Digital marketing is like a clock, it has so many intricate pieces to make it run perfectly. However digital marketing is even more complex because you need to repair and change pieces daily to get the results. You have your account structure, campaigns, adgroups, keywords, conversion tracking, audience targeting and optimizations for these on a daily basis just to get the tip of the iceberg. But one thing people sometimes overlook is brand. Advertisers tend to focus on their promotions and try to push them as much as possible. A lot of time is spent here and sometimes your branding gets pushed aside.
Today we are going to go over why brand is important and how you can use it to improve your digital advertising.
Why You Need to Advertise Your Brand
A lot of digital advertising is about results. You need to hit your numbers or exceed them at all times. This is when a lot of marketers forget about their brand to get quick and fast results. But keep this in mind if someone comes in on one of your campaigns and gets to your landing page which is a form fill, they might not have a clue as to who your company is because your brand isn’t getting pushed which can result into them wanting to do more background detail on your company which pushes your conversion back in time or even moves them away from you for a more brand recognized company.
The brain and the internet work off of recognition your brain takes in images and figures out something's value at crazy speed determining if the information on the screen is what you want. Which is why things like click bait exist. Things like click bait are of great use, but don’t grow your business with longevity. The best way to grow your business is to drive people to your site as well as show off your brand to leave an impact on the consumer, so they remember and come back.
Getting Your Brand Align with Your Advertising
Brand recognition and retention in every step of you advertising is essential to have. If you consumers don’t have brand recognition you need to leverage your ads and landing pages to help get your brand name and values out regarding your products and services.
As your brand awareness grows you don’t need to talk about core values as much in your campaigns. Things to keep in mind for brand recognition are: color scheme, imagery, and tone of the overall account. This lets consumers draw a relation to your company instant in their mind without needing to recall information in their head for example when you are thinking of food and see the colors yellow and red you instantly think McDonalds.
How a Small Business Can Use Brand to Help Advertising
A small business needs to have their branding incorporated in their business and advertising strategy in order for it to grow. Here are some tips to help you do that.
Consistency
Maintaining brand consistency is critical. Make sure your landing pages and website ads are using the same color, language and tone. This will help ensure brand recognition. Consumers will return to your site before and after purchasing products or services to learn more information. So keeping everything consistent will also keep your presence in their minds.
Again let’s use McDonalds as an example. If they change their colors to something like blue and white, customers driving up to the restaurant will be confused and think they are in the wrong place. This applies to any business. If their landing page is a different color scheme than the rest of their website, customers may also be confused. They may even believe they’ve landed on the wrong site and possibly click off, losing you a conversion.
Leverage Your Ad Copy to Voice Goal of Campaign and Your Brand
Expressing the goal of your advertisement should always come first and be partnered with your company's identity to really bring it home. You can kill two birds with one stone by also incorporating this in your ad copy. Having a slog is an effective way to get your point across and provide the solution that solves your customer's pain point. Again, let’s use McDonalds. You go to McDonalds to eat and satisfy your hunger. Their slogan is “I’m Loving it”. McDonalds is simply conveying to their customers that they will love the food that they receive from the restaurant. When creating your ads try to have a slogan to drive home your point. Also, if you have room, include highlights of your products or more information to establish how your product is perfect for the consumer.
Keeping the Same Landing Page Design
Messaging on your site and landing pages should be consistent. It doesn’t have to be word for word but you should ensure you continually reinforce your primary message. If your product or services are “an all in one solution”, make it a point to emphasize and repeat the message. This repetition will further confirm to the consumer that this product is an all in one solution.
Brand Color Language & Repetition
There are many elements to branding, but just keep things simple to begin with. Here are some of the foundations that can help you build a strong identity:
Color
Picking a color scheme for your business is one of the first things people think about. Keep in mind that colors actually trigger emotions in people. To learn more about this check out our blog on color schemes and psychology. Color schemes can coincide with public perception of a brand. If companies have some type of negative impact on their business, they will sometimes change the color scheme or even the logo of the company to distance themselves from that negative impact. A well known brand that recently transitioned like this is the Washington Football Team.
Language
We have already discussed this topic extensively but to bring home the point, you should make sure the language on your site is concise and easy to understand. Include some memorable words so that consumers can remember it. Slogans are a powerful way to convey the value that you can provide to the consumer and you can build ad copy from this. Also, don’t feel like you need to get everything crammed into one sentence. Shorter is often clearer and more easily remembered.
Repetition
To increase your brand recognition is to hammer home the same points so that your consumer always identifies you with these points. If a consumer consistently sees your message logo, colors and ad copy over and over again, they will definitely remember who you are.
Companies leverage these skills to increase their brand recognition and boost their digital marketing efforts. Make sure your brand is consistent and conveys the same thing wherever potential customers find you on the Internet. Your audience will remember your company, which will help elevate your presence and bring in more conversions.