What makes a brand identity? In today’s world, it is important for a business to not only make their brand visible but also make it unique. Content marketing and online branding might be two different areas, but one influences the other. While online branding is about creating your value proposition and shaping the viewers’ perception of your business, content marketing involves reinforcing that value proposition in the viewers’ mind and helping communicate the utility value of your business.
Having the right content on your site can help set your brand apart from your competitors, create a positive impression on your prospective customers, highlight the unique selling propositions and build trust in your brand. It projects an image of your company that you would like your customers to see.
You have to create content that your viewers find engaging. This content should address important points like ‘who you are’ and ‘what you have to offer’. For example, a page dedicated to your company values, people involved, etc. on your website reveals the company culture and sets you apart from the competition.
Here are a few important ways that online content helps in creating a recognisable and reputable brand identity.
Company Blogs For Brand Awareness
Any business with an active website can start their own blog. It helps create brand awareness and provides businesses with a platform to put forward their own voice. There is a need to make your content unique so that it stands out among the sea of company blogs and websites. Post articles that are fresh and offer a unique take on things. Using text, images, videos, and infographics, businesses can create a visible and credible brand image. While it might get a little difficult to improvise all the time, having unique content pays off in the end.
Choosing Blog Topics
Your content also needs to be accurate and authoritative. Building the viewers’ trust should be one of the end objectives. Try approaching the industry news and topics from different angles or talk exclusively about certain details from a previous post. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter if the topic has been used before. What is important is providing a fresh take on it. Search engines also value opinionated content, especially because it is shared more and it helps people make decisions.
Check your competitors and see what they’re talking about. There are tools to help you learn which of your competitors content is doing well. Then create a strategy that well outdoes them. You will start to see tangible results, with some patience!
Another thing to remember while updating the content on your website is to tailor it to your target audience. For example, if any of your viewers are leaving comments or tweets regarding a particular topic, you can create a blog post or a webinar to address it. It’s always a good idea to create and constantly update the buyer persona to understand their interests, likes and dislikes.
Display Your Subject Expertise
If you create online content that shows off your expertise on the product or service you are selling, then viewers are more inclined towards your brand as they tend to trust someone with more authority. Whether it is a how-it-works video, a newsletter, an infographic or an article, you should provide your viewers with authoritative content. It will set you apart as a brand that has extensive knowledge about the field you specialize in.
Having this kind of valuable and relatable content would gain the attention and trust of your prospective customers which is important in a competitive market.
Shared Values
An important thing that businesses should focus on is to connect with the values of their target audience. Being an active member and giving back to the community not only develops a sense of trust and admiration in the minds of the viewers, but it can also be a part of the businesses' unique selling proposition.
The brands can connect with their prospective customers by posting pictures or videos on their platform about customer testimonials, case studies, fundraisers, community events, etc. This gives the viewers a behind-the-scenes look at your enterprise and allows them to develop a level of familiarity and understanding.
Connect With The Audience
Encouraging your prospective customers to interact with you through your content is a fantastic way to develop a positive brand image. If you are sending out email newsletters, give them appropriate links to reconnect with your brand. Your content should be conversational to engage and encourage a response.
Social media channels come handy here as they allow a direct platform for interaction with the audience through posts, tweets, etc. This interaction gives you a direct window into the minds of your audience and lets you make the necessary changes to your content or even business strategy. It also allows the viewers to share the content with their own networks.
Brand Visibility And SEO
Most companies strive to make their brand visible to anyone who searches for a related product or service online. Google’s algorithm places good-quality, fresh content on their first few search result pages. So, updating the content on your website can help increase the brand’s presence on the result pages of different search engines.
Creating engaging content brings the benefit of increasing the time visitors spend on your website, strengthening their trust and affinity for the brand. This in turn sends a positive signal to search engines, which now send your website more relevant traffic.
Content Strategy And Branding
The strategy you devise to reach your target audience is important in creating your brand identity. This includes the channels you choose to put your content on. Different types of content perform well in different marketing channels.
Some companies choose to have an ‘About Us’ section on their website that provides information on their company, values, goals, work culture etc. while others upload blog posts that contain information related to the product or service.
A few other channels or methods to display your content to the viewers include hosting webinars, providing them with downloadable brochures, guides or eBooks and uploading videos. Webinars and brochures can be used to provide details on how to use a product the company is selling. They also help you in capturing leads and would-be customers - they may not buy your product or service immediately, but are likely to do so with more product information, training, data or familiarisation.
How-to-use content is also popular and let your prospective customers know how the product works. They help communicate the utility value of your product or service. Infographics and articles are great channels for this type of content.
Video content can also be used to provide an insight into the work culture, manufacturing process, community events, etc. of the business. Videos can also communicate a typical customer journey in a story format, allowing your customers to identify with the problem you’re solving, better.
Creating Your Content
When you look at the big picture, you will see all the different areas that you can start creating content in. Don’t be overwhelmed - start slowly, with say one blog post a week, and take it up with time. If you have a marketing budget, you can hire a content strategist or a content marketer on your team to manage and develop the strategy, and engage a company offering content writing services to create the actual content. Your content strategist can also measure how the content is performing with analytics and constantly improve the content with the agency’s help. This setup is nimble, and agile.
Final Words
Creating the right online content helps you formulate a premeditated brand image in the viewers’ minds. If done right, your web content should be able to create a brand that attracts more website traffic, leads, and prospective customers.
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