A brand is the collective perception of everyone who knows you exist, and nothing has a greater impact on your success. The way your brand is recognized goes beyond your logo, slogan and colors. It’s a direct interaction and conversation with your audience and, like any part of business, there’s a right and wrong way to go about it.

A brand is who you are as a business and it’s built by the perceptions of consumers, not by the company itself; the way consumers perceive a brand is what defines it. All of the brand elements must work together to consistently communicate the brand perceptions. Consistency in content, messaging, design elements, and colors is key. The way your brand communicates and shows itself to customers is where you have the most control.

A brand strategy is where a business is going, and there are some do’s and don’ts to solidify success along the way.

First off, DO remember brand equity

People make decisions based on their relationships with and perceptions of a brand. The goal of all marketing is to develop a positive brand equity.

• 1. Brand equity creates intrigue, loyalty, and profitability
• 2. Brand equity is the most valuable equity you can possess

How devoted are people to your brand, if at all? Everyone has a brand they feel something towards, and they act accordingly. Brand loyalty should not be taken lightly. Create your own brand loyalty by speaking the language of your audience and being the hero. Keep this in mind with every step of your strategy creation.

DON’T get left behind in the modern marketing world

Marketing in the modern world hasn’t changed as much as you think, but there are new ways to communicate with your audience you wouldn’t want to ignore (especially if your target audience uses that form of communication). It’s important to keep in mind how your audience communicates with each other and your brand. Millennials may use smart phones, Snapchat, and Instagram while baby boomers may use physical mail, television, and email.

What has changed is the way people interact with marketing. It’s now a two-way discussion. Before, a sales team or local advertisement carried your message to your audience. Now, companies provide the content directly to consumers so that the consumers can decide for themselves. Your audience reacts to your ads, your site, your social profiles, posts and tweets – these are the new sales team and a reason why social media marketing has grown exponentially in the last few years. It the new expectation that a business is ready to respond back to it’s audience, answer questions quickly, and keep the world updated.

DO define your market! It helps in every marketing project you take on

Define your market into three categories:

• 1. Primary - A primary target market is the segment of a marketplace a business believes will give it the best chance to sell.
• 2. Secondary - A secondary target audience is simply the second most important consumer segment you'd like to target.
• 3. Tertiary - audience that is already on board with your brand, or may follow the trends of others.

Define your market into three categories:

• Who are they?
• What matters to them?
• How do they communicate?

At Dog Ear, we use marketing questionnaires and a series of discovery meetings to nail down a company’s target audience(s). It may be a good idea to hire a marketing agency that specializes in defining the market for you, but at the very least, you should spend time brainstorming these questions.

DON’T just make a logo, stick it on everything, and think you have a brand

Remember that consumers, not companies, build brands. All of the brand elements must work together to consistently communicate the brand perceptions. Consistency in content, messaging, design elements, and colors is key. A logo is big part of a brand, but without a story behind it, it’s just an image people use to recognize your business. The brand, like your messaging, should tell a story, evoke and emotion, and be relatable to your target audience.

A business should be able to separate the types of messages and know where to use them.

• 1. Brand Narratives: slogans, about, values, stories, etc.
• 2. Product Service Messages: features and benefits
• 3. Support Messages: narrative + services = results (the relatable storytelling lies here)

These are consistently used across website pages, social media profiles, marketing materials, and more to create a complete brand.

DO invest in the three pillars of your brand to market strategy

Consumers will interact with your brand in three ways: visual engagement, social engagement, and physical engagement.

• Visual engagement is one-way communication like handouts, websites, billboards, print ads, digital ads, videos, signage and more.
• Social engagement is two-way communication like word of mouth, social media communication, online reviews, forums, events and more.
• Finally, physical engagement is first-hand interaction with your brand when a costumer visits your store, buys a product, comes up to discuss at your trade show booth, and more.

The way you provide or advertise your product or service is the single greatest variable in your marketing strategy. A business can tell a great story, but the engagement will only last as long as the business can deliver on its story, messaging, and promises.

DON’T rely on a single form of advertising / marketing

A hybrid approach to marketing has many benefits, and a business can gain the different kinds of engagement that each produces. Keep in mind when and how people are getting their content every day. For instance, people use their phones and tablets early in the morning, switch to desktops during the day and into the afternoon, and then go back to mobile at night. Certain demographics may behave and consume information differently from one day, or hour, to the next. There are thee common types of marketing that can be used together to capitalize on different audience behaviors:

• 1. Inbound / content marketing – a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
• 2. Targeted marketing – marketing that identifies an audience likely to buy services or products and promotes those services or products to that audience. Once these key groups are recognized, companies develop marketing campaigns and specific products for those preferred market segments.
• 3. Digital marketing – marketing of products or services using digital channels to reach consumers. The key objective is to promote brands through various forms of digital media.

Successful digital marketing communicates clearly on advertisements (see our blog post on how to create successful ad campaigns), drives traffic to your site, increases calls and visits to store, and produces a return on investment. Types of digital marketing that can be leveraged for the best results are paid media (AdWords, PPC, remarketing, etc.), earned media (SEO, local listings, review management, public relations, etc.), and owned media (website, email marketing, social media content, blogs, videos, etc.). All of these assets work together for a successful digital marketing strategy, starting with target audience, messaging, and working up through advertising and content creation. Messaging should be consistent throughout, using the same keywords and storytelling. Invest in brand consistent:

• - Website design
• - Copywriting
• - Landing page design and strategy
• - Blogs
• - Banner ads
• - Website and social media content
• - Video
• - Social ad campaign content and strategy
• - Case studies
• - Infographics
• - And more!

DO create conversion-driven marketing materials

Common mistakes are shoving too much information on marketing materials, or creating a sheet without an eye-catching, consistent design.

Figuring out which marketing materials would best serve your brand is part of the process. Think about how your target audience consumes information, how they communicate, and what devices they use. Ask yourself if they interact with:

• 1. Web/digital – banner ads on websites, PPC advertising on Google, etc.
• 2. Print – newspaper, articles, magazine ads, etc.
• 3. Video/audio – Youtube, Snapchat, SoundCloud, videos posted to your site, etc.
• 4. Physical- signage, postings, physical banners, etc.

DON’T stop tweaking

The biggest mistake is not measuring success and ignoring the process of testing and tweaking things to see what works best. Your strategy should be constantly evolving with your business, your new services and products, and your audience. Many big-name brands come to realize over time that their once popular brand in a given market is starting to fade. They undergo a complete revamp of their brand strategy and advertising methods. Measuring success is ongoing trial and error and the brand strategy should grow with your business, never remain static.