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How to Build Your Brand Online

Online brand building has more similarities than differences to traditional marketing of products and services. However, you can take advantage of many aspects of the online environment that aren't options for bricks-and-mortar operations.

You can't build your online brand overnight, any more than you can do so offline. Small startups can rarely afford splashy launches with Super bowl ads, billboards and nationwide radio spots. Still, consumers not only welcome your presence online, they've come to expect it. No one buys ice cream online, but many of us rush to the internet to locate the nearest neighborhood Dairy Queen or Baskin Robbins.

What is a "Brand?"
Simply speaking, your brand is your identity. Consumers can equate "brand" with a particular product (Pampers — a disposable diaper), a service (Geico — a car insurance provider) or a range of products (Nordstrom — clothing).

Your brand may be represented by its name, equated with its image, recognized for its slogan and differentiated by its unique qualities. According to the Center for Research in Brand Marketing at England's Birmingham University, the average company estimates that its brand identity is worth about three quarters of its value. The value of a brand is known as brand equity.

Building Brand
Entire MBA courses, books and conferences address the theme of brand building, so we won't describe all the models here. Suffice it to say that a few themes emerge from all the literature, speeches and opinions about building brand successfully:

• The study of branding is linked with the study of human psychology. Brand recognition is both a rational and an emotional experience.
• Brand recognition can range from recalling a TV ad, identifying a logo or recognizing a musical jingle. Did you know that most TV viewers said that "zoom, zoom, zoom" was a fun jingle that went with an automobile ad, but few could identify Mazda as the car it advertised?
• Brand awareness isn't enough to build a successful enterprise. Pets.com had incredible brand awareness with its sock puppet and its 2001 Super Bowl ad, but it shut down that same year because it couldn't make any money.
• Building up a brand name matters more in some areas than in others. People buy some things by brand name: household appliances, fast food, soft drinks, beer and alcohol, cars and athletic shoes, for example. Other items could never be branded: milk is an example. Still other items are almost synonymous with their brand name: Scotch tape and Kleenex tissues are strong examples.
• Perceived quality is important. Quality isn't enough.
• Your brand should conjure up positive associations in the minds of consumers.
• The desires outcome of brand building and brand recognition is ultimately brand loyalty. This has become more challenging than ever as the online marketplace appears to encourage consumer schizophrenia.

The Online Advantage in Brand Building
The internet provides many opportunities for building your brand that just aren't available offline:

• The Reduced Cost of Publishing Information. Think about the costs of mailing thick catalogs, the cost of paper, and the expense of delivering flyers. The internet lets you tout your products and publish photographs at a tiny fraction of the cost. You can show your latest fashions in thumbnail and enlarged sizes. You can show the product in different colors and you can have variations in style. Granted that the cost of server space isn't free, but you can reach 100,000 customers as cheaply as you can 1,000.
• Interactivity. You can show interest in your customers by asking for feedback, answering product questions and inviting them to return to your site. While the human greeter is absent online, neither do you have to worry that grumpy employees can turn customers away. Your website can offer incentives, related products and advice without a reminder, and at the end of the day, it doesn't show fatigue.
• A Consumer Research Tool. Consumers can and do use the internet for comparison shopping. If you ignore this capability, your business can sink fast. They have access to your competition, but you do too. Ignore them at your peril.
• No Time and Space Limitations. Your customers can visit your site at midnight in their pajamas. And they never get a busy signal. They can buy more than they can carry and they don't have to have space for the baby in the shopping cart.
• Reduced Geographical Limitations. If you set up currency converters and overseas shipping, you can reach a broad audience all over the globe. In this day and age, many people are choosing to retire in foreign countries where the cost of living is lower, knowing that they can order their favorite coffee beans and books online.
• The Competitive Advantage. You might feel that you're arrived too late and your competition has established its web presence well ahead of you. But you have access to all of their information, just by looking. You can even check out their marketing strategies. Your advantage is that you can identify a niche and position your products as distinctive from the competition's just by looking at what they already do. Don't forget, however, that once you're online, they can do the same.
• Responsiveness to Consumer Needs. This can be both an advantage and disadvantage. More than ever, you have access to market data, consumer responses you've gathered yourself and opportunities to fine tune and customize your products and services according to what your potential and actual customers tell you. A slow response time, though, can kill your brand. You don't want to be given a Dud award in chat rooms and blogs across the world.
• Strategic Partnerships. Have you noticed that Starbucks has more and more of its outlets inside bookstores and grocery stores? Online strategic partnerships are easier and less expensive to engineer. You can build your brand on the web site of a strategic partner who isn't in competition with you.
• Scalability. Experts are discussing the limits of growth with more caution these days. They've noticed that rapid growth didn't wipe out some of the online success stories.
• Viral Marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing has always been a highly desirable outcome of brand building. Online businesses don't have to leave this to chance. You can ask your customer directly for his friends' e-mail addresses and send them all discount coupons so they can visit your site. If they have a positive experience, they'll want to tell their friends too.
• Online Communities. Shopping is a social experience. Your potential customers may well associate shopping on your site with a social visit too. Barnes and Noble did this well. Every book you buy is reviewed by professionals and any reader is welcome to come back and write his own review. The online service e-Diets customizes diets and exercise for subscribers, and invites them to join forums for groups ranging from busy moms to over-fifties to teenagers.
• Something for Nothing. You can build brand quickly if you offer something that no one else does. Microsoft built a community of 12 million users in just eighteen months when it launched Hotmail.com, its system of free user e-mail accounts.

You can buy ads online, you can publish your URL on business cards, you can drive traffic to your site with TV ads and you can optimize your site perfectly. What counts, though, is the positive consumer experience when they reach your site. All aspects of your site must be appealing, from arrival to checkout. If the internet has made one thing quick and easy, it's leaving the store.

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