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How to Build Your Online Brand Quickly

Table of contents

It will take 5 to 7 touchpoints for someone to recall your brand and logo.

That’s why building an online brand is an essential strategy to make your business stand out from competitors.

By following the guidelines below, we’ll help you save time by quickly setting yourself up for success.

Let’s start by reviewing what an online brand is, at a basic level.

1. What is an online brand?

Your brand is how your stakeholders — clients, vendors, employees, and the general market — perceive your company’s personal expression. In short, brands are simply perceptions.

Because brands aren’t something that stakeholders can touch and feel, building your brand is critical to influencing those perceptions.

They exist in the mind of the consumer, as you interact with them through email, websites, social media, and other forms of online marketing and advertising.

In the next section, we’re going to take a look at the key elements that encompass how you communicate your brand online.

2. The 7 key elements of brand identity

Source: IgnyteBrands.com

Using a brand compass, like the one above, helps you define the areas that guide your purpose and help you craft your brand identity.

You’ll drive home the elements of your online brand to prospects and stakeholders.

Your purpose is what connects people to your brand which informs your messaging, marketing, advertising, and PR efforts.

Let’s take a look at how these different elements connect and are implemented!

2.1. Internal culture

Creating an effective online brand begins with your internal company culture. It’s the essence of your business.

A company’s culture is established by its founders. Maintaining that culture is done by:

Hiring employees that fit the established culture

Developing and keeping up company traditions

Effective and open communication

Expressing your values regularly

Acknowledging how people contribute to the company by enabling recognition programs.

When your employees understand the internal culture, they can communicate to customers through brand ambassadorship more effectively.

If your internal culture is clear, it will inform how you:

Market and sell your product

Communicate with your audience

Keep your branding consistent across platforms

Keep your messaging consistent across communication mediums

A rock-solid culture is critical to the success of your marketing efforts.

2.2. Personality

The personality of your brand is a term that encompasses everything from your values, mission, and vision while drawing upon buyer psychology.

You can think of your brand’s personality as a living person — is it ‘someone’ your audience would want to be friends with?

You can use your brand personality to:

Come up with a tone and voice that reflect your personality

Evoke emotions, behaviors, and thoughts that connect with your customers

Draw people in, and make them want to belong to or be a part of your brand

People won’t mind walking around like unpaid advertisements wearing logos or promoting products because they want to align with the brand personality you cultivated.

2.3. Identity

Your brand identity includes, but is not limited to:

The symbols, colors, and logos you use

The visual style of your messaging

The design of your campaigns

The kind of images you use

The font(s) you use

It’s the visual perception that reveals who you are and what your company stands for.

Establishing the right brand identity characterizes your brand personality, purpose, and guarantees to your customers.

Some ways to establish your brand identity are:

Create a memorable and original logo

Choose colors that evoke emotions aligned with your values

Implement simple, clear designs, without being boring

Create campaigns that are effective, and build on your message

A unique brand identity allows your customers to quickly recognize and identify with your product and service offerings at a high level.

In short, it’s the way you establish the essence of your brand to your target audience, through visual means.

2.4. Messaging

Your brand’s messaging is how you communicate with your audience by creating a “voice.”

Brand messaging is what your stakeholders expect when interacting with your company from every aspect, including:

Ad copy

Marketing materials

Email campaigns

Blog posts

Web pages

Public relations campaigns.

Brand messaging includes every word that you put out there as a business.

Your messaging must remain consistent so that you don’t:

Alienate your customers through the confusion

Dilute your message and lose authority and trust

Contradict your values and harm customer relationships

Your voice aligns with your brand personality and makes you identifiable to your customers.

2.5. Website

Websites are the control center for your online brand and where you generate revenue.

Create your website with care — it’s the “hub” for your online business and what your brand stands for.

You can use your website to build your brand in the following ways:

Create copy that aligns with your mission and objectives (Internal Culture)

Choose a layout that is easy-to-use and highlights your symbols and values (Identity)

Write blog posts that create a voice for your company (Messaging)

You have about 15 seconds to make an impression on your target audience with your content.

Your homepage is the most important area of your website since that’s where potential customers usually land first — make those 15 seconds count!

You can encourage engagement with your potential customers by:

Giving your customer a way to reach you directly with live chat

Creating a click to call widget to make interacting easy

Placing interesting content beyond and below the website fold

Ensure your pages and cart are mobile responsive

Engagement like this won’t just boost brand awareness but it’ll also increase page views, click-throughs, and conversion rates.

2.6. Company name and slogan

Your brand name should resonate with your target audience. You can leave a lasting impression by selecting a name that:

Assigns meaning to what you do — Under Armour, a sports apparel and equipment brand

Is easy to spell — Fanta or Apple are both short and spellable

Matches your logo — Targetwhose logo resembles a small round target or shield

Is original — Perform a thorough search for trademarks and available domain names

For example, let’s consider the name Under Armor again.

Not only does it describe what they offer, but it also evokes a certain feeling. It’s a feeling of durability, performance, and toughness.

Your slogan needs the same attention applied to it. Use this to guide your creation process:

Keep it short and simple — Nike’s “Just do it”

Use what makes your business stand out from competitors — M&M’s “Melts in your mouth, Not in your hands”

Use humor, and be clever — The Dollar Shave Club’s slogan, “Shave Time, Shave Money”

Having your business and brand values front and center like this are crucial, as 64% of consumers state that sharing those values is the reason for their loyalty.

These tactics make your brand more memorable and create a deeper bond with potential customers.

2.7. Trade dress

A company’s trade dress refers to the visual symbols that define the brand.

It specifically refers to logos, brand colors, and design elements that appear on your product.

It also establishes any legal grounds and rights to intellectual property.

Your trade dress needs to match the identity you have created for your business and must align with the values of your brand.

You can register your brand’s identifying trade dress elements with the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) for added protection.

In the next section of our article, we’ll discuss why building a stand-out brand is so important.

3. Why is brand-building essential?

The most significant reason that an online brand is valuable is that it increases your marketing effectiveness.

Assuming that you have something that people want to buy, it’s single-handedly the most important aspect of your marketing plan.

Let’s examine the 3 biggest reasons to build a reliable online brand.

3.1. Target market alignment

When your target audience recognizes that your values and mission align with who they are, you’ll attract more of them, more effectively.

A whopping 77% of customers say that they purchase from brands because of their shared values.

Align with your target market through better online branding to attract the people you want.

A brand message packed with values pushes past communication and turns customers into brand ambassadors.

It’s genuinely the ideal marketing situation to find yourself in.

3.2. Increased revenue

Branding is the secret sauce that helps you rise above the noise that your competitors are creating online.

More effective marketing means:

Your brand can command higher prices, as customers will prefer you over the competition

Your sales will grow because of your positive and popular reputation

Your marketing costs will shrink when you have fans promoting your products for free

Consistency is key here — and has been attributed to a 33% increase in business revenue if properly implemented.

Your brand will draw people in and make them want to spend more money on your products and services.

In short, they’ll want to align themselves with you!

3.3. Higher business value

Whether you plan on going public, need capital funding, or simply want to cash out, the valuation of your business matters.

Not only does branding increase your liquidity by generating more revenue, but it also creates value within the intellectual property itself.

Brand and name recognition are considered the most important factor for 82% of investors who are looking to buy into other businesses.

Building a valuable brand increases your company’s value over the long term.

It can also create incredible returns if you decide to take your business in another direction or seek new investors.

Next, we’ll share some exciting strategies that you can start deploying today to boost and refine your brand.

4. Powerful online brand-building strategies

Brand building can be an addictive process, so make sure you’re considering your strategies thoroughly.

You can outsource a third-party perspective to help you, and it’s okay if you do.

Your online business is your pride and joy, so you’re naturally going to be protective of your ideas.

You may have gotten a few things wrong but that doesn’t mean you’re a marketing failure — you’re actually one step closer to figuring out what resonates with your audience.

Here are 8strategies that you can start planning and enacting immediately to build or boost your brand:

4.1. Know your competitors

Spying on competitors is critical to your brand’s success for a few reasons:

You’ll gain deeper insight into how your competitors position themselves in the market

You can draw upon their experiences to elevate yours

Doing your research will ensure that you aren’t committing any copyright or intellectual property infringements

You can accomplish competitor research by compiling a spreadsheet that addresses the 7 brand elements and note how they position themselves in those areas.

Use tools like Similarweb to compare and improve your business and optimize your return on investment (ROI).

After that, find a way to differentiate yourself from them to stand out and rise above the pack.

4.2. Understand your target audience

SurveyMonkey is a tool to help with audience research

Before you can align your brand with your target audience, you need to get to know who they are.

Here are some ways you can conduct audience research to help you understand their demographic and psychographic needs:

Gather data via a lead magnet and opt-in form on your website

Send a survey out to your contact list

Create a quiz for your fans and subscribers

Research the kind of people who are interested in your products

Research your competitor’s target audiences

Understanding your audience is vital to crafting a more compelling personality and message.

You can elevate your research efforts and data by:

Using tools like Nielsen, Google, Facebook Ads, and ComScore

Creating tags for your leads based on their actions and interests

Running targeted advertising campaigns across different platforms

Split testing your pages and emails for optimized conversions

One article showed that 77% of brand managers stated that building an audience trumps direct sales.

4.3. Strike a balance

Consistency is key when it comes to establishing an online brand, and it’s a fine line to walk.

Aside from uniformity, make sure that you’re creating a consistent message for all of your marketing channels.

Accomplish this in the following ways:

Use similar words to describe your product across all platforms

Use consistent logos, symbols, and slogans in all marketing materials

Repeat your mission, message, and values

Work on your search engine optimization (SEO) to include phrases and terms that improve your ranking

Put out fresh content, often

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Say it like a mantra, because that’s precisely what business owners should strive for when planning their marketing efforts.

4.4. Build your reputation

An example of an effective testimonial from systeme.io

Many managers and business owners will spend time and money on building a great brand, introducing it to the world, and then getting no views or leads.

Remember, branding is just one aspect of marketing.

It’s the foundation of your efforts, but there are other actions you must take to get your message out there.

Building an online reputation takes time and careful cultivation to get people to notice.

Make sure you have a healthy mix of the following:

Glowing and detailed testimonials from former clients

An About Us page that expresses your story/your business’ launch narrative

A blog that establishes your voice and narrative

Published reports and white papers that establish authority in your niche

Positive reviews on sites like Capterra and TrustRadius

Ensure you have excellent customer service

Remember, leads are more likely to become customers if they trust your brand — 81% say brand trust is essential to their spending.

4.5. Consider focus groups

Do not fear the process of conducting a focus group — they’re a great way to receive unbiased feedback about your brand.

You can hold them in-house or hire a third-party researcher to do it for you.

We caution you when handling a focus group internally.

When participants realize they’re providing feedback to a company’s representatives, they might be more polite and gracious versus working with an external party.

If you go the external provider route, be sure that you perform your due diligence and conduct research.

Running a focus group will give you:

A clear idea of your audience’s needs and whether they’re being met

Customer feedback thatispresented in a personal and genuine manner

Uncover niches and possibilities you might not have considered for your business

Gain insight into people’s pain points and the words they use to communicate them

Applying this data to your online business and branding will only elevate your results and improve your brand’s message alignment with target audiences.

4.6. Set the right tone

Creating your brand voice is the most effective way to set the mood with your target audience.

Are you trying to position yourself as friendly? Or are you trying to establish a culture of exclusivity?

Your brand voice is what sets you apart from your competitors while educating customers on who you are.

Based on your market and competitor research, you can establish a brand voice to differentiate who you are.

Here are some things to consider when choosing your brand’s voice:

Your voice must align with your business’ values

Your tone can be created through specific characteristics, like including contractions, comparisons, or slang

Your old content will need to be updated when you refine your voice

Creating a style guide will help your writers (or yourself) stick to your brand’s voice

This voice must be evident in more than just marketing materials, it affects your user interface (UI) and apps too!

Don’t let this lead to overworked content, though — authenticity and transparency are preferred by 94% of consumers.

4.7. Ready your elevator pitch

You need to be able to describe what your company does in a way that perfectly sums it up.

If you’re ever in the room with the opportunity to sell your business to someone in 60 seconds, you need to have your pitch ready.

An elevator pitch is:

The succinct culmination of everything that your brand represents

A phrase that tells your customers who you are, what you sell, and why they should care

The promise you will deliver on that will solve their problems

A branded elevator pitch is one of the most human ways in which stakeholders interact with your brand because it’s your business at its most raw, and your promise to deliver.

Don’t fear this process — approach it with inspiration and enthusiasm.

4.8. Deploy automation tools

systeme.io’s powerful automation capabilities

Online technology systems can save you time and money while you’re busy living life.

But how does it apply to online branding?

The marketing and AI tools you use to run your business should support your brand —just like systeme.io!

Customization, ease of use, and a comprehensive suite of tools under our one roof ensure that your employees, customers, and other stakeholders experience your brand as you intend.

Some important automation features offered by systeme.io that help support your brand are:

Email marketing campaigns — Create your brand voice, and communicate with your leads

Contact tagging — Understand where their interests lie, and subscribe them to offers that align

Lead capturing — Collect contact information, and gather data about your viewers to inform your branding

Customization — Systeme.io's editor offers a wide range of customization features and branding options that can help your business achieve a cohesive look across all its pages.

There isn’t anything worse for your mission than when you’re stuck with a system that simply does not work.

Let us save you the time and effort of hunting down options — take systeme.io for a test drive and sign up for free!