At RPS, we’re in the business of building brands – and we want your brand to look good from head to toe. I’m talking head-turning, jaw-dropping, quality client-collecting good – the kind of brand people will talk about for all the right reasons. There are certain characteristics that make a good brand good and bad brand bad. Good brands take work and come from a core of passion and a solid motive behind why you do what you do. Bad brands can be caused by lack of direction to simply missing the mark or even failure to connect on a personal level with the intended target audience.
A typical Chief Marketing Officer wears more than one hat and makes decisions about the effectiveness of certain marketing techniques. Some are million dollar investments and some are as simple as a t-shirt. Now let’s back up. This is just an example. Don’t go running to the printer and frantically order a wholesale quantity of your company’s logo heat pressed onto a Comfort Colors shirt. At least not yet.
Whether we’re talking about t-shirts, business cards, websites or the very front of your office building, you have to ask whether or not you’re the only one talking about your brand. The marketing industry has changed and it is no longer enough to talk yourself up. The world is too connected. If you’re talking about your brand and everyone else is talking about another one, it doesn’t matter how immaculate your high resolution sign is, you will miss the mark.
You have to create something relevant that those within reach not only find worthy of talking about, but also worthy of wearing, purchasing, using, investing in, and of course, talking about. It’s easy to start something that you have a passion for, but the real magic is creating something that other people feel passionate about and then tell somebody else. For this reason we’ve listed a few basics to get people talking.
- Invest in your customers, so they will invest in you. Give something away. People LOVE free stuff and will take giveaways all day long. If you really want to be an overachiever, give them more than they need. They’ll tell somebody.
- Don’t just create social media profiles – use them! Create a content strategy that includes posts your customers will find interesting, and engage with them when they interact with you. The world is entirely too connected for you not to be taking advantage of it. This is the frontline of today’s marketing and your prime opportunity to target and reach those who want you product. Ask questions, post photos, and start conversations.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Put a great emphasis on creating, nurturing, and leveraging mutually beneficial, strategic partners. These relationships are your greatest asset when first getting started and can help with referrals. They are a great mouthpiece and will be happy to wear that (figurative) t-shirt.
- Try something. Billboards are safe, newsletters are safe, and flyers are safe. If you want people to get talking, hire that skywriter. If you want to get the right people talking, begin creating your customer profile based on both demographics and psychographics of the ideal people you want to connect with. Truly knowing what drives your customers to request your services will fuel your business.
- Try, try again. Timing is everything, and sometimes things don’t work out because you don’t know your audience’s preference and behaviors well enough. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t work now. Use social media insights, surveys, email marketing, and website analytics to your advantage to see when your audience is most active, and then use that information so that your messaging goes out when your audience is more likely to receive it.
Creating a brand can truly be rewarding as long as you’re willing to put on your hard hat and work. The internet is daily declaring videos, brands, and individuals as ‘viral’ just mere hours after nobody had ever heard of them. If you think about it, you’re one good attention-grabbing campaign away from a booming business that people will start talking about. Go after it, and keep us posted!
