Branding Is About The Wow Factor Albany NY

Branding is not so much about selling your product but creating a memory of your product that links it to the object. For instance when you think of Kraft you think of cheese. When you think of Coca Cola you think of soda. In fact it is hard to think of "cola" without thinking of Coca Cola. You want people's brain to work in the same way e whenever they think of your product or service. Sometimes this is done with a catch phrase, sometimes with a cleverly worded URL that is easy for them to remember and sometimes with just a well designed look or feel to your site.

You might not think, especially if you are a small Internet business, that branding does not really apply to you. However branding is the very foundation of marketing and difficult to separate from your business strategy. No matter what you are describing or saying on your site, it must have a definitive focus that can be easily be remembered by your visitors. Having a scattered or sloppy design or bland copy does not do this. Branding is accomplished by creating a seamless ecommerce site that seems to flow creatively towards the central concept you are trying to sell. It must be memorable, efficient, and unmistakably different from anybody else's ecommerce web site. This is true whether you are selling other people's products, your own products or yourself.

Branding is more than giving your business a catchy name. It is giving your visitors a preferable experience. It is about what expert Internet marketers call "the wow factor." It is making sure your site has functionality and impressive customer service. The worst thing that your web site could be branded as is as "broken." You want your customers to remember your product or the good feeling they had when they visited your site, not the fact that it didn't work or that they landed on a 404 page. This is no way to encourage a customer to bookmark your page. Branding only works if you can promise your customer consistency.

The fact that customer service is tantamount to successful branding is why a professional web hosting ecommerce package like the ones here at thirdsphere.com are recommended. You are simply not confronted with the hours that it can take mastering the small details of the business. Instead can spend your time look at the big picture and how to make profits. If you spend all of your energy just trying making your site functional, then you may lose sight of your branding concept (in essence, the "bigger picture.") You also avoid having your brand associated with inefficiency.

The most profitable web sites also use branding to court human nature's need to belong or be part of something wonderful. This is the "wow factor."
Essentially the "wow factor" is based on the idea that if you can awe or impress your visitor, they will remember to come back to you again and again to revel in the same gratifying experience.

The concept of branding is inseparable from business strategy. The concept of branding is important in any business whether you are talking about a corporation, a museum, a celebrity or even just you. Ultimately a brand can be defined by a combination of attributes including functionality, style, design, name, logo or symbol. It can be an expression of the self or an expression of the product you want to sell.

The promise of profit with regards to a brand lies in your visitor's belief that you provide a shopping experience that always delivers. In a sense, your visitors are provided with a kind of emotional security knowing that they can visit your site, see the same logo and be delivered the product or service in a reliable way. Branding can also create good word of mouth. This means that instead of saying that they bought "some socks on the Internet" they can say they bought a brand name that is associated distinctly with your company.

When you deliver a brand to a customer, you are also delivering them a promise. This once again has to do with the love of human nature for consistency. Building customer confidence by creating a reliable, safe Internet site is one important way to build a brand. In fact, if your brand gains a good reputation you may be able to sell your product or service for a much higher price, even though you are selling the same thing as everyone else!

If your brand is to be successful you also need to do some market research to find out exactly who your target consumers are for your product or service. If you are selling barbecues to people in North Carolina, for instance, you would never name your business BBQ or barbeque. You would have to create a name around barbecue, as that is how it is spelled in the south.

Branding your business is what is ultimately going to distinguish your business from thousands of others on the Internet. You can also distinguish your product from the thousands of other products competing with yours on the Internet. However keep in mind too that you could have come up with the catchiest name in the business, but if you provide your customers with a negative shopping experience (especially when it comes to handling transactions) then a brand will simply become a name to avoid in the search engines. The same is true if you make promises about your product and then deliver a disappointment. If you are going to the effort of branding something online, first make sure it is worth selling.

Even if you know nothing about branding it is a big mistake not to actively manage some aspect of it before you launch your site. Simply ignoring that branding is part of any venture is the business equivalent of putting a blindfold on, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.

KathodeRay Media, Inc.

(518) 966-5600, ext. 101
20 Country Estates Road
Greenville, NY
http://www.kathoderay.com