The Who, What, Where, When and How of Building a Killer Online Brand
What's inside this article: If you are looking for some insight into how to build an online brand that drives sales and makes an impact, Lunar & Co. is here to dish out some of their best tips and strategies.
The beginning of fall, like the beginning of a new moon cycle, is the perfect time for reinvention, to set new intentions and strategize a new path forward.
By refreshing your efforts, you can start to elevate your online presence and engage with your audience authentically to help grow your community and increase sales.
Not sure where to start? That’s OK. We’ve got you!
We love a good PIVOT! (*yes, picture Ross shouting)
In fact, we know it’s crucial to your success and building your online brand. So, whether you’re just starting out or looking to revive, we’ve put together the who, what, where, when and how of building a killer brand.
Let’s Dive into it: The who, what, where, when and how to build an online brand
Who are you? And more importantly, who is your audience?
Knowing yourself and your brand seems obvious, but it is a crucial first step. Who are you? What do you stand for? Why did you decide to create this brand? Humans long for connection, so creating a brand story around your beliefs and mission will allow your audience to relate to you.
Showing your team helps to! People no longer want to follow a company; they want to follow the people behind it. Don’t be afraid to be transparent; show off your hard work and showcase your team’s expertise.
Second to knowing who you are, the key to building an online brand is you need to know who you’re selling to. Beyond their age and interests, what is your audience’s story? Doing thorough research and investigating your current audience can help you develop your messaging and content in a way so you can relate to their story and continue to grow.
“With millions, if not billions, of businesses trying to make a name for themselves, having a strong brand has become crucial for businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors.”
What do you aim to solve? What do you need to communicate to your audience?
After identifying your audience, creating your brand personality and its supporting language will make it easier to sell your brand. Whether it’s website copy, blog posts or social media content, how you talk about your products or services matters.
What problems in the current market are you trying to fix? What benefits will you bring to your customers' personal or professional lives? Why does your audience NEED your product/service?
Understanding where your niche lies, what your benefits are and how you can connect that with your audience’s experiences is key to developing impactful content that helps you foster relationships.
Where do you communicate your brand messaging? Where do you find your audience?
Utilizing your website to promote your business is essential for online brand building, however, it’s a common belief that you need to be on every social media platform in order to engage and show a presence. While there are some advantages to this, choosing the platforms that’s right for your brand and your audience is more important.
If you’re an Etsy shop, managing Instagram and Pinterest might be great for you. If you’re a B2B tech company, Twitter and LinkedIn could help you engage your target audience. If you’re a brick and mortar location, a Facebook page could help you to connect with your audience and provide additional customer support.
In your brand identity research to discover who your audience is, also determine what social media platforms they spend most of their time on and focus your efforts there. Engage with your audience, use social media as a tool to get to know your audience even more and create a community for your brand.
When do you use tools to connect with your audience? When do you analyze your efforts?
Gathering as much information as possible such as reviewing your brand consistency, website traffic and social analytics on a monthly basis can help you determine what your goals for the future are and how you can reach them.
Using the data you’ve collected, and determining the key areas for you to connect with your audience all comes together in your plan for the future. You’ve taken the time to understand who your audience is and what they’re coming to you for.
Creating a strategy and schedule around these metrics for posting which content at optimal times in order to reach your audience will help to ensure that your message is being heard. Is your audience engaging with your content more on Wednesday afternoons? Post your most important weekly content around that time. Do you get more views on your website when you post blogs? Utilize those blog posts to direct your audience to other areas of your website or your social channels.
How do you engage your audience? How do you sell while also building trust?
Finding a balance between personal touchpoints and announcements about your company successes and business promotions can help to diversify your efforts and continue to authentically connect with your audience. This is what we should all be striving for.
Simply put, there’s been a lot going on in the world lately, and it’s made businesses review their content and what they stand for. Using world news, the changing of seasons, life events and everyday struggles is a great way to keep your audience engaged in between your business focused content.
As for that business focused content, no one likes to feel like they’re being sold to, it always just feels kind of… gross. Find unique and interesting ways to communicate this instead of just posting sales pitches. Instead, show your impact; showcase testimonials and metrics about how effective your services are, post photos of real customers utilizing your products.
Using an honest tone and showcasing your benefits in action can mean the difference between just selling your product/service and creating a trustworthy relationship between your business and your audience.
Lastly, enjoy the ride!
Whether you’ve decided to implement a new social media strategy or campaign, refresh your website to include more of your goals, or go all out and fully renew your brand, you’ve taken the time to understand who your audience is, what they’re coming to you for, and how best you can deliver. Put the wheels into motion and get going!
Keep bringing your vision to life.
Written by Lunar & Co.
Lunar and Co. is a boutique marketing agency focused on growing brands authentically and raising visibility for women-led businesses. They offer branding, website and content services to develop your marketing so that you can focus on what’s important to you – growing your business.
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