Most companies understand that branding is the most important part of marketing. Many large companies organize their marketing departments by Brand Manager. It is the manager’s responsibility to make sure that when a customer thinks of a general product, that they think of the company’s product, and develop an unbreakable association.
Brand management consists of advertising, a hook (or brand), and a superior product. Advertising starts by creating demand in the mind of the customer. The hook is a way for the customer to remember the product. This can be the distinctive logo of a famous sports shoe or the talking lizard for a famous car insurance company. Finally, the superior product seals the deal by attaching customer satisfaction to the hook. This process leads the customer to associate the product with the hook, or brand.
Website Branding
Online marketing has introduced a new kind of branding to marketing: the website brand. This goes beyond presenting the logo on a website, but additionally creates a link between the website itself and the product. Bookstores were one of the first industries to utilize website branding. National booksellers initially created websites as convenience sites for those that preferred to shop and make their purchases online. However, they found that a certain market segment used the website for information, but never to purchase. The members of this segment began the process of buying a book by going online, researching the superior variety of books available, taking advantage of the advanced search tools, and reading customer reviews.
After making the decision, they would then make the purchase at the physical store. In some cases, booksellers found that customers would do their research on their website, only to make the actual purchase from a competitor. Although this could seem like a negative outcome, the booksellers realized that customers had chosen their websites when they could have started at their competitors’ sites, that their website was branded to the customer, and that they retained the advantage of first contact during the sales process.
Since that time, many other websites have learned and taken advantage of the benefits of website branding. For instance, some customers will never purchase a new product unless they have checked the ratings available at a certain national online bookstore. Others will not purchase from their favorite auction site until they have checked the prices and product description at the website for a nationally known discount store chain. These branded websites have become portals for customers of all sorts of products. These websites have the same advantage as if they were able to place their advertising in the doorways of other physical stores.
How to Achieve Website Branding
Companies that desire to brand their websites should take a lesson from the bookstore example and make their websites more attractive than competing sites. These competing sites not only include actual competitors but also, the sites a customer would normally check for information about a particular product, including the successful portals described earlier. The key to branding a website is to make it compelling to the customer through its attractiveness and usefulness.
Website attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder. A website that becomes a portal for financial information should portray dignity and solidity, while a website portal for entertainment should look like a party itself, with bright colors and bold graphics. The key is making sure that the website not only represents the company and its products, but matches the mood and the temperament of the customer as well. Although a physical store, particularly one with limited floor space, may not appreciate so-called “lookie-loo’s”, an online store, having unlimited visitor capacity, should encourage casual browsers in order to take advantage of the inevitable conversion ratio.
Usefulness is also a key to making a company website a general portal. Although it should be easy for a web visitor to purchase the company products, the website should move a bit of the focus to the customer need, to purchase what he or she has in mind. With this in mind, web designers should maximize the natural usefulness of a site by optimizing online tools such as search capabilities, rating systems, and comparison tables. Although free use of these tools may end up sending a customer to a competitor, you will still gain the benefit of having that customer become accustomed to starting at your site.
Building a Branded Website
The goal of any Ecommerce site is to minimize the barrier between customer demand and customer purchase. The web design techniques involved in making an effective Ecommerce site that also serves as a stopping point where customers will research general products can be complex. For this reason, you should consider letting us apply our expertise to the problem and to show you how we can help you meet your online marketing goals.