So there you are – you’ve developed a marketing campaign designed to drive prospects to your website. The results have been pretty good and you have a lot to be proud of. The problem is that none of the new visitors are doing what you want them to. Whether it’s getting them to download an eBook, sign up for an e-newsletter, or buy one of your products, they aren’t converting.
If you’re like many people with this problem, the first thing you do is to examine your marketing campaign to find out what the trouble is. Are you targeting the right people? Are you sending the right message? Are you driving the clicks you’re looking for?
If you think the problem is with your marketing campaign, you might be looking in the wrong place.
What do I mean by that? There are two aspects to any successful marketing campaign. The first is to get people to click through to your website. The second is to get people to convert once they’re there.
If your click-through rate is within the acceptable range (about 0.5% to 5% for a Facebook ad, about 1% for a Google Paid Search ad, etc.), then your problem isn’t getting people to your website. Instead, it’s getting people to do what you want them to do once they’re there.
If they aren’t converting once they’re at your website, you could have a landing page problem. Or, worse yet, you could have a branding problem.
What is a branding problem? And why is it important?
When people engage with a brand, they do so for emotional reasons and then use logic to rationalize their behaviors after the fact. In other words, people instinctively interact with your brand for subconscious reasons, and then use logic to explain why they interacted with your brand later.
Here’s a great example. Have you ever bought something on impulse while you were in the checkout line at a grocery store? If you’re like most people, the answer is a resounding yes.
Why did you buy the product? At the moment of purchase, you probably didn’t know. It was probably just an impulse buy. But once you got home, if your spouse or other family member asked you why you made the impulse buy, you can come up with a bunch of logical, rational reasons why you bought it.
Why did you make the impulse purchase? Because of branding. And that’s why branding is so important – because it can help you convert more prospects into customers for reasons they sometimes don’t even know.
Tips and techniques to make your brand stand out.
Perhaps the starting point in any discussion about a brand is to define what a brand is.
There are hundreds of definitions for a brand, so I came up with one myself that has held up pretty well over the years. Here it is – a brand is composed of the spoken and unspoken messages a consumer receives about your product and/or service.
In other words, a brand is the essence of your company articulated through your logo, your ad campaigns, your color scheme, your tone of voice, your corporate culture … pretty much anything that touches the consumer in one way or another.
A good brand takes many years to develop, but there are some steps you can take to ensure that your brand is as attractive as possible right away.
Want to take a look at the steps? If so, check them out below.
Step 1: Look at companies within your industry and identify best practices.
If you’re like most businesses, you have 3 to 5 competitors who are about your size and who are competing for your customers. Visit each one of their websites and take an honest look at their messaging, their aesthetics, and their overall approach. If you’re in marketing, you’ll instinctively be drawn to the one or two best ones. Figure out what they’re doing better than you are … and copy it. Yup, that’s right, copy what they’re doing but put your own spin on it. (It’s not illegal, provided you’re not stealing intellectual property.)
Step 2: Look at companies outside your industry and explore their techniques.
The best companies work very, very hard to ensure their brands look pristine. A good place to start is to look at what Apple, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and other top brands are doing with their websites. Examine what you like and what you don’t like about each website. Take note of the best stuff, and toss out the rest.
Step 3: Take an honest look at your own brand.
How does it stack up to the other brands? Are the other brands more polished? Is their messaging clearer? Do their websites hold together better than yours does? If so, keep re-visiting their websites for several days in a row. As you come back for another visit, you’ll start noticing more and more of the things they do to make their brands sizzle.
Step 4: Begin incorporating what you see from the best brands into your brand.
As I said, there’s no law against being inspired by your competitors and the best brands in the world. Keep an eye on what they do to differentiate their brands. In some cases, you’ll be able to incorporate their best practices into your own brand. In other cases, you’ll want to hire a marketing firm or a designer to take your brand to the next level.
Final point – remember, none of what we’ve just talked about matters unless you take action on what you’ve learned here. Don’t just read this blog post … instead, do the work.
By taking action and doing the work, you’ll end up with more prospects converting into customers. And that would be a good thing.
The post How to Create a Brand that Attracts New Customers Like a Magnet appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.
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