The word “brand” is derived from the Old Norse ‘brandr’ meaning “to burn.” It refers to the practice of producers burning their mark (or brand) onto their products. The idea of branding grew out of the need to differentiate ones owned property or product from others in order to either keeping it safe or trading it for profit.
Your company branding in the current times is not much different, the company name, its logo, its product design and slogans all are part of the overall perception of an entity doing business in global markets and keeping it uniquely identifiable for its consumers. Some of the most identifiable examples of successful brands in the market are Apple, Nike, Coca Cola and many more.
A website is the natural extension of the branding effort on the internet as it is one medium which now provides not only direct interaction with the end consumer but with ever increasing social media penetration it also provides important feedback to the company. This is an invaluable source of information for the companies as this kind of data was collected via market surveys that were time consuming, inaccurate and tedious.
A Website has few major sections that need to be consistent with brand identity. They are:
Name: A website name must be able to identify the Company, Product or Service without any ambiguity.
Logo: A Logo is the graphical representation of your brand and your trademark. A good logo can vastly increase the brand recall of your product. E.g. Apple, Nike etc
Tag Line: Also called the Catch Phrase is like your mission statement, it must convey essence of your own brand to the customer.
Design: Website design, its layout, colors and presentation must compliment your product marketing and branding exercise in actual world. It’s important to keep the styling consistent across all mediums to promote a cohesive brand that your end users recognize.
How a website can be leveraged to strengthen your brand image?
Your online presence gives you a platform where you can compete with much larger corporations on a level playing field. Both are at the same distance from the target audience that is of one keyword searches on any search engines which brings a potential customer to your company’s website.
A website provides you a unique advantage of gather visitor activities on your website, analysis of visitor behavior on your website can give you crucial data about what your consumers are looking for. This data can be used successfully to position products, services to leverage and improve your brand. Online presence can be tweaked and improved constantly to keep the brand interest relevant and fresh for your customers and target audience.
With the emergence of social media, creating brand awareness is much easier with concept of sharing. These sharing buttons allow your users to actually act as your promoters to their circle of acquaintances; the word of mouth publicity is most productive as the user puts his credibility on the line for your brand name. Social Media also give a business a plat form to interact with the end user register and address their difficulties on seemingly personal basis further enhancing the trust. Hundreds of businesses are going social every day and open such support accounts for their customers on Facebook or Twitter for product awareness, product support, information, feedback or reference about your company.
Zahoor Bhat has over 10+ years of experience as an online editor and media manager. He has worked with major online news and content sites as a media manager. He is well versed with major content management systems and web platforms such as WordPress and social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Business, Yelp, Instagram & Linkedin. He is an expert in content creation, proofreading and finally making it live. Being a social media expert, he is able to make relations with social media influencers and make sure to generate leads and grow business via different social media platforms.
