One of the common denominators for successful online brand marketing strategies is flexibility. Although you should have goals and tactics in mind, it’s best to periodically reevaluate your needs and the methods you’re using to accomplish your goals. Even with this type of flexibility in mind, though, there are eight essential components to include in your strategy. They are:

1. Real Customers: Analyze your audience and tailor your message to reach those customers.

2. Uniqueness: Differentiate your company from others in the marketplace. Be unique in something, whether it’s your advertising, services or follow-up.

3. Targets:  This is similar to #1, but it involves an even more specific definition of whomever you are trying to reach. Create a niche market with a specific potential customer base.

4. Goals: Set small goals and big goals for your marketing strategy. This is the best way to gauge the success of your efforts.

5. Communication: The stronger and more direct communication you have with your customers, the more likely they are to use your company. Have a strong message that they will notice more than those of your competitors.

6. Financial Projections: Have a system for showing the returns on individual product lines and investments so you can see which campaigns are more successful than others.

7. Position: Make your brand your customer’s first choice. Why would they want to go anywhere else?

8. Brand Identity: This is something you need regardless of the size of your business. Create an identity that pops into your customers’ minds whenever they need your products or services.

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Making an online brand marketing campaign a success isn’t easy. In fact, very few companies actually become successful enough to make their brands household names in a global or even domestic market. That’s why it can help to look to some of the success stories. This time, let’s take a brief look at the story behind the Guinness beer brand.

Guinness is a company that is nearly 250 years old and originated as a way to quench the thirsty throats of Irish pilgrims. When the company’s marketing staff wanted to capture what the brand was all about, this long history was definitely in the plans.

When the company built the Guinness Storehouse in late 2000, the designers implemented a variety of exhibits and displays that celebrate the company’s history. They also included an explanation about how they make the frothy black beverage. The facility also has an art gallery with conference rooms, training centers for employees, bars, restaurants and even a large open space for events. The seven-story storehouse demonstrates that the beverage maker is dedicated to the community.

According to Ralph Ardill, one of the integral minds that helped design the facility, “Guinness as a brand is all about community. It’s about bringing people together and sharing stories.”

Guinness succeeded by setting and meeting a community-drive goal to spread the message of its brand. It’s important to have a goal for your brand that you can strive to meet.  Without a goal, it’s impossible to tell if you’ve achieved success in getting people to recognize your brand.

For anyone working on an online brand marketing campaign, there’s no better time than the present for this advertising effort.

In 2007, the revenues brought in by Internet advertising reached an all-time high with more than $21 billion. And there’s no place to go but up. The Internet is quickly becoming the best way to advertise your brand or get your message to the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.

Last year’s figures show a dramatic increase over the figures from 2006, with a 25-percent increase from the previous year’s $17 billion.  In 2006, the numbers showed a 35-percent increase over 2005.  

Some analysts believe the relative slowdown in traditional advertising reflects the fact that the Internet commands a larger share of the advertising dollars. When businesses or companies advertise online, they typically forego advertising in other mediums, like newspapers and radio. As such, the Internet takes money away from those advertising forms

As of right now, however, the Internet only makes up about 10 percent of advertising dollars in the United States. That leaves room for a large amount of growth. But some companies are still skeptical about the power of online ads and the number of people they can reach.

If you’re looking for ways to reach more people and get your brand “out there,” look to the Internet. It really is the future of nearly everything.

Are you looking for more ways to get your online brand marketing message out to more people? Facebook, the social media marketing giant, is making it easier for you to do so. Here’s how.

When you have an account at Facebook, you can build up a list of friends with whom you have something in common. These “friends” are people that you typically communicate with through the website. You share your preferences for products and read their blogs and other posted communications.  Each Facebook member has a homepage where photographs and updates can be posted.

But now, you can go even a step further. Facebook recently began selling advertisements that you can purchase. When you do, your profile photo appears next to commercial messages that your Facebook friends can see.

Let’s say, for example, that you rented a movie that you particularly liked from Blockbuster.com. The website will then ask if you’d like to have your movie choice advertised to all of your friends on Facebook. Your friends then receive the message in addition to an advertisement from Blockbuster.

And because Facebook’s millions of existing members already use the social media networking site to tell others about the things they like, there isn’t much of a change with this new offering. The only difference is that your messages may be accompanied by an advertisement when you tell others about the things you like.

This is just another great way to get your name and your brand noticed. If you have a Facebook account set up for your brand, your logo or your face can accompany each of these messages to embed it further into the psyche of those with whom you are networking.

Anybody who has ever created an online brand marketing campaign from scratch will tell you it’s not easy. It takes hard work, dedication and a variety of strategies to make it successful. Whether you’re just starting out or have been working on your campaign for a long time, you could always use more suggestions to get your campaign noticed. Here are five more suggestions you can use to make your campaign work harder for you:

1. Leave your signature when you comment on somebody else’s blog. Be careful not to sound like you’re self-promoting, because that’s just rude. But mentioning your brand underneath your name isn’t something that would make most people upset.

2. Mention your brand and your name in your blog tag lines.

3. Use your brand and logo when you send an email. Most, if not all, email servers allow you to attach a signature with each email you send. This signature appears at the bottom, and it exposes your brand to everybody with whom you communicate.

4. Put your brand name in the title of your blog. This serves several purposes. Every time visitors view your blog, they will see your brand. But when they subscribe to a feed for your blog, they encounter the brand each and every time you update your blog.

5. Create a separate blog to talk about your brand. Blogs are one of the best ways to attract attention, as long as you constantly update them with fresh and relevant content. You can also do pretty much anything you want on your blog, so self-promotion is certainly not out of the question.

Keep an eye on our blog here for more brand marketing tips in the future.

So you have a blog or a website that promotes your online brand marketing message. You maintain the blog and make daily updates as well as ensuring it has relevant and fresh content each time. But if that’s the only thing you’re doing, you’re missing out on a whole World Wide Web of opportunities. Consider the following tools to increase your web presence and get your brand noticed more widely.

Twitter
This free social network service allows members to send updates to their account through text-based applications. Updates are generally 140 characters long, giving the website the reputation of being a micro-blogging service. The updates are posted on the user’s front page and other users can see them or sign up for a feed to be alerted when a user updates their site.

LinkedIn
As a business-oriented social networking site, many professionals frequent LinkedIn to maintain a list of contacts and details for people in their business. Last December, the website reported more than three million visitors each month, making it a great way to get your brand marketing noticed.

Squidoo
This is a blogging website that allows anybody with Internet access to set up page that deals with anything they want. Content creators share in advertising revenue, but it’s generally a site that garners high traffic. By posting a large amount of content about your brand, business, products, services or anything else relevant to your company, you can spread the word to potentially millions of readers.

There are so many websites and methods for getting your brand noticed by the online community. We’ve discussed three of them here, but there are probably dozens more. We’ll discuss more websites in the future to help you even more.

If you’ve stepped into one of your local automotive dealerships in the last couple of years, you may have noticed a change. Many dealers of luxury brands are making improvements to their showrooms to make them more attractive and appealing to their customers. If you didn’t know any better, you probably couldn’t tell the difference between the dealer’s facility and a five-star hotel.

That’s because customers enjoy luxury and style. And when they step into a place that’s all decked out, it instills a sense of confidence in the facility and the people who work there.

You can do the same thing with your online brand marketing campaigns. The more stylish your website is, the more attractive it will be to potential customers. Nobody has confidence in a company that has an amateurish website, especially in today’s world where visitors judge your company by its online presence. Here are a few suggestions for making your company’s website more professional and attractive to new and existing clients:

• Break the information up into smaller, easier-to-read chunks.  Nothing turns off a webpage visitor faster than seeing a huge block of information with no spaces or breaks.

• Make your website easy to navigate. Visitors don’t want to guess about where clicks will take them. Label the links efficiently to take the guesswork out of navigating through your webpage.

• Put the most important information first. Internet users have dozens of options to get their information. Don’t make them search for it on your website or they’ll just go to a website where it’s easier to find the information they want.

• Write with search engines in mind. This is very important, because if you don’t catch the attention of the web spiders, people doing general searches won’t notice your website. Consider SEO tactics and other tools that ensure a high ranking for places like Google and Yahoo.

With these tips, you can make your company’s website the cyberspace equivalent of a luxury dealership. Cater to your clients by making everything attractive to keep them coming back for more and telling their friends about your website as well.

There are two different groups that auto dealers need to reach to be successful with their online brand marketing campaigns: the “wanna buyesr” and the “gotta buyers.” Yesterday we listed the characteristics of the wanna buyers. Today we’re going to list the characteristics of the gotta buyers.

Characteristics of Gotta Buyers
• As the name implies, these customers are generally in a bind and they need to buy vehicles soon.
• They usually have vehicles that have broken down or need repairs that are too expensive.
• These buyers are generally recent graduates or have had recent changes in their situations that necessitate  second cars in their households.
• Gotta buyers generally have credit issues that could create problems in financing some higher-priced vehicles.
• Many of these customers are open to the possibility of new vehicles if the dealership can “make it happen.”
• This is one the groups with the most profit potential for a dealer.
• Gotta buyers are in the market for new vehicles now.

Tips for Marketing to Gotta Buyers
• Price is typically the most important aspect of buying a car for this demographic.
• Gas prices and mileage are other important aspects of the purchase.
• Your dealership’s financing capabilities will play a major role in this group’s decision to purchase.
• Solicit phone calls for credit pre-approval.
• Emphasizing the ease with which you can get them approved will bring them to your dealership to make their purchases.
• Give your sales staff a stack of business cards to hand out to people they meet that are in the gotta-buy category. This will make the customers feel like they’ve got a “friend” in the car business and give them more confidence in your dealership.

Last week, we talked about getting your fair share of customers. We discussed two different types of buyers in the auto market: the “wanna buyers” and the “gotta buyers.” Now let’s take a look at the differences in these two groups so you can tailor your online brand marketing campaign to reach the maximum number of each.

Facts about Wanna Buyers
• They represent the  largest percentage of buyers that have delayed their purchases in the past year.
• These consumers can buy new vehicles, but they need to be convinced of great value and good timing.
• They are typically middle-class to upper middle-class Americans.
• They generally have decent credit.
• Most are driving late model vehicles that are still under warranty.
• They have their vehicles paid off or they are near the end of their finance contracts.
• They have several reasons for delaying their purchases, including the unstable economy and waiting for the best timing.
• Most consider buying late-model or certified vehicles due to the increased value.
• Wanna buyers typically trade in their vehicles on a regular basis.
• Generally, they don’t need to buy vehicles. They are just in positions where they can buy them if they really want to.
• They are always watching the auto market and waiting for something that appeals to them.

What Appeals to Wanna Buyers
• Personal contact
• Specific offers that make sense to them
• Vehicles that provide more cost efficiency than the ones they already have
• Customer-driven service centers

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at some facts about the Gotta Buyers.  Don’t miss it!