Stand out from the crowd is the aim of every online brand strategy. Your company can take the following measures to achieve just that:

Know as much as possible about your audience

Do you know the keywords potential customers use repeatedly when they search for a product or service similar than yours? Well, if not, make every effort to gather this information. You should also incorporate a strategy to know which social media platform your potential customers prefer most. In addition, identify the age group, sex, location, annual income of your customers.

Create a unique strategy

Ensure your brand conveys your product’s USP (unique selling proposition). Good listening skills are paramount for branding. Engage your customers through social media and listen to the inputs, advice, and criticism they have to offer. This will make your audience feel valued, besides giving you the recipe to win their hearts—and business.

Lend a unique voice to your brand

What kind of message you give is important and your research will help you here, but equally important is to take into consideration what your audience might be interested in listening. This way you will be able to give your brand a unique voice.

When it comes to doing online branding smartly, names of two companies come to the mind: Funky pigeon and Moonpig. Both sell cards online and have catchy names, but neither name relates to what the company does.

However, thanks to interactive and intelligent branding, both of them have a strong online brand. When you have to create additional content, it is necessary to keep your audience in mind. For instance, both Funky pigeon and Moonpig excel in producing interesting, catchy content related to seasonal trends, like Xmas and Mother’s Day, two times of the year when online sales of cards soars.

Consistency is the key

Keep it simple and consistent. Your brand message should be the same all the time. This will help your audience understand your business more clearly.

Ensure you reach out to customers with the same message on multiple platforms, like desktops and smartphones. Audiences are able to identify and relate with a brand message better if it is consistent. If your website is not mobile-friendly, your reach will be limited and you might not be able to generate as much business as you could.

Make the right connections

Explore avenues to enter a trading partnership with other companies, a partnership that will benefit both of you equally. In addition, pick a URL that is memorable and short, so that your customers could search your site and remember its name more easily.

Use social media

Millions of businesses have a presence on social media, but not every presence translates into better, stronger brand image and more sales. A result-oriented social media strategy must answer these two questions:

• What message you want to convey through your brand?
• How do you want to engage your audience?

Start by researching the more famous platforms, like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Check if audience are saying something about your brand, and if yes, what. You can start conversations to engage potential customers or participate in existing ones. However, social media is not for making a sales pitch. If you do that, people will drop you before you could say wait!

Here are some additional tips to using social media platforms smartly:

• Share authentic information. Making claims that aren’t true can hurt your company’s reputation badly—even irredeemably.
• Avoid jargons as much as possible
• Offer valuable information to your customers, who then will start respecting your opinions and advice
• Don’t belittle competitors. It will only hurt you, besides giving your competitors free publicity
• Use a simple username that is easy to spell and pronounce

Write guest posts

When you need some information in a particular field, who do you trust more—an expert or someone with just a little bit of knowledge?

Obviously, the former, isn’t so? Well, guess what, your potential customers are no different than you. You can have their attention and trust if you present yourself as an expert in your niche.

How can you do that?

Writing guest posts on high-profile guest blog sites in your niche is as effective a way as any. Every guest blog site includes an “About the Author” section, where you can tell more about what you do, and some even allow you to insert a link to back to your website.

Invest in web-only offers

An excellent way to catch customers’ attention, win new business, and engage with audience, a web-only offer does not cost a lot and gives great returns. If yours is a small or medium-sized company with low overheads, web-only offers can be ideal for you.

Use e-newsletters

You can connect with your audience, share valuable information with them, and strengthen your reputation as expert in the field through e-newsletters. You should send at least one e-newsletter a month; however, ensure you don’t overdo them.