Do you want to know how to boost your brand? Here are some tips

Veronika Geltner 25. August 2021

Last year, e-shops literally grew like mushrooms after the rain and, since then, online businesses have been experiencing golden times. Marketers who previously did not have online stores realized that this would be the only reliable sales channel for a long time.

How can you successfully stay in business, even post-covid, and draw attention to yourself in the midst of extreme competition? Especially in the field of e-commerce, brand building is playing a big role today. Marketing research confirms that brands that do not pay attention to brand campaigns have problems maintaining their market share and profit in the long run. Many companies focus exclusively on performance campaigns, trying to take advantage of the situation and to quickly attract customers to a specific product. They forget about long-term brand building.

“In the long run brand awareness will do more for your business than only focusing on performance. Building a brand is extremely important if brands want to survive and stay running,” points out Seznam.cz sales director of sales Tomáš Búřil. So how do you build a strong brand online?

The primary goal of performance campaigns is to increase sales immediately. On the contrary, brand campaigns should be more about supporting the brand’s image and creating positive associations with the company for customers. Both types of campaigns are interconnected, and companies should not neglect either component, but we recommend that most marketing investment should go towards strengthening the brand.

Brand building must be long-term, a campaign for a week or two does not make sense, and experts recommend planning for months or even years. “You have to reach a relatively broad base of people, and you have to do it in a long-term and consistent way, i.e. constantly emphasising why your brand is good and why customers should buy from it,” explains Jiří Herian, head of marketing at Seznam.cz, stressing the importance of a clearly visible campaign style. “Marketers sometimes tend to change the communication concept and message on a frequent basis. However, the data clearly shows that consistency is needed for successful brand building, ideally over a period of years.”

“The typical client starts out on our performance section focused on ad message performance. Then they usually spend a very long time optimizing campaigns and tweaking keywords to mastery levels. But then they find that it can’t get any better and that they simply have to grow their audience beyond the original interest group. The only way to do that is to build the brand. In the long run, it is always about competitive advantage and the pandemic has clearly shown that,” adds Tomáš Búřil.

Codes that support brand associations must be part of the long-term story. The logo is the basic code; but it can also be specific product packaging, colours, shapes or mascots. Clearly identifiable sound loops, tones or music also have a strong impact on the consumer. “Even in the online domain, ‘brand codes’ must be respected. At the same time, it is necessary to choose suitable formats for the brand campaign, websites with highly visible advertising and at the same time to watch the context in which the brand communication is displayed,” describes the head of marketing at Seznam.cz. “Advertise on websites that are not swamped with aggressive advertising. The ad must not be served next to inappropriate content – this is important to almost all clients, and there is an increasing emphasis on this in the market. For us, brand safety is an important topic. Of course, we editorially select quality content partners,” explains Herian.

What makes the most effective brand banners?

Use rich colours or colour combinations that catch the eye. Always choose colours that are iconic to your brand.

Avoid competitors’ brand colours so that people clearly associate your brand with the creative visual concept.

If your brand is not very well known, always show your logo or name with a short sentence (claim) that best describes your business and company, and try to create an advertising message that resonates with your target audience.

We recommend that you do not kill your banners with too much text or images, but leave adequate space for both.

Keep in mind that people see or hear a ton of advertising messages every day. It is necessary to captivate them with a good idea and originality.

Good long-term brand campaigns do not come cheap, but they are not reserved only for big players with inflated marketing budgets. “Brand advertising is suitable for any type of business regardless of size and market segments. Even people who have a family business and don’t spend a load of money on marketing invest in a brand to be visible and to let customers know where to go when they want to buy a certain type of goods,” says Tomáš Búřil.

A big recent trend is brand building with the help of video advertising. It doesn’t necessarily have to look like a two-minute epic blockbuster. “The most effective campaigns are, of course, wide-ranging, high-frequency campaigns, but depending on the budget, it is possible to narrow the target group, choose only a part of the market to target, or adjust the frequency,” continues the Seznam.cz sales director.

At Seznam.cz, we can also create a professional video commercial or a short bumper for smaller clients. And we have also included a number of brand formats in the Sklik advertising system where we offer clients various types of advertising campaigns, not only on our own platforms, but also on our partner websites.

Television, online video, website branding and sponsorship of strategically chosen events work well for brand building. But branding campaigns are all about emotion. This is where the video plays a big role. “Moreover, on the internet, technology allows us to tailor the campaign intervention well, target it and dose it. We can search for new users and, at the same time, prevent the same video from being played to the same people,” explains Petr Daneš, video advertising manager at Seznam.

The frequency of a brand campaign significantly influences its reach. The table below shows when it is appropriate to reduce or increase the frequency.

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