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Consistent and cut-through brand
communication is an essential part of any successful
marketing strategy. Ask yourself: Is your company really
using the internet to its full branding potential? If
not, you may be losing the chance to separate your firm's
brand name from competitors in the mind of your customers.
Following are 5 successful tips
we recommend to all Freestyle Web clients when they
are wanting to further build their brand online. All
5 adhere to the Freestyle Web philosophy of online
strategies - quick, easy and inexpensive to implement,
providing you with maximum marketing impact.
1. Email signatures
Your staff would use letter head
stationary with every physical note sent by snail mail
from your office but many would not add an email signature
to every email sent out. This represents a lost opportunity
for your brand, because it is not reinforced in every
piece of communication seen by your customers, partners
or suppliers.
Emails have the potential to
be forwarded on to an unlimited number of potential
customers, and your company name, contact details, website
and slogan at the bottom of each is one easy way you
can stay top of mind.
We recommend you ensure all of
your staff have a company signature automatically attached
to every email they send, every single time.
2. Add your company name after
your name
Your email Inbox typically consists
of emails from a few names you do know well, a few names
you don't know at all, and a few names you have had
communications with before, but they are not a priority
to open. As the sender of an email how do you make it
easier for the recipient to recognise your email above
others? By putting your company name after your name.
For example, in all my emails that I send, it arrives
in the recipient's Inbox with a Fred Schebesta - Freestyle Web.
The result is that recipients don't just become familiar
with my name in their Inbox, they become familiar with
my company. The contents of all emails should communicate
the company's professionalism and client orientation,
so putting the company name and my name to that is just
one more small step in building a stand-out brand.
3. E-newsletter
Organisation (or a non-irritating
site) is one of the most important factors contributing
to the way your company is perceived by current and
potential clients. Sites
that are confusing, cumbersome, slow or messy all rate
low on the Organisation evaluation criteria.
Overall, these 3 criteria - Informativeness, Entertainment
and Organisation are the most important dimensions employed
by users when they are assessing a website.
When evaluating if your firm's
site needs to be changed, you must decide what are the
objectives of your particular site and what are the
expected objectives of the visitors to the site. For
example, you must determine
if users visiting your firm's site for the purposes
of entertainment or to collect information. The
answer will then determine the focus of your firm's
site. Since, the focus is the most important factor
users will use to form their overall attitude to your
website.
4. Send out e-brochures
Electronic brochures are another
clever way you can use online technology to communicate
your brand and product offerings to potential customers.
The benefits of e-brochures are endless. Apart from
the obvious cost savings, e-brochures can be easily
updated, interactive, incorporate amazing multimedia
effects, and emailed out in response to client requests
almost immediately!
Furthermore, we recommend all
our clients have their e-brochure available for download
from the front page of their website, so it's the first
thing any potential customer sees. If the viewer downloads
it, it can be an extremely powerful advertising tool
for your business (similar to a TV commercial) that
reaches right into your customer's office or home and
commands their attention for as long as your message
is compelling.
5. Position your website on top
search engines
The adage of "If you build it,
they will come" has never held true on the Internet
yet many companies still act as if it is, by failing
to systematically drive people to their site. If you
are investing in your website as part of your marketing
plan to increase sales, your plan should include strategies
to drive people to your website in the first place.
Adding your website address to all your physical and
electronic stationary is essential, but it means that
all your website visitors already know about your business
to some extent if they are receiving communications
from you. How do you attract people who are interested
in your services but have not heard about your business?
One of the easiest ways to do this is through positioning
your website on top search engines. There are a small
number of companies who can help you achieve this.
Freestyle Web also provides
this service using your unique combination of domain
names, links, regular site submission, and content coding,
and we guarantee your website will arrives in the top
of any search engine request results. All you need to
do is give us the search terms you want people to be
able to find you by and we can make it happen. But whichever
supplier you use to position your site, we recommend
you do so quickly, because over 95%of Internet users
use search engines to find what they're looking for.
That means if your business isn't on or near the top
of the list when people search for your products that's
another potential customer lost.
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