Get my tips and see the list of preferred tools I use every day to build brand awareness!

Truth be told I love the creative art of marketing. I love getting into the minds of potential consumers and attempt to predict their behaviors. I adore creating contextual experiences through visual and auditory experiences that make my potential audience squeal with delight. I equate this exploration of understanding the psyche of my audience to a visionary trip down a path of trial and error.

However, branding and marketing is an art that dabbles in fortune-telling. I would love to say that I have a crystal ball that gives me the tools to know exactly how to curate a marketing and branding plan that is 100% accurate. The art of marketing is not an exact science, in fact, it is the opposite. As a brand, it is imperative that you are agile. To harness a successful brand you need to be prepared for curveballs.

The curveballs thrown to businesses globally are epic in proportions these past 2 years. Consumers were relegated into digital spaces due to the pandemic and brand building screeched to a halt. The successful brands, who understood the needs of their consumers were able to rise to the top with buoyant precision.

WHAT DOES 2022 LOOK LIKE FOR BRAND BUILDERS?

Video-

Video creates a real connection with your audience. Building your brand is akin to building relationships. It is imperative that you invest in your relationships and give your audience some facetime. This can look like live feeds on Instagram, Facebook, or Linkedin. This can be an embedded video in your email. Or it can look like lively videos on YouTube (which is owned by Google).

Video creation can seem like a big production. So start small. I love using Viddyoze. Viddyoze provides templates in which you insert art and text and it creates innovative video clips for your branding efforts.

Content is Queen-

Content, Content Content. Content can look like blogs, websites, speaking engagements, podcasts, videos, and the list goes on and on. Google-friendly content can skyrocket you to the top of search engines.

Content is the versatile engine to run the online marketing of your business. Here’s what you need to know when publishing content online:

1. Lead with value. Giving value (free information, advice, tips) builds the credibility of your business and keeps your company at the front of consumers’ minds.

2. Map the customer journey. Content marketing is storytelling that brings customers through different stages:

Awareness. This is the stage when potential customers learn about you and your business. Lead customers from this “Awareness” stage to the next stage with a call-to-action to subscribe to your newsletter. At this stage, the content can be: - Tutorial (from searches like Google or Pinterest)

- Viral post (something people will share or retweet)

- Expert content or analysis report

Consideration. At this stage, potential customers already know about you and would consider buying from you. They are already in your circle. Content can be half educational and half promotional. You’ll reach customers at this stage via content such as newsletters, case studies, and podcasts.

Decision. At the decision stage, customers trust your business and are considering making a purchase from you. Content here isn’t to educate or build brand awareness. It’s to address the benefits of your products or services. At this stage, the call-to-action leads the customer to either make a purchase or start a free trial.

If you are not a writer and cannot afford to hire a ghostwriter or content creator, check out PLR.ME. PLR.Me is a clearinghouse of pre-written copy, blogs, articles, courses, etc that you can use under your brand and repurpose it as you like.

SEOs-

This is why SEO matters so much. SEO is the process of optimizing your website (pages, blog posts, and more) for search engines like Google. If you understand it and do it right, you can get a significant amount of traffic from search engines. In other words, when people use Google to search for specific terms, your site will show up near the top of the results. People will click on your site and read your awesome content. Pretty simple, right? Well, sort of. The general concept behind SEO is simple but it’s a little more complicated in practice. Which makes sense, of course. There are trillions of web pages out there and Google has to be able to understand them and give the relevant ones to searchers. One of the primary goals of SEO is to make your website stand out from everything else. You want to make your site as appealing as possible to Google. The more appealing it is, the more it will be shown to searchers and the more traffic you’ll get. So, how do you make your site stand out in the eyes of Google?

I use Keywords Everywhere everywhere to help me understand SEOs. Keywords Everywhere is a chrome extension and has a very low price point. There are a lot of options to explore on the internet, so remember to keep it simple (stupid).

Experiential Branding:

Consumers are bored with the bombardment of advertising. The overwhelming flow of sales pitches to their inbox is a futile attempt of doing it like all the rest. Creating an experience for your audience is essential in capturing their attention and their imagination. Recently, my friend and experiential branding expert Lucia Harper opened my eyes to the world of gamification. Lucia is the CEO of On Purpose.fun . And let me tell you, Lucia makes everything more fun.

Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.

Social Media:

I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I know it is a necessary evil when it comes to creating your online presence. It can be overwhelming, time-consuming, and soul-depleting. More than ever the Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn trifecta is more important as we weave ourselves into the unchartered territories of the metaverse. The key is to be consistent and confident in your brand. I have found that batching social media assets and scheduling them a month in advance makes the task less cumbersome. However, it is essential to engage and get to know your audience. Social media gives key insight into the pulse of your potential clientele. I love using Loomly to schedule my posts, as it is intuitive and easy to post.

Branding can be a fun adventure that evokes creativity and clarity. Do the research, understand market trends, and take the leap into thinking outside the box. Do branding a little bit differently and you will reap exponential rewards!

And if you are interested in joining a community of brand-builders interested in elevating the voices of those that are making an impact check out Femcasters! (It Is Free)!