Think Tank
How Branding Campaigns Help Your Business title
By Fernando Camacho
I think we need to take moment and have a little talk about branding and why it’s important. Everyone wants to just run offer after offer, thinking that’s the only kind of campaign that will have a direct growth result; however, if you ignore branding, you’re really shooting your business in the foot.
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Return on Investment
Where marketing is concerned, businesses are always fixated on ROI (return on investment). ROI basically means how much money you are getting back from what you’re investing in. And, obviously, the only way to be profitable is to make more money than you’re spending.

There are two main kinds of ROI: immediate and future. With immediate, you get that return as soon as (or shortly after) you make the investment—you give me one dollar and I give you two dollars back. If you run an ad for an offer on Facebook that costs $500 and people buy $1,000 worth of your services as a result, you just made some nice immediate ROI. However, so much of marketing is all about the future ROI, yet most people are impatient and don’t think of the big picture. It’s like investing your money in a retirement fund—you put money in today but don’t expect to see it grow right away. You have to wait a period of time to see that money grow. If you have the smarts and patience to do that though, you’ll be rewarded with more money in the future.

Some marketing campaigns are going to get you customers today while others are going to deliver results later on. Those businesses that do understand the investment of doing things for future benefit are able to plant the seeds that are going to bring them a money tree later. If you don’t plant the seeds, you can’t harvest the goods. And that’s where branding campaigns come in…

Don’t count on people making the correct assumption about your business; you need to guide their impression of you. You want to make sure that they know you’re the best at what you do and paint the picture that they see of your business.
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Defining Your Brand
Branding not only helps warm up cold audiences and moves them toward a buying decision, but it also positions your business in the minds of the consumer. Is your business perceived better than your competitors? Is your business seen as higher or lower value? Do you do just one thing or can you help people with multiple services?

You have the power to put any kind of impression of your business out there that you want. Don’t count on people making the correct assumption about your business; you need to guide their impression of you. You want to make sure that they know you’re the best at what you do and paint the picture that they see of your business.

Don’t forget that it takes about seven touch points before someone is ready to make a buying decision. That means that they have to hear about your business, see your logo or come into contact with you multiple times until they are warmed up enough to give you their money.
If you choose to skip running branding campaigns, you’re leaving your entire image up to the marketplace…and they could get it very wrong—especially if your competitors have anything to do with it. You’re going to end up fitting wherever the audience decides to put you. You can’t control much of what happens in the marketplace, but you can control how people see you in it.
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Touch Points
Branding is also about providing those touch points needed to warm people up and move them to a buying mode. Don’t forget that it takes about seven touch points before someone is ready to make a buying decision. That means that they have to hear about your business, see your logo or come into contact with you multiple times until they are warmed up enough to give you their money. Only once you’ve effectively warmed them up and gained their trust (and/or curiosity), your offers will start to convert.

Your branding campaigns are providing gentle touches; nurturing them over time. You can’t just continually say, “Buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff…” That’s trying to beat them over the head with your offer and providing bad touch points that will turn them off. Your branding campaigns should be elevating your business in their mind.

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Top of Mind
The last thing we’re trying to do with branding is keep your business top of mind. Not everybody is going to be ready to buy right now, but when they’re thinking of going on vacation and need to board their dog somewhere, your business should be the first thing they think of. They have already heard of you and been warmed up, making the conversion step easy. So, you can skip right through the whole sales process because you did the work early on. Even though they weren’t ready to make a purchase when they saw your branding campaigns, your business entered their awareness and was filed in the back of their mind, making you the logical choice now that they are ready to make a buying decision.

For all those reasons, you need to do branding campaigns in conjunction with promoting direct offers. If you can effectively create a system that has a flow of all the different campaign types, you can become a real monster in the marketplace and have a steady stream of customers continually coming into your business, and also position yourself way above all the competitors in your area.

Fernando Camacho (Fern) runs Overdog Digital, a digital marketing agency specializing in working with dog daycare and boarding facilities. He does private business consulting, staff training and helps pet businesses utilize modern resources to expand their customer base and grow their businesses. Fern is also the author of six books and is a speaker at national conferences and private events. To join The Dog Daycare Business Think Tank or ask a question, go to: www.facebook.com/groups/dogdaycarethinktank

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