You want your target customers to form a positive impression of your brand and to understand the message you’re trying to get across clearly. If your research shows that people don’t understand the strapline, or they’re not keen on the packaging, you can make changes before the product goes to market.
Killer content
Content marketing is a versatile marketing method, which helps businesses to connect with new customers, raise brand awareness, and build strong relationships with existing clients. There are all kinds of different types of content brands can use to engage with customers, promote products and services and boost lead conversion rates. Examples include blogs and articles, how-to guides and tutorials, personal stories, video clips, interviews, infographics, case studies, advertorials, educational pieces, user-generated content, and social media posts.
There are multiple benefits of content marketing. But it’s essential to realize that not all posts, articles, or videos will convert. To succeed, brands have to make sure that the content they produce and share has a positive impact. High-quality, original, informative, accurate, and engaging content can put businesses on the map. Poor-quality, bland, dated content can be a turn-off for customers.
Target Audience and Objectives
If you’re keen to capitalize on the benefits of content marketing, it’s wise to start by defining your target audience and outlining the key objectives of your content marketing strategy. If you don’t have marketing experts on your team, it’s worth exploring outsourcing. Additionally, if you work with a digital marketing agency or freelance content creators, you can access targeted, optimized content that will help you to connect with customers. If you already have a strategy in place, but you’re struggling to keep content fresh and original, look for campaign ideas online. Build on posts that have had an impact in the past, try to solve pain points, take inspiration from topics your readers like to discuss, identify new trends, and encourage your readers, followers, or viewers to share suggestions and feedback.
When you produce content, it’s critical to engage with the reader, lure them in and maintain their interest and concentration. Choose a catchy title, add subheadings, include keywords, and varying content types. Adding images, video clips, infographics, and tables to a blog post or a tutorial, for example, will make the piece much more appealing to the reader than chunks of plain text. The brain processes visual media around 60,000 times faster than text.
Brand values
Did you know that over 80% of consumers now want to buy from brands that share their values? As a society, we have become more conscious of the environment and we’re also more interested in how brands connect with communities and give back. Research suggests that customers are more likely to choose businesses that have a positive reputation and brand image and a track record for looking after employees and customers and making a positive difference to the planet, charities, and local communities.
As a company owner, it’s beneficial to be clear about your ethos, culture, and values. Also, to understand what matters to your employees and clients. Back up claims and messages with actions and let people know what you’re doing to make a difference. There are myriad ways in which brands can make a positive contribution. Examples range from planting trees and using sustainable materials to donating a portion of their profits to charity and offering opportunities for local people or people in need in other cities or countries.
If you’re proud of the corporate social responsibility measures in place at your business, talk to customers about what you do and encourage them to get involved too. Send emails with updates and news, post on social media, and ask for suggestions. If you donate to charities, for example, why not let your employees or customers send in ideas for the next charity of the month or year or nominate recipients?
Offering value for money
The price of a product or service can play a crucial role in influencing consumer decisions, but it’s not always the lowest price that convinces the buyer to make a purchase. Value for money is often more important than the price. Customers want to feel like they’re getting the best deal and this doesn’t always mean going for the lowest offer or quote. Sometimes, it pays to opt for a higher price because you get more for your money. This may be the case if one retailer offers free delivery or a gift wrapping service, for example, or one brand uses better quality materials than another.
As a business owner, it’s always a good idea to strive to offer your customers the best value for money. Review offers and prices regularly, ask customers for feedback on promotions and deals, and keep a close eye on competitors.
Jump on new trends
Consumer trends evolve constantly. Jumping on new trends can help brands to gain an advantage over others, attract new customers and retain existing clients. Collect and analyze data, read industry newspapers and magazines, encourage customers to share suggestions, and try to ensure that your business is flexible and agile. If you can respond to emerging trends quickly, you can capitalize on them before other companies jump on the bandwagon.
Innovate
Technology is advancing all the time. This has incredible benefits for businesses in terms of improving efficiency, lowering running costs, and accessing data. But, it can also help brands to attract attention. By embracing innovation, brands can offer customers more or elevate the services and products they already offer. This may involve using cutting-edge technology to develop new products or add features to a website or app, for example. Or, it may pave the way for customers to shop in different ways or enjoy better quality services.
Buying new technology on an ongoing basis isn’t a viable solution for many businesses. But being open to innovation can be beneficial. If you’re thinking about upgrading your technology or working with external agencies to develop a new website or mobile app, for example, focus on improvements and investments that are relevant to your business, your objectives, and your target market.
Optimize review scores
More than 90% of us check reviews before contacting a company or buying a product. For brands, it has never been more important to have a positive reputation and a high review score. Many people will click on a link or call a number based purely on a high average customer rating or a positive review. In contrast, a 1-star rating or a negative comment can send them running in the opposite direction.
Optimizing your review score can help you to attract new customers and increase sales while enhancing your reputation. If you have a 4-star rating or an average score, now is the time to try to push it up. Encourage repeat customers to leave a review, share positive feedback on your website and social media feeds, and incentivize reviews. Remind people to leave a comment when you confirm orders or delivery and offer a reward. Some brands offer a discount on the next purchase if the customer posts a review, for example. It’s also a brilliant idea to encourage new and loyal customers to recommend the brand to others. To boost referrals, offer a reward for both parties. If you run a café, for example, you could give your customer and the friend to whom they recommend the business a free coffee or a piece of cake.
It can be difficult to stand out, especially in a crowded marketplace. To ensure your brand turns heads in 2023, take these tips on board. Design an innovative, original branding campaign that is relevant to your business and your target client. Additionally, create and share killer content and jump on new trends. Optimize your review score, share your brand values, and try to offer outstanding value for money.
