Month: April 2022

What Is Brand Perception? A Guide on Improving It

Consumers have more choices than ever before regarding what they can buy and who they can buy from. As a result, you must always be conscious of how your clients perceive your brand for your business to stay competitive and grow. But how? You’ll need to know what brand perception is, how to measure brand perception, and how it impacts your brand.

What Is Brand Perception?

Brand perception is what consumers believe a brand represents. It is the overall sentiment of your customers based on their use and experience with your brand’s products and services. Now, if you’re wondering what consumer perception is, you’re not alone; “consumer perception” and “brand perception” are synonymous and frequently used interchangeably. In other words, both influence how many customers you can attract and what they say or perceive about your brand.

Why Is Brand Perception Important?

Brand perception can make or break your business. Even if you use conscious advertising to appeal to issues your target audience cares about, they won’t choose your brand if they don’t get the message or connect to it. A positive brand perception leads to increased confidence towards your products—consumers are more likely to purchase your offerings, buy repeatedly, and encourage others to do so as well.

How Do You Improve Brand Perception?

Once you are clear on what brand perception is, you’ll need to improve yours to ensure it doesn’t turn negative, which could hurt the bottom line. So start changing how your customers perceive your business with the following strategies.

1. Monitor Brand Perception Metrics

Know where you should improve by understanding where you currently stand. Have a firm grasp on brand perception through regular surveys, focus groups, online forums, and social media monitoring. Keeping watch on brand perception metrics helps you stay relevant and up-to-date. By tracking what your customers say about your brand, you can better gauge your next actionable steps. Remember that sentiment towards your brand is in constant flux because of external factors such as changing trends and events, so be on the lookout for opportunities.

2. Create A Brand Experience Around Your Audience

Gaining insights on brand perception should clue you in on whether a brand works or not. If it doesn’t, your only option is to refresh it. One way to improve your brand perception is by performing a brand refresh. Start your brand’s makeover by understanding who your target customers are. Besides knowing your audience’s age, gender, demographics, and basic information, you must analyze their behaviors and motivations for choosing your brand. Once you’ve narrowed down the characteristics you want your brand to be identified with, incorporate these in your branding assets, marketing efforts, and every customer interaction. If you want your customers to see you as “reliable and prompt,” be sure to fulfill that promise by delivering every time.

3. Generate the Right Content

After identifying your brand’s target audience, send the right message by tailoring content for them. Create content they want to consume and ensure it’s in your social media platforms and website to reach as many customers as possible. Be consistent with your messaging—your improved brand perception sticks better if it resonates with your customers repeatedly.

4. Be Open to Feedback

If you want to strengthen perception, you have to be aware of your customer’s experience with your brand. To do that, you must welcome all forms of feedback, not just positive, glowing ones. Changing brand perception means actively seeking customer feedback. Customer reviews, especially bad ones, give you an idea of your products or services’ underlying issues or pain points. They offer better insights based on what your customers saw and experienced on their end. Encourage consumers to provide feedback after every interaction to identify areas for improvement and immediate resolution. Don’t avoid the bitter truth. If you fail to listen to what your customers are telling you now, you stand to lose more in the long run.

5. Establish a Positive Connection with Customers

Influence how people perceive your brand with positive interactions at every touch-point. Since most customers are on social media, consistently interact with them by posting engaging content or replying to their comments. Even a simple “thank you” is enough to make your customers feel connected to your brand because they’re talking to a real person, not a bot. Delivering a personalized, humanized interaction entices people to choose your brand over others.

Changing Brand Perception with Channel Factory

Ready to level up your brand perception to stand out from the rest? Work with Channel Factory to know your next steps in creating focused content to change how your customers perceive you and leave a good impression. Contact us today, and learn how to change perspectives about your brand.

Why You Need a Digital Marketing Ecosystem & Where to Start

 

A digital marketing ecosystem includes all digital media related to your brand. Like a natural ecosystem, it requires several different networks to work together as one. This includes your website, social media, video presence, and anything else that’s part of your digital strategy for a marketing ecosystem. It’s an entire connected system that helps create and promote comprehensive campaigns to establish and strengthen your brand’s position in the market. Read more to find out why your brand needs this ecosystem and how Channel Factory can help you get started. 

What specifically does ecosystem mean in marketing?

The best way to interact with customers is through digital engagement. They’re already online. However, your target audience doesn’t use the internet in the same way or engage in the same places. Your marketing ecosystem encompasses various ways that your brand fosters awareness, engages potential customers, converts them into buyers, and nurtures customer loyalty. 

How do you create a digital ecosystem?

Approaching your marketing as a more comprehensive strategy and intentionally looking at your brand’s entire digital marketing ecosystem is necessary to be competitive in an increasingly digital world. Creating your unique digital ecosystem depends on your business and target market, but the following steps can help direct you.  

1. Develop a Strategy

When you think about your brand’s digital strategy, the first question to answer is: What do you want to achieve? Consider this question carefully, combining goals, objectives, and methodology. Having this clarity will direct your efforts. 

2. Set Measurements

Keep in mind that any successful marketing strategy uses data and analytics to understand what works and what needs improvement.  You can also use these measurements to change and evolve your strategy over time. 

3. Include Social Media Marketing

Any complete digital marketing ecosystem will utilize social media. This includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. These are powerhouse channels with huge followings and user engagement. Each can drive a solid return on investment in its own unique way. 

Social media marketing can include free activity through your brand’s profiles and the posts and engagement on your activity. It can also include paid media advertising on the platform. Whether sticking to the free options or including paid, the added bonus of social media is brand accessibility. Engage in organic conversations that can lead to trust and return business. You’ll also benefit from providing superior customer service, conducting research on habits and trends, and activating super customers or fans. These should all be a part of your company’s business objectives for social media marketing, whether or not you opt for paid advertising. 

4. Build a Strong Video Presence

One of the most powerful digital channels is video. In 2020, more than 244 million people in the United Stated watched videos online. Brands who consciously invest in the right video content through brand safe, suitable, and performance driven strategies are poised to take advantage of this effective channel for reaching audiences. Channel Factory harnesses years of experience to provide your brand with a competitive edge and build dominant brand recognition by incorporating a strong video strategy into your digital marketing ecosystem. 

5. Consider Digital Ads

It makes sense to allocate more of your marketing ecosystem dollars to digital advertising rather than traditional. This includes search, display, social, and video ads. Channel Factory’s experts can discuss options and how they fit into your overall strategy. 

6. Tap Into Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Conventional wisdom continues to show that SEO is powerful. Used effectively, you can increase brand awareness, build authority and trust, and capture good leads and customers ready to engage. SEO is often a long-term strategy, but one that can pay off.

7. Make Sure Your Website Is Effective 

You must have a well-designed and easy-to-use website that is user-friendly and welcomes your customers. Also, consider how well the website works on mobile devices. This is also a time to ensure that your logo and graphics utilize color with clear and memorable designs that stick with the consumer long after logging off. 

8. Remember the Power Of Word-of-Mouth

Don’t forget about or dismiss conversation marketing. Referrals from, among, and between family and friends are the most reliable way to grow your business. Paired with social media marketing, social proof has tremendous power.

9. Email Marketing

Using email to market through messaging, advertising, and newsletters is a proven tool to attract and retain customers. Continue to find interesting ways to break through the static of conventional messaging and use emails to stand out from the crowd. 

10. Know Your Customers 

What’s important to your customers? How do they identify with your organization, and what makes them return? You can get this through all different kinds of data and a reliable customer relationship manager. The best CRMs can help you get to know your customers while respecting privacy laws at the same time. 

What comes next? 

As you build and fine-tune your digital marketing ecosystem, let the experts at Channel Factory help. Contact us today.

The Brand Impact of Socially Conscious Advertising

 

While the evidence suggests that brands who engage in socially conscious advertising are more successful, we’d like to focus on how conscious advertising links core ethical values into the brand image. 

We launched a YouTube series at Channel Factory that provides an open platform to discuss this issue. “Conscious Conversations” is a part of our ongoing Conscious Project, an initiative that helps brands like yours consciously invest their media dollars and navigate the complexities of social platforms. 

What is conscious advertising?

Brands advertise in a socially conscious manner when they acknowledge their core beliefs and values, which connect those values to the company’s bottom line. Despite public trends or customer opinions, the brands hold steadfast to their values and beliefs. This signals integrity to customers and the general public. 

Socially conscious ads openly focus on an altruistic or social message. Examples include climate change, child endangerment, or voting rights. Such advertising can be subtle and soft or risky and bold. 

What are some examples of conscious marketing? 

The best socially conscious advertising is those ads that make an unforgettable statement. These take the viewers out of their own heads for a moment with jarring visuals, engaging content, and bold execution. They entertain, and their message stays with the viewer long after the commercial is over. Let’s explore three such ads that deftly link their brand’s core ethics with the brand itself. 

1. Like A Girl: This engages an audience without preaching. A simple concept — exploring the “like a girl” trope — elicits thinking, laughter, and a swelling of pride for young girls everywhere. This is about more than just selling sanitary napkins. It aims to encourage a different kind of thinking and succeeds. 

2. The Wind: This commercial is made with the artistry of a filmmaker. In the form of a man, the wind has an existential crisis and feels completely misunderstood. Then one day, he discovers a meaningful purpose in his life: powering windmills. The actor’s performance, combined with expert cinematography and whimsical musical score, leaves the audience looking at wind energy uniquely positively.

3. Expletive Interest: Airbnb’s slightly risky ad was so well-done, with beautiful imagery, smiling people, and lighthearted music, that it remains with the viewer long after the commercial ends. It also has a slightly edgy sense of humor that appeals to customers and welcomes them in. They succeed in linking an empathic worldview and inclusiveness to their brand. 

How does it work?

Meaningful socially conscious ads consistently hold the viewer’s interest from first impression through purchase or engagement and beyond. 

A conscious brand elicits stronger feelings than brands that don’t align their values with their advertising. People feel more emotionally connected with businesses that take a moral stand, especially today. That’s the way it works. Socially conscious ads get a customer’s attention and appeal to their emotions. This, in turn, gets people’s brains working to think in different ways. Thoughtful ads elicit thoughtful responses. 

Enhance your brand by creating socially conscious advertising with Channel Factory.