How to Build Your Brand Effectively

When you think of a soft drink, what’s the first brand that you think of? Most of us will think of dominating big brand names, such as Coca-Cola.

As we know, brand identity leaves a long-lasting impression in the minds of consumers. So, brand building is a vital part of any company’s marketing strategy.

Successful brand building increases the odds that a customer will think of your company when they need problem solving. So, customers are more likely to go to you to find a solution.

But how exactly does brand-building work to improve your marketing strategy? Read on to discover all.

The more consumers are aware of your brand’s presence, ethos, mission, and values, the more they will gain your trust.

Retaining customer loyalty deems as one of the most important goals of marketing. But, loyalty cannot exist without the growth of trust in a brand.

Purchasing decisions are usually made subconsciously, with consumers using mental shortcuts to skip the process and to avoid being overwhelmed with the amount of choice on the market. So, if a customer has a brand they recognize and trust, they’re more likely to choose them.

With successful brand development, you can narrow in on your target audience and influence them to feel connected to your brand. After all, positive brand awareness makes repeat purchases more likely.

Then, your photography agency will design the creativity behind the story and burst it into- lights, camera, buyer action.

Companies who have developed a strong branding strategy among their target audience find it easier to dominate their niche. As mentioned earlier, think of all the soft drink brands you drink or clothing shops you buy from.

They’re likely to be popular brands ruling their industry at the top of their branding game.

In a 2010 cross-industry study, German researchers determined that brand awareness drives market performance while controlling for technical product quality, service quality, and several other constructs.

By building branding, you’re increasing your market share. After all, if you’re one of the first in the competition to fuse your brand in customers minds, you’re raising the stakes for the competition. While brand awareness doesn’t have financial value on its own, it’s crucial as part of the collective marketing strategy to drive sales.

If consumers aren’t aware of your brand, how else will they know that your company can offer them something new and different on the market?

Promoting brand awareness means you can position your brand to stand out and be different than the competition.

Once consumers know there’s a new, exciting, and improved product to help them fix their woes, there will be increased lead acquisition and sales.

When someone mentions the “Nike tick,” what first springs to mind? Most of us will picture the familiar logo in our minds.

Logos have an incredible effect on brand awareness. After all, it’s usually the first thing we think of when considering a familiar company product.

The combination of shape, color, and font are all integral to crafting a design that not only lingers in people’s memories but also creates a positive association with the brand.

Many companies will consult psychologists when they have the budget and drive to create a powerful and memorable logo. This is because psychologists can tell which shapes and colors create a positive association with a particular industry product.

A strong and successful logo will convey what potential clients can gain from a business.

Now we know the importance of brand building, let’s go through some ways to work on it.

Today, a strong social media strategy is crucial to building brand awareness for a company.

Brands can build a relationship with customers with the use of social media platforms. These include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.

Not only can brand awareness grow with the use of advertising across the platforms, but companies can also interact with their existing market base. They can, for example, create a content marketing strategy and craft relevant blog posts, or they can even hold competitions for customers.

By nurturing the market base and providing them with interesting content and fun competitions, companies can build trust by offering customers something back for their loyalty.

Brand awareness driven via social media is a great way to maintain existing customers, while also drawing in new ones that may not have heard of the brand or product. For example, a useful piece of content may be shared by a current customer, which will draw the attention of similarly minded friends of theirs.

Let’s not forget about traditional brand awareness strategies, though.

Targeting relevant audiences via more traditional marketing efforts isn’t to be sniffed at. For example, featuring an advert in a relevant industry-based magazine, or having the brand mentioned as a radio ad jingle.

Such methods are still very much important, as not everyone uses social media and the internet, such as the older generation, for example. And remember, this age group is usually one that has money to spend!

The best idea is to distribute the budget between various marketing strategies to build strong brand awareness.

How Video Marketing Can Influence Your Audience

Did you know that people watch over one billion hours of video every day? And that’s on YouTube alone. That figure doesn’t account for the video content watched across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or company websites.

As we’re all aware, video production is booming and shows no sign of stopping. Video content represents nearly three-quarters of all internet traffic today!

With so much competition, your brand needs to jump on the bandwagon to impress and influence potential customers and clients.

If you need further convincing, let’s learn how and why video marketing is so influential to viewers.

Why Hire A Professional Photography Company? Here Are the Top 5 Reasons You Need To.

When it comes to selling your products and services, your customers are likely to look at the price first before anything else. 

But visuals can make people’s mouths water, and minds wonder- forgetting all about that price tag.

You shouldn’t ignore the visual representation of the product as catching an eye can reel in the buy. 

In the world we live in, companies have started prioritizing and creating visual assets as a fundamental focus of their content marketing strategy, with 51% of Business-to-business companies joining the bandwagon.

Hiring a photography company is a decision you should take seriously. Photography has become a cliché today with so many people picking up a camera and calling themselves photographers. 

If you are not careful, you will find yourself working with an inexperienced photographer, which could cost your business a significant amount of money. Here is how to avoid such a mistake:

Did you know that articles featuring images receive 94% more views than those without?

Such statistics show how crucial it is for businesses to incorporate photography into their website and marketing strategy in today’s media-saturated world.

Professional photography is often crossed off as an item on the budget list that’s expensive and expendable. But, without it, you’re likely losing out on profit.

Taking photographs or using stock imagery can help the situation. Yet it’s in no way comparable to using professional, clear, and inviting imagery to depict your brand.

Need further convincing? Here’s why photography matters for your business.

We’ve all heard the saying before, and yes, it’s cheesy but there’s truth behind the motto.

Professional photos convey a message to your customers quicker than any text can. While written content is important, it takes a lot longer for people to read a caption or an article than to look at a photo. Browsers can process images in milliseconds in comparison to scrolling and reading text for a couple of minutes.

This is especially important in a world where people are scrolling from page to page without concentrating and reading the full text from the screen.

By using professional imagery, customers can see exactly what your business has to offer, rather than what they’re being told about a product. As we can all agree, it’s a lot better to see something for yourself before buying, rather than relying on words. That means whatever your business is, the use of photos and videos of your offerings are valuable.

As mentioned, many companies find it tempting to take business photography themselves, choose stock imagery, or take a cheap hire. If the thought crosses your mind, remember that the images you use on your website and in your marketing strategy represent your brand.

Does your website feature low quality, unprofessional, or blurry imagery? If so, this will communicate a negative message about your brand and the products you offer to potential customers.

Think about it – if you were planning to buy a product and a brand only offered poor quality imagery, what would you think? Let’s be honest, most of us would click off the website and head to a competitor featuring more trustworthy imagery.

While high-quality imagery provides fantastic value for your brand, poor quality imagery can create the opposite effect and it will be more difficult to earn loyalty and trust. While it may sound superficial, when browsing customers only have online and print content to go on, it’s the reality of the game.

Another way the use of professional photography helps build your brand is that as a business you’re given complete freedom to create images that align with your brand ethos and convey the message you wish to convey.

How do you want your customers to feel when they view your images? For example, if you’re a company selling baby toys and clothes you might use photography that incorporates lots of light, bright, pastel colors. This helps convey happiness and tranquillity.

Shooting for a nightclub? Use darker, moodier, and contrasting light to create atmosphere.

Your company imagery is important when it comes to making a first impression on clients so don’t skimp on them!

If you run a website for your brand, the chances are you’re aware of SEO practices to help your website perform better in search engine ranking results.

While there are many elements to SEO, one of them involves imagery. High-quality, optimized imagery can help your website in image results such in Google Images. It also helps your website perform better in the search results.

What do you think a potential customer will do if they spot a quality image in the search engine results? Of course, they’re more likely to click on it rather than a competitors’ which is of worse quality.

What many don’t realize is that professional imagery is versatile and works for a variety of different mediums.

While professional photos are crucial for a successful business website, they can work to build your brand across social media too. Use them on different outlets including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more.

Powerful, strong imagery is especially beneficial for a brand’s Instagram account. For customers seeking imagery from a business, it’s one of the first places they’ll head.

Professional imagery isn’t just useful to convey your brand across the world-wide-web either. Use images offline too and incorporate them in brochures and promotional materials of all kinds.

Beautiful photography that is consistent across all your platforms, including your website, social media outlets and print helps your brand build trust and recognition.

By biting the bullet and choosing a photography business to help you produce high-quality imagery, you’re making an investment that will be worth its while in the long run.

When it comes to marketing and promoting any business, in today’s content-rich world of the media, the use of professional photography is a must. This is no matter what industry you work in!

Now you can understand why photography matters for your business. So, you might want to find the time and budget to hire a professional photographer to help you build your brand and create stunning, high-quality imagery to wow customers.

That’s where we come in to help. Learn more about our creative photography services and how we can help your company here.

You’ve heard it’s important, but do you know the why’s and how’s of video storytelling and building your brand?

Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing survey says 81% of businesses that added video content to their marketing saw a sales increase. And 94% of companies felt that video content is a useful tool. Find out how video content can help build your brand.

All of that is great, and it’s true. But what makes a story compelling?
What hypnotizes you?
What causes you scroll down the page?
What takes you on a trip and engages your mind, diving it into other realms?

There is a lot of “meh” content out there on the internet. You can search the hallways and closets deep in the far depths of Google, and it goes on forever. So what sets you apart from the content that gets lost in ’Google’s seemingly-infinite wardrobe?

How visuals are displayed and understood is pretty valuable. Aesthetics, pretty colors, strange, engaging, and unique images that resonate with the mind are powerfully effective and thought-provoking in video content.

Leave a Lasting Impression: How Visuals Create Memorable Content

Visuals break up content and hold your audience within a scene for a moment in time. They captivate attention, evoke an emotional response, create ideas, dreams, and even fantasies. Video marketing through storytelling, in its essence, captures the attention of your crowd.

This involves adding video to your content marketing strategy, effectively.

Our minds want to process images, and they’re pretty good at it.

When reading, your brain interprets known words as small pictures designed by the imagination. Brains hunger for visuals; what your business needs to do is ensure these visuals come to life and satisfy the thirst and curiosity of the mind.

Hubspot recently posted a survey which revealed video as the most desired form of content from a brand. Did you know that over half of your customers want to see videos from and about you?

Yup, A whopping 54% of respondents said they want to see videos from a company they support.

People watch all kinds of videos online. What makes your video content stand out? It may not be a massive production with intense music playing in the background. But that doesn’t matter; what matters is the feeling and the impact you make, visually.

5 Tips for Truly Compelling Video Content

1. Funny Content in Video.

Laughter is contagious; you have heard this a million times throughout your life. When it comes to business and marketing, it can be powerful for growth. With the amount of “meh” content all over the place, visitors usually hit play expecting a boring video – don’t fall into that “meh” category. Create joy and laughter. Give them something that throws them for a loop, laughs them to tears, and maybe even disrupts the office. Now, you’ve created a memorable and positive association for your brand.

1. Creativity Sparks Attention

Ask: What’s the main point of my content? Then think outside the box, dig for that inner child that is within and let your ideas play.

Get weird with it, surprise yourself with an out-of-the-box idea. Chances are, you’ll surprise your audience too.

3. Have a Storyline.

More on this in a bit, but the point is to actually write it out on paper. Doodle it up, create a storyboard. Doing so will help you write a script and then you can film it.

4. Show it. Don’t say it.

Think about how you can use your video to share your story. Don’t just start a narration. Can angles, colors, or sound effects tell the story? Videos like this will create an emotional response. We are, after all, emotional beings.

5. Keep it Short and Sweet.

Figure out how to condense the story (and emotion) into a video snippet that captures the overall meaning. You don’t need a whole lot to tell your story. You know that funny five-second GIF you’ve watched over and over? Sometimes, pictures do speak a thousand words.

4 Steps to Visual Storytelling

1. Find Out What Moves Your Audience

A buyer’s persona will give you a lot of the info you need about motivating your audience. Typically potential customers come to you because they need you to help them solve a problem.

Let’s face it; we all have problems to solve in life. Creating an emotional response within them can encourage excitement and growth. Emotions influence who we trust. They connect our past by bringing up feelings of nostalgia. And they help us make sense of complex information. As a result, original stories can be quite inspiring.

Some motivators might include feelings like:

• Instilling confidence in their future
• The feeling of newfound freedom
• A sense of belonging to this beautiful world
• A sense of security
• An inspiration to succeed

Keep elements of encouragement in mind when coming up with your videos. How can you build around those themes?

2. Pick a Good Story

You don’t have to make something up, but creativity is always encouraged. Make it relevant! Or tell the story of your company. Maybe you have a customer story that you could follow.

Maybe your story is told through an imaginative tale; it might leave people on the edge of their seats, wondering about the future. Whatever it is- inspire.

What makes a story?

J.K. Rowling says that “there is always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” We believe that your story, every story, is unique and should be told. That it has the ability to capture attention, transport your audience, reach a climax, and resolve the mind to act.

The last part and the most crucial part of your brand is a call to action. Tell the viewer what to do next without saying it outright. Guide them.

3. Pick the Right Visuals

Choosing the right media that users will want can be tricky. Fill your videos with images and sounds that people can relate to. Create ideas around images that fit your platform. If you have a high-energy website, your video should pop with vibrancy. If your site’s classy, give your audience a class act.

Also, know where your audience is in the journey. If you have a cold prospect that clicked your link, an image may be the hook they need. Get the frame displayed in the video window to catch user attention. A short video probably makes sense. If a user is revisiting, your site, maybe a time extended video might convince them to work with you. Strategic placement is also vital.

4. Test, Reevaluate, and Adjust

Everything Changes, reinvents, expands. Adjust your video storytelling marketing like you would with any other strategy. Find out what works by embracing your own dynamic nature.

Think About the Big Picture

You’ve probably come across videos that only discuss a company’s products and services. We’re guessing these are not the most compelling videos you’ve seen. Your video shouldn’t be about you, but what you do for others. Find your company’s “why.” Market that. If you sell telecommunications hardware, don’t focus on the equipment, all the features, and how great it is.

Talk about how it helps people connect with those they need it to, driving home how it can enhance lives. Share compelling stories, share unique ideas. Not that your hardware is better than the competition, but that it’s sustainable, it’s the next big idea, it’s the missing puzzle piece that brings everything together.

Really Make People Feel Something

Emotion has a way of paralyzing someone into a moment, stopping them in time. To take action, to feel, to notice the way the shirt feels against their back. If they press pause on their day to take notice, they will remember your story. If they remember, they are moved to invest.

Specific emotions result in peculiar actions. If your video makes someone happy, they’ll share it with someone else. If your video makes them feel sad, they’ll search for a way to make things better.

Think about those sad-faced puppies with Sarah McLachlan playing in the background. If your video elicits heightened emotions, let’s just say- it’s going viral. That’s more like: EVERYONE NEEDS TO SEE THIS! IT MAKES ME SO SAD!

It’s Time to Tell Your Story

Go viral with content that tugs at the hearts and minds of your viewers. Give your audience something to laugh, smile, and share. Energize, ignite passion, give way to action. Dazzle potential customers with content that catches their eye and captivates their brain cells.

Add video storytelling to your marketing strategy. Get the video and film production services that launch your brand, from us here at C&I. We’ve worked on empowering some of the smallest mom & pop shops to the world’s biggest brands through video. We’ll create the right video which speaks to your audience the way they want and the way you need it to. Let’s get in touch today.