Monday, January 13th, 2025
It’s becoming more difficult for us Affiliate Marketers, to stand out from the crowd these days. We all seem to be targeting the same groups of people, the same keywords, in this ultra competitive Internet we’re boxed in. We all offer the same basic over saturated products, the same prices, often at the same time.
Some consumers shake their head as they don’t find our efforts informative, or they roll their eyes and find us annoyingly amusing.
Most are becoming completely fed up and shutting us out, just to silence all the noise we’re creating, as we compete against one another.
To make matters worse, some of the promotions online are completely fictitious, which leaves our target market overly skeptical about everything they read or see online.
Some have reported to have suffered serious financial loss, because of the tactics of some of these unscrupulous marketers.
In fact, less than 20% of those now on the Internet, trust’s any form of advertisements they see online.
Just think how negatively all this affects your affiliate marketing efforts and sales!
Building Your Own Identifiable Brand
But don’t despair, building a recognizable brand is within your reach and the key. This if you’re willing to learn how to play your cards right.
When marketing online, establishing a brand has now become mandatory, and a task that entrepreneurs need to do to reach their target market.
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 identity and online presence, it can instantly become forgotten or overshadowed by your competitors.
What attempting to keep ahead of the crowd, means integrating online marketing strategies into your overall plan, which establishes a brand that doesn’t need an introduction.
The truth is, marketing your brand online doesn’t need to be an overly complicated process.
Like any other skill, you need to take the time to learn as much as you can, about the task at hand and the best way to achieve the desired results.
Carefully Define Your Brand And What It Represents
Your brand represents a unique promise that you make to every single one of your visitors, and potential customers.
It is the consistency of this promise and the overall quality of the delivery of this promise, that will encourage them to be loyal to your brand.
Getting your customers to buy in, is the only real way to make your brand successful.
For the promises that you make to be effective, it needs to be clearly distinct from all of the other promises your target visitors will encounter.
Establishing Your Brand Means
• What are the kinds of promises your brand is making?
• What and who is your brand making all these promises to?
• How does your brand?s promises differ from others in your niche or industry?
• What reasons are you giving, so people will believe the promises you’re making?
At first glance, the task of defining your brand may appear quite simple. It’s a work in progress.
For instance, the famous “golden arches” brand of that burger place, or that uber simple recognizable “swoosh,” didn’t become what they are in a day.
These and other successful brands, are the result of careful research, distinctly defining boundaries and a comprehensive marketing strategy.
What doing so does, is your visitors and your potential buying customers, will know exactly what your brand represents.
Have you ever walked into that famous burger place, to order a sub sandwich? Never.
Would anyone drive to that swoosh store at the mall, to pick up a pair of ruby red stilettos?
Of course not!
All this is as a result of these brands being so carefully defined, that we know exactly what to expect and what these brands deliver.
Customers are far more likely to be loyal to a brand that sends a clear message, or has a distinct voice.
How To Establish Your Brand
The first step to defining your brand, is thinking carefully about and documenting what your business is good at.
It goes without saying, your brand should represent the strengths and the core functions of who you are.
This will require some honest self-evaluation.
Some online marketers will attempt to offer everything, be a “jack of all trades,” doing too many things at once.
Even worse, is trying to market an “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 doesn’t encourage brand loyalty.
Trying to target everybody on the Internet or in your niche, does is forces you to spread yourself too thin.
Choosing The Proper Tools
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 emphasize the core focus of your business.
In doing so, your marketing strategy should distinguish what your business is NOT, which makes your clients see that you’re genuine.
This is an easy way, to highlight the difference between you and your competitors.
Establishing 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 your competition.
Find A Perfect Phrase
After assessing the strength of your business, find three to four simple words that represents 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?
What this will require, is that you carefully define the vision and mission statement of your business.
Your next move should be deciding how to communicate these attributes to your target audience, with the utmost simplicity.
A complicated website is a major turn off for your potential customers, and will not be very effective at generating sales.
Keep your message simple, as your aim is to make your brand memorable and profitable.
The Definition Of Your Brand
Defining the identity of your brand, needs a lot more that just having a fancy blinking logo.
It needs to bring to mind exacting what your business does, and what your brand ultimately represents.
One core principle that never fails, is to focus on quality and convenience.
Make your clients think of your product or service as being of the best quality, the best service, the easiest to use, the most affordable or the most durable.
Selling hype or outrageous promises, will not get you very far.
Keep in mind, that what you want is to give your brand a identifiable voice and a distinct personality.
The goal is to get the message of your brand off media, and establish it in the minds of your target market.
The message that you project should make such an impression on your target audience, that their only choice is to purchase your product or service.
You should not have to clutter your blog, to get potential visitors to remember what your brand represents.
This will also prove to be a waste of time, since your brand may become easily confused with your competition.
Establishing Your Identity
Some entrepreneurs try to build the identity of their brand, by imitating already established brands in their industry.
This strategy may prove futile.
Customer loyalty is a product of building a unique distinct identity for your brand, so don’t try to copycat too much.
If you are struggling to find a brand identity, the first suggestion is to turn to your existing customers for feedback.
You would be surprised how much you can benefit from some good old-fashioned research, by means of a brand audit.
Carefully assess what your potential customers think about your brand, and what they think it represents.
You may be surprised to realize that your customers, have completely misunderstood what your brand is attempting to portray.
While you’re at it, take the time to find out how they think your brand fares against your competition.
You need to do this, because your brand is usually too close to your heart, it’s your baby, for you to notice and critique it objectively.
This honest hardcore feedback, can be achieved by means of online surveys or questionnaires.
The key to getting the right information, is to ask the right questions.
Ask clear, simple concise questions that gets straight to the point.
Getting The Brand Right
Now that you’ve asked the right people the right questions, and have gotten into the psyche of your customers mind, it’s time to take action.
Don’t bother to disagree, with every negative naysayer you encounter if you’re offended.
Keep in mind that you can’t please everyone.
Try to identify any common themes, in the responses that you get from your customers. Be thankful they cared enough to give you feedback.
Bear in mind that the majority of these responses, is aimed at improving the quality of your brand, product or service.
Leaving a bad taste in the mouth of your clients, will do very little to help you build a successful brand.
Evaluate the complaints or the lack of enthusiasm you get, and use that information to improve your brand identity strategy.
You should be focusing your creative resources, on removing all of the common road blocks your existing customers and future buyers are facing.
Make sure to also reinforce and use the positive aspects of your brand, that your customers identified.
Save The Best For Last
Now that you know what to do, it’s time to apply it!
Building the identity of your brand might take some time. Aimlessly spending your money, is never the solution.
Now that you are armed with the right information, it’s time to aim your focus by carefully thinking out your brand identity strategy.
Designing a good strategy, means you have won half the battle.
The key is to keep it simple.
Ensure that you link each phase of your strategy, to a specific objective.
You Are Your Brand
Consider all of the “what ifs” before you jump in. Make a plan and take action, so your competitors will never see you coming.
What building your own unique brand does, is it will help you stand out from the crowd and be noticed.
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