For many, electronics feel nearly as essential to daily life as food, water, and shelter do. The idea of an extended period of time without our smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions is unthinkable. What are we going to do? Read books? Climb trees? Watch cable? Nonsense.
At the end of the day, electronics marketers are all trying to do the same thing: differentiate their products from the rest of the pack. When the core functions of your product are more or less the same as those of your rivals, your job as a marketer becomes all about branding.
Look at it from this angle: when someone hears the word “laptop,” what image comes to his mind? It’s probably a specific product or logo—an Apple MacBook, a Microsoft Surface Pro, an Asus ZenBook, and so on. Whichever one he pictures first, it’s the result of branding. We’re willing to bet that one laptop manufacturer has succeeded in convincing him that its product is the standard against which all others should be measured. That’s branding.
Let’s dig a little deeper into how this works.
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”
A huge part of branding is making your target audience feel a certain emotion. If you succeed, consumers will automatically associate that emotion with your product, thus compelling them to buy. If you sell smartphones, you want consumers to associate them with connectivity, collaboration, and communication. If you sell laptops, you want consumers to associate them with knowledge, productivity, innovation. If you sell televisions, you want consumers to associate them with entertainment, engagement, and escapism.
Now that we get the idea of branding, let’s tie it into your online advertising efforts. Remember the emotion you want consumers to associate with your product when writing your pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Here’s an example of a great headline for a smartphone ad: “Connect With the People Who Matter Most | Get the Apple iPhone X Today.” The first part of this example headline helps build the brand we mentioned earlier: connectivity, collaboration, communication. This sentiment should carry over to your landing page, too. Nothing discourages a prospect from converting like a jarring transition from search ad to landing page.
Social media advertising has a huge impact on branding. Sticking with the smartphone example, you could create a Facebook video that shows a woman taking pictures during her dream vacation and sending them to her mother. A short video such as this not only demonstrates the amazing quality of your product’s camera—it also builds a brand of family and love. Plus, videos draw a lot of attention on social media, and those that resonate with users get shared a ton.
There’s increasing evidence that branding has an impact on organic search performance. Getting the top organic spot does matter, but if your business isn’t a household name, you may get overlooked nonetheless. The takeaway: getting the top organic spot and cultivating a recognizable brand that resonates with consumers is the best way to approach SEO.
You can accomplish this by adding a killer blog to your website. Use this as a platform to announce new releases and features and find ways to tie them into your brand. For example, if the newest version of your smartphone supports multi-party video chatting, discuss how this feature will allow families and friends to connect over long distances like never before. Tech publications will link to your posts when they discuss your newest releases, thus pushing your blog up the organic rankings. As your brand becomes a bigger, friendlier name, you can expect your organic engagement metrics to increase.
For more online advertising advice, check out the WordStream blog.
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