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How To Differentiate Yourself Through A Distinctive Online Presence

October 20, 2020

Your brand is more than just a name, a logo, and a tagline. It is a conversation with your audience that instills and reinforces the purpose and personality of your company. With countless businesses trying to stand out in a competitive marketplace, building a strong brand has become essential for companies looking to find success.

In the digital world, branding is even more important as it provides a tangible face to your business. Strong branding helps make your online presence more appealing to visitors and it encourages them to spend more time interacting with you. Building a brand that connects with customers requires consistent messaging at every point of interaction.

Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to use your brand identity to create a distinctive online presence and differentiate yourself from the competition.

1. Create A Story

The first step to creating a distinguished online presence is to hone in on the message you want your brand to convey.

You may have an assortment of messages that you would like to communicate to your online audience such as your selection of quality products, your great customer support, or your famous customers. However, it's important to note that the attention span of the visitors on your website is rather limited. If you attempt to highlight too many different elements, you may not effectively communicate any at all.

This is why you want to select certain aspects to use as a foundation and transform them into a story. Start by thinking of two to three values that best represent the core of your business. Create attractive visuals and simple wording to relay your concept and begin developing the recognizable persona of your brand.

Expand on this by giving authenticity to your communication and create stories where your core values are the heroes. For example, you can use testimonials from your customers or employees or facts regarding the history of your company.

In your story, focus on the characters and their emotions and how your business satisfies a particular need. Build a minimal plot and develop some actions to engage and captivate your visitors. The more you develop your storyline, the more you can use it throughout your marketing campaigns to create a cohesive brand identity.

The story making process may be long, but it is an effective way of focusing on the deep personality of your business, helping to convey why your brand is so different than others.

2. Make Your Website The Central Hub For Your Brand’s Messaging

After you have selected the core values to build your online presence around, you'll have to communicate them in the best way possible.

Your website is the most valuable online marketing asset that you have and is the ideal choice for displaying your brand in a complete and structured manner.

Because you own your website, you are the master of the flow of information and have the advantage of choosing every piece of content to be able to guide visitors according to your objectives.

There needs to be a seamless and consistent connection between your communication across the internet and your website. Your messaging, colors, typeface, and theme should all be consistent.

If you are able to convey a connected message at every touchpoint, your brand will resonate with your audience and they will be more likely to remember you.

3. Build Your Online Presence On Other Platforms

While your website should be the centerpiece of your online presence, it's important not to neglect other channels such as social media profiles, banners on other websites, paid advertisements, or content marketing on partners' platforms.

Each has its own benefits and brings an opportunity to deepen the connection with your target audience. You'll want to offer multiple perspectives of your story to fit the variety of platforms, all while maintaining a consistent brand messaging. Your material may look a little different on each channel but your core values and central theme of your message should remain the same.

4. Create Interactive Conversations

Online branding allows you to connect with your audience in a more interactive way. This includes videos and interactive content but also a variety of communication channels such as live chat and other messaging applications.

Creating more collaborative content helps you create a greater relationship between your users and your brand, strengthening your brand in the process. By providing more collaborative and interactive ways to engage with your brand, you establish an image of openness that will help distinguish your business as one that gives more thought to the customer experience.

5. Monitor Your Brand To Maintain Your Brand Identity

Like other aspects of marketing, it's difficult to know what is working without tracking key performance metrics. You want to consistently measure the impact of your marketing campaigns and the image of your brand to see if your efforts are having the intended effects. This will allow you to see if elements of your story need adjusting or if you should focus on, or change the messaging for different online channels.

To monitor the performance of your brand, you'll have to choose key performance indicators linked to your marketing goals. For example, if you are trying to present a brand image that resonates with young people, you'll want to evaluate demographics such as age to see if a substantial amount of your website visitors are young.

Branding Experts You Can Build Your Future With

Creating a memorable online presence requires consistent messaging and use of well-thought-out design elements. When customers instantly know who you are based on your logo and colors, you are more than just the average business.

Carrboro Creative offers professional brand design services that increase perceived value, build customer loyalty, and help establish your online presence. Contact us today to design a brand that stands out and rakes in.

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