Brand commitment could be the single biggest factor that can help to propel your site and your business to new heights. Learn why this is a crucial consideration for your marketing strategy.
Brand commitment, also sometimes referred to as brand loyalty, is a very important metric to consider for marketing your business. It is similar to, but in many ways far more important than, brand visibility.
For while brand visibility tells you how many people recognize your brand, brand commitment tells you about their loyalty to your organization. In other words, do they enjoy the information that you provide so much that they’re going to keep coming back to your website and avoid going to other sites? Likewise, do they like your products so much that they will only buy from you from now on? What do they think when they see your brand? Do they think ‘trust, quality, efficiency’? Or do they think ‘cheap, nasty, avoid’?
How to Build Brand Commitment
For internet marketers, brand commitment often is synonymous with repeat traffic. Your most loyal fans are the ones that keep coming back to your site and keep reading your content. They have been impressed with what you have to offer and they keep coming back. So how does a site gain repeat traffic? And how does it ensure that those repeat visitors become loyal fans that love the brand?
Google Remarketing
Remarketing is a form of PPC (pay per click) advertising offered by Google AdWords. Basically, it means that you leave cookies on a visitor's computer so that Google can then advertise directly to visitors that have seen your page before - and even tailor the ads that show depending on which of your pages they saw. If they browsed your selection of DVDs then, you could get Google to show them those same DVDs again when they're not even on your site.
The reason this is so important, is that you need to recognize that sites don’t build loyal followings overnight. People don’t generally fall in love with a new website the first time they see it. They need to build that trust and that affection over repeat visits. This is why tools like remarketing are so valuable. It’s also why you need to be consistently excellent.
Branding and Domain Names
Choosing your branding an your domain name is very important. If your site is called Visktorinttto118.com (not sure where that came from...) then of course it's going to make it very hard for people to remember. That will mean they won't be able to come back to your site by just typing it into the nav bar, and it will mean that they might not even be able to find it with future Google Searches.
Have a memorable brand and easy domain name and people will be able to find your site more quickly in future and you'll have many more marketing options available to you.
Branding is important for other reasons too. With a brand, you can create a mission statement and you can define a mark of quality. The hope is that people will come to associate your logo with quality, trustworthiness and efficiency. This is why Apple products will always sell so well. People know and trust the name.
Google has announced that it favors brands over keywords in its search rankings and brands are what allow you to build fans. People are fans of Apple. There are no fans of ‘BuyCheapTech.com’. Know the difference. Have a strong logo, place it prominently and make sure that the association will set in.
Stand Out
Another important strategy is to try and make your site stand out and look striking. If your site looks like every other site, then chances are it won't stick in the mind and your visitors won't even bother to scroll up to the top to find out where they've landed.
Think of ways then that you can make your site look more striking and be more interesting. Even if it's just a more interesting form of navigation, or just a striking font, it will be enough to make your site instantly identifiable so that you can start building up recognition.
Ownership
People love things that they feel some kind of ownership of, or affiliation with. Make sure that people feel that way about your brand by letting them get involved – by letting them post, by providing them with branded gifts, by asking for ideas for future content…
Again, this is about building fans rather than simple followers. Create an army of people united behind a common goal. Oh and don’t try to appeal to everyone – make sure you have a specific target audience in mind. That is also what Apple has done so well. Appeal to everyone and you will appeal to no one.
