Branding And Internet Marketing Tips For Your Online Business
I usually write about online marketing strategies and techniques that can be measured. Being able to test and tweak is so important to maximizing a business’s potential. But today I want to talk about something a little more abstract – branding.
Whether you’re creating and marketing your own products or marketing affiliate products, you probably fall into the majority on this one. Most people just focus on selling and building a customer base. If you’re a little more advanced, you’re building lists. And you’re building a relationship with those lists. And you’re selling to them more then once.
Do your customers really know who you are, though? Do they care? If you’re an affiliate marketer, should they care? It’s easy to say ‘I just sell other people’s stuff’ but let’s look at a bigger picture here.
If you’ve been around and have paid attention, think about the email marketers and sites that stand out to you. The ones you visit on a regular basis. Think about the email newsletters you read every week. For the most part, you’ll recognize the tone and style of the writing. You’ll notice the style and layout of the web site. The feel. You’ll notice the personality of not only their web site and emails, but their offering as well.
By establishing a personality, you make it easier for your customers to remember you. You make it easier for your customers to become familiar with you. This is one of the reasons that it’s so important to speak in your own voice in your email marketing. If proper English isn’t how you speak with your friends, then it’s not how you should speak to your customers. This is a different style of marketing. One where the relationship is built online.
If the color scheme and layout of our website have a personality and feel that matches our OWN personality, then our customers begin to get to know us. When our email marketing matches that same style and build on it, the relationship gets stronger. They become familiar with us.
When your Facebook fan page and blog blend into all that and mirror the brand, the familiarity grown even stronger. The customer feels like they’re part of something. It feels like a movement. It feels like they’re part of it with you. Not just buying stuff from you.
Even if you’re only marketing affiliate products, you can brand yourself as the guy who is serious and passionate about seeking out the best products in your niche. The guy that people can look to for their ‘xyz’ needs. They won’t care if you created the product or not.
Brand loyalty is strong. There are a ton of studies out there that prove that brand loyalty is hard to break. Just do some Google searches. People use the same toothpaste, soap, shampoo, sneaker brand, gas station, cereal, bread, coffee, juice, etc. for years and years. Even if you were to show them that there was a cheaper option – of equal value – most of them wouldn’t care. They want to stick with the brand that they are emotionally invested in.
You want to make yourself that brand that your customers will not drop for something else. Especially not for something cheaper!!
To Your Success,
Adel Refai
Adel (‘Oddle’) is a longtime internet marketer and online marketing coach. Far from perfect, he has spent many years (and many dollars) learning just about every mistake there is to know when it comes to online marketing… all just so you, dear reader, won’t have to suffer through that same agony.
He now works online full time, doing things the right way. You can visit his newest blog – www.RecruitingForMLM.com – for more helpful information, to contact him or to add his Facebook page and follow him there!
