3 Lessons in Brand Passion from Winning Brand Builders

Brand PassionWhat separates two brands in an industry, from one being successful and another not? Brand passion! The passion that company founders have for their brands is transferred to their customers, so customers not only purchase products but they become brand advocates because they are as passionate about the brand as the brand creator.

There is no one formula for creating a successful brand, and while passion is often a key factor, it does not guarantee brand growth. To achieve phenomenal company growth and brand awareness, brand founders need to strategically focus their passion for their product into the right marketing outlets, i.e. newsletters, social media, website design, product design etc.

To better understand how brand passion, combined with strategic marketing, can lead to brand success I want to look further into three passionate company founders: Brian Scudamore, founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable, and Susan Gregg Koger, founder of ModCloth.

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How to Choose the Most Effective Social Media Platform for Your Brand

Go where your audience is

This is a basic of marketing, digital or not. For example, If you are selling custom hunting bows, you wouldn’t advertise in the Vogue magazine. Instead, you will analyze the reader demographics and psychographics of each magazine to determine which magazines will allow you to best reach your target audience. This same process should be used for determining which social media platforms you should focus the majority of your efforts on.

The infographic below from Social Barrel analyzes the audiences that frequent ten of the most popular social media platforms to help you decide where you should focus your efforts. Continue reading

Growing Offline Business Using Online Tools

Social media has several purposes:

  1. Creating Conversations
  2. Building Brand Awareness
  3. Build a Community
  4. Educate
  5. Reach New Audiences
  6. Understand Your Current Audience
  7. Create a More Personal Brand
  8. Interact Directly with Customers
  9. Display Credibility
  10. Promote Your Company

The list could go on and on, on why social media is beneficial to your brand. With any marketing attempt, there must be a goal (such as selling more of a products). Online marketing efforts are very successful at creating online “followers” into offline customers, including:

  • social media
  • online ads
  • geographic based platforms

How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success Infographic

The infographic below from KISSmetrics breaks down how influential online marketing is for increasing sales and reaching conversion rate goals. Here are a few of the facts that stood out:

  • 53% of people on Twitter suggest companies and or products in their tweets with 48% delivering on their intention to buy
  • 75% of small businesses have a company page on a social networking site
  • 20% of searches on Google are location specific (are you using the right keywords for your SEO? Check out my blog on choosing the right keywords to increase your Google rankings here)
  • On average, 1155 people purchase a group deal on Groupon DAILY
  • The best banner ad size and location are 300×250 and the top right corner

How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-online-marketing-drives-offline-success/

How the 10 Most-Followed Brands are Leveraging Pinterest

Photo SearchPinterest is definitely catching the interest of big and influential companies, mostly fashion and media based companies. Including, one of may favorite websites, Mashable!

Magazine companies have seen the advantages of the new image based social media, including Real Simple and Better Homes & Gardens. Both of these magazines benefit from Pinterest because decorating tips are best translated through images. Kate Spade New York is leading the way for fashion brands on Pinterest, with almost 17,000 followers. Instead of waiting to see the newest ad in a magazine, customers can go on Pinterest and peruse all the newest looks.

One company that interests me greatly, it is not a media or fashion company, it is Whole Foods. While it may seem odd that a speciality grocery store has almost 15,000 followers on an image based social media platform, but it makes sense. They have figured out exactly how to portray their brand and company values through images with pictures of gardening, recipes, and food specials.
Via mashable.com

Via Scoop.itBeing Your Brand

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net