A MARKETER'S GUIDE TO

BUILDING A
BRAND IN
2020
CONTENTS
Introduction …………………….………….………….………….…… 3-4 Execution - The Launch ………….………….………….………… 36

How Do You Define Branding? ………….………….…………. 5 Give Yourself Enough Time ………….………….………….…… 37

Key Elements of a Brand ………….………….………….……… 6 Finalize All Touchpoints Prior to Launch ………….…… 38

Why is Branding So Important? ………….………….……… 7 - 11 Communicate Internally First ………….………….…………. 39

Establish Your Sales Funnel ………….………….…………….. 40

Planning - The Intel Phase ………….………….………….…… 12 Update Existing Media to New Branding ………….…… 41

Research ………….………….………….………….………….…………. 13 Utilize SEO & Content Marketing ………….………….…….. 42 - 43

Brand Value ………….………….………….………….………….…… 14 - 15 Build Anticipation ………….………….………….………….……… 44

The Golden Circle ………….………….………….………….……… 16 Plan Social Media Content ………….………….……………… 45 - 46

Competitor Analysis ………….………….………….…………….. 17 - 18 Set Up a Paid Search & Social Campaign ………….… 47 - 48

Determine Your Target Audience ………….………….…… 19 - 20 Schedule An Email Marketing Campaign ………….…… 49 - 50

Helpful Tools and Techniques For Research …………. 21 - 22 Monitor Success ………….………….………….………….…………. 51

Building - Bringing It All to Life ………….………….………… 23 Conclusion ………….………….………….………….………….……… 52 - 53

Forming Your Brand Identity ………….………….……………. 24

Logo ………….………….………….………….………….………….……. 25 - 26

Colors ………….………….………….………….………….…………….. 27 - 28

Font ………….………….………….………….………….………….……… 29

Photography & Graphics ………….………….………….……… 30 -31

Packaging ………….………….………….………….………….……… 32

Website ………….………….………….………….………….…………. 33

Social Media Channels ………….………….………….…………. 34 - 35

 INTRODUCTION

B
uilding a brand is an exciting process for
any business owner and marketer. You’re
finally ready to bring to life all the ideas
that you have had stored in your head for
some time. What you do now will shape how people
perceive your brand, increase your brand awareness,
and hopefully drive new business.

If you’re starting from scratch, then yes, you are going

to have to take some leaps of faith. But with each
new visitor, follower, and customer you get, there will
be more glorious data to create meaningful
strategies that translate into better results.

Generally speaking, developing your brand strategy

can be broken down into the following 3 stages:

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 1. PLANNING
THE INTEL PHASE
The first, and most important stage of building your brand. With careful planning and research, you can get a clear idea of the
likes and dislikes of your target audience, an understanding of your competitors, and an idea of what makes your product or
service unique.

2. BUILDING
BRINGING IT ALL TO LIFE
After all that research, you should have established a pretty clear idea of your brand identity and aesthetic. This stage is all
about finalizing the various elements of that identity, for example, your company name, logo, slogan, color palette, fonts,
images, brand voice, etc. This stage also involves creating your website, social channels, and any other owned media you’ll
require throughout the execution stage.

3. EXECUTION

THE LAUNCH
Publishing your website does not automatically mean instant page views. The execution stage is where you utilize a bunch of
different marketing tactics to help drive traffic to your website or store in a bid to make sales. This stage is ongoing, and you
should never stop.

But before we dive into looking at each one of these stages in-depth, let’s take a step back to answer the following question…

4
 HOW DO YOU
DEFINE BRANDING?
Branding is a marketing practice in which a
company creates a name, symbol, or design that is
easily identifiable as belonging to that specific
company. This helps to identify a product and
distinguish it from other products and services.

Building a website that explains what you do,

designing ads that promote your goods and
services, choosing specific colors that will be
associated with your company, creating a logo, and
featuring it across all your social media platforms,
are just a few of the elements involved in branding
your company. All of these elements work together
in shaping the opinions and perceptions that
people might have of your business.

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 Store environment and atmosphere Pricing

Product quality Product packaging

Public relations How staff members dress Website & app design/
usability

Public speaking
Social media platforms

Direct mail KEY ELEMENTS OF A BRAND

Company colors

Email marketing

Company logo & slogan

Sponsorships How staff members treat customers

Tone of voice
Advertising
Nonprofit partnerships Images & graphics

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 WHY IS BRANDING
SO IMPORTANT?
Branding has the ability to impact whether or not
your company is a huge success or a complete
failure. The chances are, you have competitors.
Without a great brand behind the product or
service you are selling, how are your consumers
going to differentiate your offering from that of your
competitors? Your brand is not just your logo, it’s the
reason people will choose you over others.

INCREASES
BUSINESS VALUE
With a strong, authentic brand, a company has
significantly more leverage in the industry which
increases business value. A well-established brand
becomes a much more appealing investment
opportunity due to its firm position within the market.

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 BUILDS BRAND
AWARENESS
One of the most important things about
branding is the recognition that can develop
between your brand and your potential
consumers. As the face of your company, the
logo is the most important branding element.
You want to make sure that it is powerful, but
also easily memorable.

INCREASES YOUR
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
With hundreds, if not thousands, of similar
companies out there that claim to be as good
as you, your brand is what becomes your
competitive advantage. With a well-
established brand, and a positive reputation,
you’ll give people a valid reason to turn to you
before going elsewhere.

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 INCREASES
BUSINESS VALUE
With a strong, authentic brand, a company has
significantly more leverage in the industry which
increases business value. A well-established brand
becomes a much more appealing investment
opportunity due to its firm position within the market.

ATTRACTS NEW
CUSTOMERS
With a great brand behind you, it's time to start
attracting some new customers; referrals can be a
big help in this department. Generally speaking,
consumers want to do business with brands that
they know and trust. Or, if they aren’t familiar with a
brand yet, they’ll be highly likely to trust the opinion
of others. According to Nielsen, 92% of people trust
recommendations from friends and family over any
other type of advertising. Once your brand is well-
established, word of mouth will be your best and
most effective marketing tool.

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 IMPROVES
EMPLOYEE RETENTION
Working for a company that has a reputable brand
and is held in high esteem amongst the public gives
employees a higher degree of pride. This makes
them more satisfied with their job and therefore
improves your employee retention.

BUILDS TRUST
Having a well-strategized and professional-looking
brand image will attract people to want to do
business with you from the outset. With a well-
polished brand, potential customers will feel like
they can trust your company and view the products
and services you offer to be of a high quality. Then,
as your audience becomes more familiar with your
brand, and word-of-mouth starts to spread, that
trust will continue to grow and flourish.

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 TRIGGERS HUMAN EMOTION
As emotional creatures, humans are fond of ideas,
stories, concepts, and even products that spark a
reaction. When it comes to making a purchase,
more often than not, this decision is driven by raw
human emotion. If you can emotionally engage with
your audience using a story that connects your
brand to a cause or a purpose that resonates deep
in their soul, then you’ll have a much greater chance
of converting them into loyal, paying customers.

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 1. PLANNING

THE INTEL STAGE

 RESEARCH
One of the first, and probably the most important
step you need to take before developing your
brand, is research. When carried out during the
early stages of a brand, research will give you key
insights into your potential customers, for example,
their current choices, how they communicate, and
the types of messaging they best respond to. This
will help you in finding the right voice, tone, and
character of your new brand.

If you’re planning a rebrand, don’t think that just

because your product or service already exists and
is out there on the market that you can skip this
vital stage. Research at this point will help you to
establish what consumers think when they
encounter your brand, and whether your current
brand strategy is working well, or not.

Let’s take a look at some of the typical brand

elements that you should be focusing on as part of
your brand strategy research:

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 56% of customers BRAND VALUE
Every successful brand has a purpose, so
stay loyal to it’s time to figure out yours. When defining
your value proposition you need to ask

brands who “get yourself the following 4 questions:

them” and 89% of Why do you exist?

What differentiates you?

customers stay What problem do you solve?

loyal to brands Why should people care?

who share their

Once you have the answers, you’ll be able

values to use these to help shape the foundation

of your branding, through a tagline,
slogans, voice, messaging, stories, visuals,
and more.

Fundera

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 “People don’t buy what you Leadership expert, Simon Sinek, gave
a popular TedTalk back in 2009 where
he demonstrated his model on how to
do; they buy why you do it. truly differentiate your brand and
identify your purpose. His model, ‘The

The goal is not to do Golden Circle’, explains how legendary

leaders like Steve Jobs, Martin Luther

business with everybody King Jr., and the Wright brothers were
able to inspire, rather than manipulate,

that needs what you have. in order to motivate people. Rather

than doing what everyone else is
doing, and focusing on the ‘what’ and

The goal is to do business ‘how’, these leaders all start with

‘WHY’. They discovered that people

with people who believe won't truly buy into a product, service,
movement, or idea until they

what you believe.” understand the WHY behind it.

Sinek's theory is that communicating 'why' taps

into the part of the listener's brain that
influences behavior and processes feelings

– Simon Sinek such as trust and loyalty. So, if you can firstly
figure out your ‘why’, then everything else
should smoothly fall into place.

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 THE GOLDEN If you want to check
out Simon Sinek’s full
CIRCLE TedTalk for yourself
then click the TED
WHAT button below
Every organization on the planet
Bdfvdfvdfvdfvdfvd
knows WHAT they do. These are fvdfvdfvdfvdfvdfv
dfvdfvdfvdfbvdvdf
products and services they sell.

HOW
Some organizations know HOW they WHY
do it. These are the things that
make them special or set them
apart from their competition
HOW
WHY
Very few organizations know WHY
they do what they do. WHY is not WHAT
about making money. That’s a result.
WHY is a purpose, cause or belief.
It’s the very reason your organization
exists.

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 COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Check out what your competition is doing right, and
what they are doing wrong. This might help you find
an angle that your company can leverage, and
improve on.

Start by identifying the companies that you class as

competitors. Try not to be too broad, as you could
find yourself with a list of companies that actually
target audience segments that are very different to
the ones you aim to target. If you believe that there
could ever be a scenario where a customer is
choosing between you and another company, then
A great example of this is taxi and courier app, Gett. With Uber you’ve hit the nail on the head and they can be
being their biggest competition, they did some digging to classed as a competitor.
discover that Uber’s surge charging is their customers’ number
one pain point. So how did they use that to their advantage? Do a detailed analysis of each of the companies
you’ve noted down on your list, identifying their

Well, you can see for strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of this is to
find a golden nugget that you can use within your
branding that differentiates you from your
yourself below... competitors.

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 They launched a whole anti-Uber campaign that
targeted the main point of contention for Uber
users. There was no beating around the bush here,
Gett were point-blank trying to steal their
competitor's customers. The campaign managed to
successfully catch the attention of the media, as
well as convince their target customers to use their
service instead, so I think we would all call this a
success.

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 DETERMINE YOUR
TARGET AUDIENCE
Your target audience is the foundation on which you
should be building your brand, so getting it right
Cherith
Scrumptious from the offset is important. Your brand needs to
meet their needs and wants, so you’ll want to tailor
your mission and messaging to effectively suit these
requirements.

You simply can’t target everyone. When it comes to

describing your ideal consumer you should be using
basic demographic information such as age,
gender, location, income, etc. If you want to get
even more specific, you could dive into more in-
depth analysis, such as the motivations, goals, pain
points, influences, and lifestyle habits of your
chosen market.

No matter how inclusive you think your product or

service may be, it’s best to keep your target
audience as narrow as possible. This allows for a
targeted brand message that will come across as
crystal clear to the intended prospect.

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 Solidify a picture of your consumers, then learn how
to create a brand identity that they can understand
and relate to. You want to be sure that the right
people are consuming your content, clicking on your
ads, receiving your email campaigns, etc., otherwise
it’s all just a wasted effort. Having identified the
right target audience for your services or products
from the offset is an exercise that will affect and
benefit all areas of your brand-building process;
your marketing efforts in particular.

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 HELPFUL TOOLS AND
TECHNIQUES FOR RESEARCH
During the research phase of building your brand there are a
bunch of different tools and resources that you can utilize:

Facebook Audience Insights: Free Facebook user data

based on their shopping habits and profile data like
demographics, preferences, and interests.

Pew Research Center: A wealth of free information gathered

through demographic data, public opinion polling, media
content analysis, and other social sciences research.

Statista: Free and paid access to more than a million facts

and stats about consumers and digital markets around the
world.

Marketing Charts: A variety of marketing data, analyses,

and graphics. They offer free graphs and paid reports.

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 Social Media: Make use of social media channels to see
what’s going on in your niche, as well as spying on your
competitors to see how they use their platforms to engage
with customers. There are even some great social listening
tools that enable you to keep a close eye on what people
are saying about you online.

Surveys: Whether it’s via digital channels, by email, or

telephone, surveys can help you gain useful quantitative
and qualitative data that will help you to collect prospects’
opinions and views on a large scale. Just be sure to keep
specific biases in mind and interpret the results with care
and GDPR compliance.

Interviews: Conduct interviews with the external (users,

clients) and internal (employees, partners, investors)
community. When carried out well, interviews have the
potential to be one of the most effective ways to dig into the
more personal reasons why someone might invest in your
brand.

Focus groups: Running discussions or activities with a group

of people can draw many great insights (and also be a lot of
fun!) as you observe interactions between several
individuals and one or more brands at the same time.

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 2. BUILDING

BRINGING IT ALL TO LIFE

 Throughout the research stage, it’s pretty hard not
to get inspired with ideas on how you want your
brand to be, visually. This is what the building stage
is all about. So it’s time to get those creative juices
flowing and start working on your brand identity.

FORMING YOUR
BRAND IDENTITY
Your brand identity is made up of all the visible
elements of your brand and the personality that you
attribute to it. This can be everything from the
colors, photography, and graphics you use for your
logo and packaging, to the language that you use
on your website and social channels, and even your
employee uniforms. Having an aesthetically
appealing brand gives your company the
competitive advantage of value, unity, recognition,
differentiation, and pride. This is your opportunity to
make a great first impression. You won’t get the
chance to do this again, so investing in your brand
identity is vital for success.

Here are some essential brand identity elements

that you need to consider:

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 LOGO
Creating a logo can be one of the most exciting
tasks for any business owner, and it’s also one of the
most important elements of your brand identity. This
piece of collateral will appear on everything that
relates to your brand, it’s what your customers will
be exposed to the most and what will identify you
across different channels and locations, for
example. When designing your logo it’s crucial that
you create something that matches, complements,
and enhances your brand. It’s likely that even if
someone can’t recall the name of your business,
they might be able to remember elements of your
logo. You must be willing to invest the required time
and resources into this task if you want to create
something exceptional and significant.

Simplicity often works best. Think of some of the

most iconic logos you know. Say, Disney, Apple, and
Amazon, for example. All three are simple, which
makes them instantly recognizable and memorable.

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 Of course, as time goes on, it’s likely that your logo
will be adjusted and refined. As your brand starts to
grow and becomes more and more well known, you
might find yourself able to simplify things further.

When Starbucks first started out as a small retailer

in 1971, their logo displayed a full length mythical
two-tail mermaid inside of a circular ring in a coffee
brown color palette. The company was originally
known as Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spices, and
this was also featured on the logo. As time went on,
and the success of the company grew, they were
able to gradually rebrand to just ‘Starbucks’ and
have the clean, iconic logo that we are all familiar
with today. Dropping the name Starbucks from the
latest logo was a risky move. However, this redesign
paid off. People associated the green mermaid with
Starbucks so thoroughly that no reference to the
name was even necessary.

And when you’re able to drop the company name

from your original logo, it’s clear that you have built
a pretty successful brand.

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 FACEBOOK WEBSITE COLORS
COLOR SCHEME If you can get people to associate
certain colors with your brand, then you
know you’ve done your branding well.
29487E FEFEFE For example, if you consider Facebook’s
brand I’m sure you’ve instantly thought
of the medium blue tone they use
throughout the platform and all
marketing materials.

3D5998 9CB2CE D5D8E8

It’s important to know the meanings
behind the colors you choose and be
sure they are appropriate and relevant
to the message that you want to get
Color increases brand across. Colors are more than just a
visual aid; they convey emotions,

recognition by 80% feelings, and experiences. Choosing the

right color scheme will aid you in
producing a strong identity for your
QuickSprout company.

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 BLUE - SECURITY AND INTEGRITY OR TRANQUILITY AND PEACE As a rule of thumb, try not to use more than 3 primary
colors (yes, Google got away with using 4 but, well,
that’s Google). You’ll need your base, accent, and a
neutral color. The base is the most important, and the

GREEN - FRESHNESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL one you should choose first. It should reflect your
brand personality and be the most dominant color of
your brand. The accent will be your secondary color so
should also contain a characteristic that is a reflection
of your personality and match perfectly with the base
YELLOW - ENERGY AND CHEERFULNESS OR CAUTION
color. A neutral color is often the background color, so
say black, white, or gray.

PURPLE - SPIRITUALITY, LUXURY

PINK - ROMANCE, BEAUTY, LOVE, SENSITIVITY

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Aa
FONTS
When choosing the perfect font for your brand you
need to be sure it works well alongside your logo and
your color palette. As well as that, it should be unique,
memorable, communicate your brand personality, and
work on every platform on which you intend to use it.
Just like colors, fonts can convey different
personalities and purposes. So be sure to do your
research on these, too, and allow the outcome to help
guide your decision making.

Be wary of using types of fonts that are too “trendy”.

Just because it’s considered a trend now, does not
mean it will still be in 5 years. You want the decisions
you make for your brand to stay consistent and not
become dated too quickly.

The most important rule when choosing your font is to

ensure that it is legible and clear. This is especially
true for your body font which makes up the bulk of the
text on your website. Fonts that are difficult to
decipher will only strain the eyes of the reader and
put them off. Pick classic, timeless fonts that aren’t too
closely related to another brand. A rip off Disney font
is never a good idea, and you could even find yourself
in the middle of an expensive copyright lawsuit.

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 PHOTOGRAPHY &
GRAPHICS
Your brand identity is also made up of the photos and
graphics you use throughout your website, marketing
materials, advertising, social media, packaging, etc.
Unlike your logo and fonts which should remain the
same for long periods of time, you can change up the
imagery you use as much as you like, but they should
all have a consistent look and feel.

Take a look at some of the imagery used by music

streaming and media services provider, Spotify.

With their bold, unique color combinations, pop-art

graphics, duo-tone effects and use of gradients, the
imagery used by Spotify is so consistent and on-
brand, making it instantly recognizable. For a brand
that has the difficulty of marketing so many different
artists, who all have huge variations of style, they’ve
done a top class job at keeping their branding
consistent regardless.

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31
 PACKAGING
If you sell a physical product, then your
packaging and product design plays a vital
part in your brand identity. As with all the
design elements we’ve discussed previously,
your product design and packaging need to
align with your brand values in order to attract
customers. Your packaging alone play a huge
role in enhancing the overall customer
experience. Be sure to keep it consistent with
all your other design elements. For example,
your color palette, fonts, imagery, and logo.

When designing your packaging, keep it

simple but make sure it includes all the content
required for a great customer experience.
Consumers love it when packaging is good for
the environment, so definitely consider using
eco-friendly materials as this can influence
purchasing decisions too.

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 WEBSITE
When a consumer first hears about your brand and is keen
to learn more, you can guarantee that the first place they
are going to go to is Google. A quick search in Google
should send them directly to your website, so you want to
be sure that this is going to impress them, both visually,
and in terms of the content it contains. Ultimately, they’ll
be scrolling through your website and making a decision
on whether or not they should purchase the product or
service you’re offering.

Your website is the face of your company. As with the

factors we mentioned in ‘Packaging’, it needs to perfectly
combine with the other elements of your brand identity,
i.e. logo, color palette, fonts, imagery, etc. Make sure your
site is easy to understand and navigate. Simple things like
ensuring your logo transitions seamlessly from page to
page, and that colors and font formats remain consistent
throughout, greatly contribute to your user’s UX (user
experience), and therefore how they view your website
and overall brand. Make sure your site loads quickly and is
mobile friendly too! If it’s difficult to navigate around, is
poorly designed, or isn’t aesthetically pleasing, then it’s
likely that your prospective customer will see you as an
untrustworthy and unprofessional company that they
should avoid.

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 SOCIAL MEDIA
CHANNELS
How your company portrays itself on the various
social media platforms available says a lot about
your brand identity. Utilizing these channels is an
excellent way to enhance your brand and is a vital
part of most brand strategies today.

Choose the channels on which you want to maintain

a presence and go from there. You don’t need to put
your brand on each and every one. Just do your
research and pick the ones where your current and
prospective consumers mostly reside; this will
enable you to communicate with your target
audience via the most appropriate channel(s).

Maintain is also a significant word here. If you don’t

intend to keep active on your social media channels
and regularly update them, then you’ll actually be
doing your brand more harm than good. An inactive
social media page will simply raise eyebrows to the
trustworthiness and the reliability of your brand.

34
 Customize your social media channels to the best of your
53% of ability and keep them consistent throughout, using your
logo, slogan, and chosen color palettes where you can.

consumers say Make sure that any imagery and graphics that you share on
your channels have the same look and feel to those on your
website, packaging, marketing materials, etc.
they’re likely to As well as the visual side of things, social media is the

buy from brands perfect way for you to portray your brand voice. How you
deliver a message is as important as the message itself.
Social media gives you the opportunity to have direct, one-
that are to-one engagement with your current consumers and
prospects. It allows you to actually connect with them,

transparent on respond to feedback, answer their questions in real-time,

help them resolve any issues, or simply check-in and let
them know that your brand values what they have to say.

social media Be sure that how you communicate is on-brand, authentic,

and transparent, as this will have a lasting impact on their
impression of your brand.

With social media, your first aim should be to gain the trust

Sprout Social of your consumers. Then encourage them to become loyal

customers. And then, advocates for your brand’s products
and services.

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 3. EXECUTION

THE LAUNCH
 Showcasing your new brand to the world is an
exciting moment. So you want to be sure that
everything goes according to plan and without any
hiccups (or at least as few as possible). This goes for
whether you’re creating an identity for a new brand,
product, or service, or if you’re launching a rebrand
on one that’s pre-existing.

Here are some strategic tips to help you make sure

that the launch of your new brand is a successful
one:

1. GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TIME

Whatever you do, don’t set a launch date that
doesn’t give you ample time to have everything in
place. The launch of your new brand is an important
event, and there’s a lot of work to be done to make
it a success, so being patient at the time will reward
you in the long-run.

Plan early, set yourself a schedule of everything that

needs to be done and when, and get started as
soon as possible. Taking your time will aid in the
decision-making process, and will ensure that you
don’t rush and make a silly, regretful mistake.

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 2. FINALIZE ALL TOUCHPOINTS
PRIOR TO LAUNCH
In the previous section, we spoke about some of the design
elements that need to be considered for your brand. Your
logo, color scheme, fonts, imagery, packaging, website,
and social media channels. While these are the main
design elements, they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Depending on the product or service you sell, whether
you’re based online or have a physical store, as well as how
exactly you want to launch your new brand, there will
always be a huge amount of things to consider. For
example, marketing collateral, signage, business cards,
stationery, employee uniforms, email signatures,
advertising initiatives - the list is endless.

Whilst all this can be enough to put your head in a spin, it’s
vital that all these are finalized before you unveil your
brand to the world. A gradual brand rollout will only
confuse your consumers and will have a far less effective
impact. Prioritize the tasks with the longest lead time and
go from there.

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 3. COMMUNICATE
INTERNALLY FIRST
It’s crucial that everyone on your team, be it a small
or large company, fully understands your brand’s
vision and purpose before you launch it to the rest
of the world. Your employees are up there as one of
the most important ambassadors and
spokespersons for your company, so it’s imperative
that they embrace everything you are about. If your
team doesn’t know how to speak about your brand
or how to answer questions from customers
consistently, then you’ll be sending conflicting
messages from the get-go.

You can avoid this by holding an internal launch

where all employees are provided with a complete
overview of your brand, as well as the opportunity
to ask questions and make comments. This should
include the release of brand guidelines in the form
of a document that is easily accessible to
employees as well as all other internal stakeholders.

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 4. ESTABLISH YOUR
SALES FUNNEL
Having a well-established sales funnel in place prior to the launch
of your new brand is important for a number of reasons. Your sales
funnel represents the path taken by a prospect as they make their
way towards becoming an actual customer. It helps you to
understand and visualize the sales process as well as to measure
the overall conversion success between each step.

With a good sales funnel in place you can help close the sale from
a new customer, whilst also retaining existing customers through:

• Forming a lasting connection at each stage of the

customer journey

• Building trust with potential customers and

nurturing them towards a purchase

• Harnessing the power of email to convince and

convert

• Increasing the lifetime value of customers, allowing

you to sell again and again

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 5. UPDATE EXISTING MEDIA TO
NEW BRANDING
If you’re launching a rebrand then I’m sure you have a
bunch of existing media and content on your website,
social media, blog, and as part of your digital
marketing strategy. This can include the likes of eBooks,
Whitepapers, email templates, email signatures,
landing pages, calls-to-action, etc. Whatever it may
be, it’s important to identify, edit, and re-publish
everything to ensure that it carries the new branding.
Make sure these are all ready to go in advance of
launch day and keep a list so you can easily check
them off as you go along to ensure that nothing is
missed. That way it’s just a matter of simply updating
the relevant content on the day.

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 6. UTILIZE SEO & CONTENT
20% of MARKETING
One of the most effective ways to drive consistent
organic traffic to your website and increase brand

internet awareness is through search engine optimization (SEO).

This can be achieved by writing great content that
goes after relevant search terms and keywords that

users’ online your prospective customers are likely to be typing into

Google. This content needs to be of high value, to
satisfy their user intent and plant the seed in their mind

time is spent of the problem your company can solve.

With a well-defined content strategy, you can better

on content connect with your target audience, supporting them

throughout their customer journey and building trust
with your brand that will, ultimately, result in
conversions. The most important content tool you have
available to attract, nurture, and qualify prospects, is
your website’s blog. As well as your blog you can also

Demand Metric make use of infographics, podcasts, videos, case

studies, e-books, and more. When creating your
content, here are a few things you need to consider:

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 Which content will
resonate with your
target audience?

How will the content get

found in organic search
results?

When is the optimal

frequency and schedule
for publishing?

What is the plan for

promoting the content?

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 7. BUILD ANTICIPATION
If you can build some anticipation and get people
excited for the launch of your new brand, then you will
have them counting down the days until you go live,
allowing you to hit the ground running. You don’t want
to give too much away, just build a little bit of
anticipation and mystery by releasing the right amount
of detail at the right time. Here are some tactics that
you can use:

Teaser videos

Subtle hints and updates on social media

A countdown timer on your website

Use of the right influencers

An early access sign up landing page

Contests and giveaways

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 8. PLAN SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
In the previous section, we spoke about the importance
of having well branded social media channels. But this
is just the first step. Once your brand is launched (and
even beforehand as a method of building hype), you
need to plan how exactly you are going to utilize your
channels to educate, communicate, and engage with
your customers.

Simply having an account is not enough. Influencers

and customers might be singing your praises, but
research shows that 3 out of 4 customers use social
media to aid their purchasing decisions. So, if they land
on your Facebook or Instagram profile, and you haven’t
updated anything since 2017, chances are, they won’t
view you as a credible or trustworthy source. A
consistent feed that showcases your products in use
and provides value will help to turn visitors into
followers, and followers into buyers. The goal is to earn
the trust of your followers, convert them into loyal
paying customers, and then finally as long-lasting
advocates for your brand.

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 There are numerous social media scheduling tools out
there that you can use to manage your time more
effectively. If you can, it’s definitely worthwhile to invest
in one that’s suitable for your team. Generally, these
tools enable you to schedule posts at your preferred
time in the future, across all your social platforms, and
allow for effective collaboration, as well as providing
detailed analytics into what sort of content resonates
best with your audience, which you can use as
actionable insights.

With a high-quality feed, your business will typically be

able to attract more followers, which is another key
motivating factor. Having a large following shows that
many others are familiar with your brand, they think
your content is top-notch, that you are reliable,
legitimate, and that they are happy with the products
or services you offer.

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 9. SET UP A PAID SEARCH &
SOCIAL CAMPAIGN
Having a paid search and social campaign is a great way to build
brand awareness and to generate leads and customers for your
business. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can be set up on a bunch of
different channels, such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, etc. It’s important to choose the one that will allow you to
best reach your target audience and achieve your goals.

Start by establishing what outcome it is that you want your paid

campaign to bring. These are some of the common measurements at
the brand awareness stage:

Impression volume

Click volume

CTR (click-through rate)

CPC (cost-per-click)/CPM (cost per thousand impressions)

Video views

Social page likes

Social shares

Post engagement

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 Once you know what you wish to achieve, and how
you’re going to get there, you then need to decide who
exactly you want to target as well as the keywords you
want to go after if using Google Ads. Having a well-
defined target audience, relevant content that will
appeal to said audience, and proper keyword targeting
will make all the difference when it comes to the
success of your paid campaign.

In order to achieve the most success in the long-run,

you’ll want to do PPC in conjunction with all the other
inbound marketing techniques we’ve discussed
throughout this guide. On its own, PPC can only yield
short-term results.

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 Email is almost 40
10. SCHEDULE AN EMAIL
times more MARKETING CAMPAIGN
effective than During the brand-building process, it’s important not to underestimate
the power of building a list. According to the Digital Marketing

Facebook and Association, 66% of customers actually make a purchase as a result of

an email marketing message. With the right tools, a well-employed

Twitter combined in email marketing strategy has the potential to:

helping your Build customer loyalty and relationships

business acquire Increase ROI (return on investment)

new customers Establish your brand as the industry thought leader

Decrease unsubscribe rates

McKinsey

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 Building an email list requires some form of opt-in on your website.
This can include pop-ups, slide-ins, sidebars, banners, landing
page forms, etc. In return for their email address, you need to be
offering the user something that is of high value to them. For
example, if you are a company that provides online dog behavioral
classes, you might consider gating a guide titled
“Puppy Training 101: How to Raise a Well Behaved Puppy”

Think of something that would entice your prospective customers,

create the content, and then only provide access to it via an email
address. Once you do this, the emails for relevant leads will start
flowing in and you’ll be able to start building that relationship,
warming them up before you hit them with the sale. They might
have just downloaded your guide, but this does not mean they are
ready to buy the product or service you offer. Consider their stage
of the buyer’s journey, and tailor the content you send to them
based on this.

The key to developing brand awareness through email marketing is

to provide consistent, solution-focused content that is highly
personalized and relevant to the person receiving it. The right
content, at the right time, and to the right person is vital if you
want to see higher conversions and website visits as a result of
your emails.

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 11. MONITOR SUCCESS
Throughout the entire branding process, as well as an ongoing task, you
should be keeping a close eye on your analytics. With this data, you will be
able to monitor the success of your goals and KPIs. But don’t wait until the
date by which you hope to have achieved a particular goal. You should be
reviewing your analytics on a weekly basis, as soon as your branding
activity begins. This is in order to make the relevant tweaks and leverage
any tactics which show the most opportunity.

Shockingly, 75% of small business owners aren’t making use of key analytic
tools, such as Google Analytics, in order to measure their website’s
performance. Getting set up isn’t hard, and it’s completely free. So make
sure this is on your high priority ‘to-do’ list, otherwise, you’ll miss out on tons
of valuable information about user behaviors on your site.

However, when you choose to launch your new brand to the world, be sure
to sustain your communication efforts over time. Going hard and fast for 3
months and then fading off into oblivion will not create lasting success. It
will also give your competitors the perfect opportunity to overtake you.
Keep the momentum going and develop a long-term marketing plan that is
both realistic and feasible.

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 CONCLUSION
Launching a new brand can certainly be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be scary. By following the various steps and tactics
outlined throughout this guide, and having a well planned out strategy in place, you can be confident that you’ll make a powerful
first impression and gain new, loyal customers quickly.

Whatever you do, try to remember these 3 key rules when building and launching your new brand:

Be Consistent:
Brand inconsistencies lead to confusion and are the number one brand killer. You must ensure that your brand is represented
consistently during each and every interaction you might have with a consumer. Integrate your brand into every aspect of the
customer experience: from your storefront and your website to your packaging and personal interactions!

Be Persistent:
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your new brand. Be relentless in your effort to build brand awareness, recognition,
sales, loyalty, and retention. Push through the times when you might want to give up because you might just be on the verge of
a break-through!

Have Restraint:
The temptation to pursue every opportunity that presents itself for expansion and extension of your brand can be high. But
you’re not ready to do that yet. Remain focused on what you aim to achieve now, and do it well. A focused brand is a strong
brand. Expansion can be considered much further down the line when you’re comfortable and established.

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 Having the right tools in place will add value to any brand
launch. From social media and analytics to email marketing
and paid advertising, there are a bunch of different tools
available to help you achieve a bunch of different things.
However, as helpful as they are, you can spend a lot of time
going between these tools, and end up with data that is
siloed. Trying to make sense of this data and view it as a
whole can take up a lot of your time and resources.

That’s where Hurree comes in. Hurree is the market

segmentation platform that helps you to build better
audience relationships by enabling your multi-channel tools
to work together seamlessly in one, central place. Whether it
is your payment platform like Stripe or your CRM like
Hubspot, Hurree enables you to easily connect the dots
between tools for a more fluid way of working.

To find out more, click the link below and book your free
demo today:

TRY HURREE

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