“Do your customers know what your business believes”
– Ryan Diess
You own a business and you’re passionate about the work that you do. You believe that your products or services are above and beyond the quality of your competitors, but you still aren’t converting leads into customers like you imagined. Why is this? While I was at the 2016 ICON event for small businesses, I had the opportunity to listen to Ryan Diess talk about this very problem. A problem many businesses face today.
In my blog today, I’ll outline Ryan’s keynote presentation and explain why a majority of today’s businesses are relying on the wrong marketing strategy to convert customers instead of investing in branding to promote their own business. I’ll also include Ryan’s four methods of successful branding and explain why each of them will make your business stand out in your customer’s mind.
Last Week Recap
Before we go on, I want to take second and recap what I talked about last week in my blog, “ICON 2016: Generate More Leads.” My first blog in this three week series focused on a breakout session which I attended lead by Tyler Garns. His breakout, “How to Generate 25,000 Leads in a Month,” focused on the strategy that he put in place which helped his company jump from 100 leads to 25,000 leads in just one month. I outline Tyler’s strategy and discuss how his plan can work for you.
Direct Response Marketing vs. Branding
The founder and CEO of Digital Marketer, Ryan has invested over $15 million on marketing tests, generated tens of millions of unique visitors, and sent well over a billion emails. Over the course of his approximately 3,000 split and multi-variant tests, Ryan discovered the winning formula for a successful business marketing strategy.
In his presentation, Ryan began by explain why today’s marketers are relying on Direct Response Marketing even though they should be focusing on ways to use branding to promote their business. Direct Response Marketing is the process of delivering advertisements to potential leads in hopes that they’ll make a purchase right there. He explains that this strategy is essentially like asking a complete stranger for money.
Branding, on the other hand, moves marketing in another direction. A branding strategy takes the focus away from the sales driven conversation between business and customer. Instead, it highlight the beliefs, quality, and personality of a business to create customer interest and loyalty. Customers are drawn to businesses that they find appealing or interesting. The question then becomes how can you project your business’s personality in such a way that will attract leads?
4 Methods of Branding
Ryan’s research found four different ways that businesses can attract the attention of potential customers through branding. Each of these methods focuses on either echoing the personality of a business or delivering something the customer finds useful.
Method #1 – Make them laugh
It might be obvious to say, but making people laugh is a great way to build their trust and remain at the top of their minds. However, this method can be difficult to pull off, but when done correctly, can create a lasting relationship with customers and makes them come back for future purchases.
Method #2 – Make them cry
While also difficult to market successfully, creating an emotional response to your product or service will grab the attention of customers and separate your brand from the competitors.
Did you ever think a gum commercial could give you the chills?
Method #3 – Make them feel a part of something
This method promotes the practice of including your customers in groups or conversations that make them feel less excluded and more involved with your brand. An example of this would be creating social media groups that customers can join to ask questions or receive helpful information. A successful branding strategy is centered around building relationships with potential customers and this method creates a conversation with customers that can lead to brand loyalty and repeat purchases.
Method #4 – Deliver actual value in advance
Customers want their problems solved. Branding with this method is designed specifically to give the potential customer a reason to interact with your business. Start thinking about how your product or service makes your customer’s lives easier. What information or content can you give your leads right away that is going to help them and make them want to come back in the future? This branding method puts the focus on the customer and makes them feel valued by your business.
Start Branding
To wrap my blog today, I want to include the example that Ryan used to explain branding during his keynote presentation. He compared finding a potential customer as starting a bank account. When opening a new bank account, everyone starts with a balance of $0. Direct Response Marketing is like going to the bank and trying to make a withdrawal out of your account before putting anything into it.
During the presentation, he defines branding as the act of making deposits into your potential client’s account. Through the four methods of branding mentioned above, you can begin compiling saving so when it’s time to make a withdrawal from your account, the potential customer will have seen the value or recall the emotion that your brand has delivered and won’t hesitate to make a purchase.
For Next Week
This being the second installment in my three week series recapping my ICON experience, I want to continue next week by talking about the different tools that you can use to promote and distribute your content to potential customers. And if you haven’t already, make sure to read my last week’s blog about how you can generate more leads for your business.
If you’s like a sneak peak into what I’ll be talking about next week, download our free Remarketing whitepaper by clicking below.
