The Streetwise Guide To Building Your Construction Brand Online
Working in such a competitive industry where both communications between business to business and business to customer interlinks makes it ever more important to stand head and shoulders about the rest, and one way to do just that is to build and uphold a sturdy and durable online brand for your company.
What Is Branding?
Branding creates a distinctive and recognisable personality for your company that cannot be reproduced by others and draws in specific type of customer. It is more than just having a fancy logo and a few brand objectives and positioning statements, it is about creating a brand that embodies what you want people to think and feel about the company, creating an emotional connection. This in partnership with a good reputation is what helps prospects make a decision about using your brand over competitors.
Key Factors of Building a Brand Online
- Consistency: The most important factor in branding is consistency, as it builds trust and gives off the clear message that ‘what you see is what you get’. This means the company must be clear themselves first on what standards they must stick to in order to achieve consistency, and ensure they always match if not exceed these standards.
- Tell Your Story: Every company has a story, but the way this story is told has a huge impact on branding. You know your brand inside out so there is no better person to tell the story, you just need to pick out the core elements that make your brand unique and more importantly superior. Get creative with digital tools and social media channels and don’t forget to show the human side of the brand, be humorous and original, that is what attracts people online.
- Make Your Audience The Focus: It isn’t all about sell sell sell when it comes to using online channels such as social media. There is nothing wrong with the odd promotional post here and there, but for the most part it is about the audience, and engaging key people in conversation using digital channels and forming strong relationships. Don’t just post anything for the same of posting, carefully consider what each post will offer to your audience and use interesting formats such as images and video as well as sharing text and links.
- Go Where Your Target Audience Is: There are so many different channels available to us now, and it can be easy to get caught up in trying to be active on them all because you might think you will miss valuable opportunities. But that time spent juggling channels could be better spent researching and listening to your audience to find out what channels they tend to frequent. You can then narrow down your active channels to maybe 2 or 3 key ones where the majority of your target audience are and have more time to focus on sharing worthwhile content and engaging in conversations.
- Empower Your Workforce: Every person who works for your company, no matter how large or small, should have an influence on the branding. After all, your marketing department is just a small fraction of the whole outfit that customers will interact with when they choose your company, and so the brand needs to reflect the bigger picture not just the one department. Aim to have at least one person from each department who is willing to help represent their part of the brand on social media and even on your blog by sharing your content with their own networks and even contributing their own content to the brand social media and blog.
- Integration Is The Key To Consistency: Ensure everything, both online and offline, is in line. The look and feel of the brand needs to be consistent throughout, as does the information the brand gives. For example if you launch a new product at an exhibition, be sure the information about the product is on all your online channels and website at the time of launch so people can go away and look into it.
- Keep Looking Ahead: Because the digital landscape is an ever changing and developing environment it is vital that you keep your eye on the future and be ready to adapt the brand to any changes that may bring. One of the best ways to do this is to keep listening to what your target markets are talking about online, what they want and need, and forecast the ways in which your brand’s products and services could adapt and evolve to meet the current and prospective future wants and needs of your customers and prospects.
Got tips of your own that have worked for your company when building your brand online? We would like to hear about them, please share them with us in the comments section below or Tweet us @StreetwiseSubbi to tell us more!
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