Not too many online marketing blogs talk about branding. But, I recently read a great post by Kenny Hyder that discusses branding.

In the comments when I asked why not enough companies care about branding he said “I think it’s just that most are une­du­ca­ted (about branding).”

I tend to agree with his observation. Most companies probably have an outdated perception of branding.

Branding: Entire process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product (good or service) in the consumers’ mind, through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. – Courtesy of the Business Dictionary

By this definition the company has complete control over their brand; which is no longer the case.

I can understand that people still probably think branding is what it was in the Mad Men days of advertising. A select few marketers decide what they want the company to stand for and create marketing materials around that concept. Back then advertisers had the biggest share of voice, there was no social networking, there were no product review bloggers, and the only thing people could rely on was what the company advertised and what their next door neighbor had to say about their products. But this is today. Today, everyone has a voice, an opinion and a megaphone to tell everybody about it.

In my humble opinion, branding is practically everything you do as a company, not just that concept that was cooked up in a Madison Ave boardroom. I understand that some of you are probably scoffing at that thought, but the best way to explain it is through role playing.
Let’s pretend that your company is a Next Day Express Courier and your company stands for fast and friendly service. You’ve got a slick logo, all your ads are top notch and you’ve even got a great tagline…”Fast & Friendly, Right to Your Door”.

Let’s see how this flies in the face of your (fictitious) company actions.

• The customer service people don’t sound very friendly and actually sound indifferent.
• Your payment processor adds a $5 undocumented surcharge to every order under $50.
• Delivery times are spotty and aren’t exactly next day.
• The trucks your company uses are kind of grungy and someone swiped a little reminder in the dirt that says “Wash Me”.

I know this is an extreme example, but hopefully you get the point. Branding is everything that you do as a company. If your marketing team comes up with a brand, the rest of the company has to make sure that everything they do aligns with that brand. Because regardless of what you want your customers to believe; it’s the actual interactions with your company that bolsters the brand and has very little with what you say about yourself.

Ask most small businesses, consultants and those new to the online realm what tactics they have in their digital marketing arsenal and they’ll usually come up with the usual suspects. SEO, Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Media and so on. Email marketing is usually not at the top of their list. It usually doesn’t top the list because they believe it will take too long to grow their newsletter subscribers or don’t believe in the effectiveness of the medium.

According to a recent eMarketer interview of Bill Nussey (President of Silverpop):

“E-mail’s greatest weakness is that some marketers use it too aggressively, and they undermine the value of e-mail for all other marketers and consumers.”

Why do most new digital marketers fail at email marketing? They fail because they haven’t established the most important aspect of this medium. Trust.

As a consumer we have to trust email marketers as we invite them into our inbox.

• Trust them to not sell our email address to a Nigerian spammer
• Trust them to send us periodic emails and not overdo the number of emails we’re sent
• Trust them to send us relevant info and not pull a fast one on us
• Trust them to ensure their emails are free of viruses

As marketers we have to be aware that we have to earn the consumer’s trust at every opportunity. This happens before we send them their first email, it even happens before they subscribe. From the professional design of our website & logo, the information we request from them, assurances that we secure their personal information, right down to the copy informing them of what they can expect from our newsletters (and so on…). They all either reinforce a favorable view or turn people off to what we have to say or offer.

So before you launch your next email campaign; ask yourself, “Have we earned the reader’s trust?”.

Doing so will make all the other metrics such as Open Rate, Click Through Rate & Conversions much easier to attain.

Post was originally published on the ClickAgent Marketing blog.