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This e-book has been written for information purposes only. Every effort has been made to make this eBook as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes in typography or content. Also, this e-book provides information only up to the publishing date. Therefore, this eBook should be used as a guide - not as the ultimate source. The purpose of this eBook is to educate. The author and the publisher does not warrant that the information contained in this e-book is fully complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this e-book.

Introduction

We Marketers have it really hard these days. We are all targeting the same group of people, with the same basic product offerings and sometimes even at the same time. This is especially true for the world of Online Marketing. Some may find our efforts informative or even amusing. Others are downright annoyed and seek out every possible way to silence the noisy atmosphere we have created as we compete with each other. To make matters worse, many of the promotions online are fictitious and have left our target market overly skeptical about everything they see online. Many of them have actually suffered serious financial loss as a result of the tactics of unscrupulous marketers. In fact, less than 25% of all consumers actually trust advertisements they see online. Just think about how negatively this will affect your sales! But, do not despair, building a recognizable brand is within your reach if you are willing to learn how to play your cards right. Marketing a business or brand online has become one of the most popular ways for Entrepreneurs to reach their target audience. Gone are the days when a good billboard and couple of well-designed posters would be enough to get you on the map. If you do not take the time to establish your brand’s online presence, it can easily become forgotten or overshadowed by its competitors. Keeping ahead of the game now means carefully

integrating online marketing into your overall marketing strategy and thus building a brand that needs no introduction. The truth is, marketing your brand online is not an overly complicated task. But like any other skill, you must take the time to learn as much as you can about the task at hand and the best way to achieve the desired results. Thankfully, you have purchased this book, which means you are well on your way to building a successful brand.

comprehensive Marketing strategy. The result of all this hard work is that each customer and potential customer knows exactly what these brands represent. Have you ever walked into McDonald’s to order to purchase a Pepperoni pizza? Will anyone in their right minds drive to Nike to pick up a pair of ruby red stilettos? Of course not! That is as a result of these brands being so carefully defined that we know exactly what to expect and what these brands can deliver. Customers are far more likely to be loyal to a brand that sends a clear message or has a distinct voice. The first step to defining your brand is thinking carefully about and documenting what your business is good at. You can make use of S.W.A.T analysis to outline the major strengths and weakness of your business. It goes without saying that your brand should represent the strengths or core functions of your business. This will require some amount of honest self-evaluation. Some Entrepreneurs fall into the trap of aiming to be good at everything or doing too many things at the same time. Even worse is trying to make a ‘universal’ product or service that has no specific target audience. The result of this kind of strategy would be a brand that is not well defined and will not encourage brand loyalty. Trying to target everybody and doing everything will force you to spread your resources too thin. The easiest way to get nothing done is to try and do everything at the same time. Once you have a clearly defined message in mind, the next step is to choose the right tools. The Marketing tools that you choose to make use of

should then emphasize the core focus of your business. In doing so, your Marketing strategy should also emphasize what your business is not and thus make your clients see that your focus is not on ripping them off. This is an easy way to highlight the difference between you and the competition. A memorable brand is not worth the effort if you are not earning any money and the easiest way to make money is to take out the competition. After assessing the strength of your business, find three simple words that represent what your business does well. Think of it this way, which three words would you want your clients to use to describe your brand if your brand was a person? This will require that you and your executive team carefully define the mission and vision statement of your business as well. Your next move should be figuring out how to communicate these attributes to your target audience with the utmost simplicity. A complicated commercial or website is a major turn off to potential clients and will not be very effective at generating sales. Keep your message simple if your aim is to make your brand memorable and profitable. “There is no greatness where there is not simplicity.”― Leo Tolstoy “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ― Clare Boothe Luce “To be simple is to be great.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter 2 – Create Your Own

Identity

Some Entrepreneurs try to build the identity of their brand by imitating other well-established players in the industry. This strategy will prove futile. As stated in Chapter 1, customer loyalty is a product of building a unique identity for your brand. Chapter 4 of this book will however provide some guidelines on how to leverage the strengths of existing market players without becoming a copycat. If you are already the mastermind calling the shots for a brand that is struggling, my first suggestion is to turn to your existing customers. You would be surprised how much you can benefit from some good old-fashioned research by means of a brand audit. Carefully assess what customers currently think about your brand and what they think it represents. You may be quite horrified to realize that your clients have completely misunderstood the voice of your brand. In the same breath, take the time to find out how they think your brand fares against the competition. Your business and your brand might be too close to your heart for you to critique it objectively. This can be achieved by means of online surveys or even in-house questionnaires. The key to getting the right information is to ask the right questions. Ask clear, simple questions that get straight to the point.

“The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.” - Thomas Berger "There are no right answers to wrong questions." - Ursula K. Le Guin Now that you have asked the right people, the right questions and have gotten into the minds of your customers, it is time for action. But don’t pick a fight with every naysayer you encounter. Choose your battles carefully and always remember that you will not be able to please everyone. Try to identify any common themes in the responses of your clients. Please bear in mind that some of these responses may be aimed at improving the quality of your product or service. Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of your clients will do very little to help you build a successful brand. Build on the complaints or lack of enthusiasm for your brand. Use that information to guide your brand identity strategy. All of your creative resources should be aimed at removing common road blocks from the minds of existing customers and thus potential clients as well. Be sure to also reinforce the positive aspects of your brand that your customers identified. Now that you know what to do, it is time to learn how to do it! Building the identity of your brand might take some amount of time, but aimlessly spending money is never the solution. Now that you are armed with all the right information, it is time to skillfully aim your blows by means of a carefully thought out brand identity strategy. Designing a good strategy means you have

audience, you must be consistent. Every aspect of business, your website, your social media pages and even your business cards, should feature the same creative elements. Do not just choose a color just because you think it is pretty. Remember that specific colors tend to evoke very specific emotions. Yellow for example is often associated with happiness, while red is often associated with anger or romance. Always keep your target market in mind while selecting your creative elements. The occupation, age and even social status of the group you aim to target will influence how they view your logo, colors et cetera. Be sure to also test your logo by means of a focus group before you launch it. Some logos, as creative as they may be, can be misinterpreted or even confused with the logo of a similar brand. Whatever you decide, ensure that your creative elements are so memorable that even if a client sees only half of the picture, they can still imagine exactly what is coming next.

2. Amp Up Your Social Media Presence What good will it do if you build a distinct brand that no one has ever head of? Social media allows you to reach the right people, with the right message all the time. Additionally, social media is one of the most affordable options to reach your target audience. So why not make full use of it? There

are so many social media platforms just waiting to help build your brand. In fact, all the successful brands of our generation have invested heavily in creating a robust social media presence and so should you. All you need to do is post the kind of content that will lure in potential customers. Chapters 3 and 5 of this book will delve into further details about producing relevant content and designing a suitable social media strategy.

3. Optimize Your Company Website Chapter 6 of this book will explain in greater detail how to accomplish this task. But, in short, your website should be loaded with useful content, easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing. There is no bigger turn off than a website that takes decades to load or isn’t mobile friendly. A website is one of the few points of contact that you have full control over and it is best you use this to your advantage.

promise in the past and are very likely to continue doing so in the future. Every sensible survey begins with simple demographic questions such as age, gender and occupation. Make good use of this information! In fact, you do not even have to re-create the wheel by creating your own survey, market research on existing buyer personas are published daily. Why not use this kind of research to your advantage? If you have front line members of staff or a designated sales team, their interactions with your customers can provide very useful information about your customers. Be sure to solicit information from both good and bad customers. It is always advantageous to learn more about your own strengths and weaknesses.

Don’t Be Too Forward

Once you know exactly the kind of people you are trying to reach, it will make it much easier to reach them with relevant content. But as I have mentioned before, you want your target audience to welcome you into their lives and not feel like you are barging into their homes through the front door. Being subtle is as excellent way to be bold. Instead of posting content about business and product offerings all the time, get your audience excited or intrigued. You need to get them talking about you without even realizing it. Here are my suggestions:

• Post a thought provoking question about topics such as current events and world affairs
• Post useful how to videos about hobbies that would suit someone represented in your buyer person
• Have exciting giveaways that feature your clients sharing pictures of themselves, perhaps even pictures of them using your products
• Post Memes your target audience will likely find hilarious
• Post content from other companies that your target audience will find useful
• Participate in trending challenges

Understand User Intent

If you intend to post SEO content to attract new business, you need to also take some time to understand the concept of user intent. Creating a list of keywords is important, but this should not be the focus of your SEO strategy. It is better to understand what your audience actually intends to do with the information they are trying to find. Generally a user will search for content online with three main intentions, to find a location, understand a topic or learn how to do something. With this is mind, you will be better able to create a keyword list that will be more ideal for one or a combination of these intentions. Additionally, content created with

that are closely tied with the objectives of your company. For example, if your product or service aims to make your customers healthier you can take the direct approach and try to sell your product by any means necessary. But, you can also subtly encourage sales by encouraging your audience to focus on a more holistic approach to their health. You could then post content from other sources featuring easy work out videos and healthy meal preparation guides. You can then use this kind of content to draw attention to the benefits of your product. Remember the aim is not to be pushy but to be effective. When you employ the subtle approach and make use of content from other relevant sources, you will be emphasizing the strengths of your brand without becoming too repetitive. There is only so much and no more that you can say about your limited array of products or services. The next chapter will focus more on how to use the strengths of existing players in the market to strengthen your own brand.

Chapter 4 – Leverage The Voice of

Existing Industry Leaders

Giving your brand a distinct voice will do you very little good if no one takes the time to listen to it. The truth is that more than 80% of all new brands will fail and of the 20% that do survive, only a few can really be called successful. If your aim is to be among the successes, you need to tap into the strengths of existing industry leaders who are already quite vocal. Because these players have been in the industry for quite some time, they have become household names and can easily influence the actions of your target audience. That kind of influence can easily be leveraged to increase your credibility, get your message out to your target audience and most importantly, lead to sales. The big question left to be answered now is, who are these industry leaders? An industry leader is anyone who is regarded as an authority figure within a specific industry. Do not make the mistake of thinking only of other well-established brands. An industry leader can be a blogger, consultant, an up and coming Photo-Journalist or even a traditional author. Whatever the case may be, carefully selecting your allies will certainly be to your advantage. These individuals are already influencing the minds of the very people you are trying to reach.