Branding
Marketing and branding have been around for centuries. But brand pillars are a newer idea. Since the dawn of the digital age, companies have marketed their brands with the goal of giving their company a personality and identity. But as the practice of branding has evolved, so have audience expectations. Businesses today need more than a catchy tagline to support customer needs. Companies aren’t just selling products anymore — they create brands that need to talk about their impact on society. In this post, we’ll discuss how to create brand pillars that can help you define your brand’s purpose, values, and identity for continued growth. Keep reading or jump ahead to learn: What are brand pillars? Why are brand pillars important? What are the five brand pillars? How to Determine Your Brand Pillars Brand Pillar Examples For example, brand pillars can be core values, important strengths, or aspects of a
Your audience is programmed to crave and seek out great stories. They want to know your brand’s origin, missions, goals — your entire brand story. However, since marketers spend a lot of time optimizing content for algorithms, it can be challenging to flex your creative storytelling muscles. In this post, we’ve created a guide about the fundamentals of brand stories, including: What is a brand story? Why is a brand story important? How to Write a Brand Story Brand Story Examples Tips for Telling Your Brand Story When HubSpot started, we noticed traditional, interruptive marketing didn’t appeal to consumers anymore. In the digital age, people were in complete control of the information they consumed, and they were sick and tired of receiving direct mail, email blasts, and cold calls. People wanted help, so we created educational content to solve marketing problems. Today, we’ve built a passionate community of inbound marketers
Reputation management happens on online review sites, social media, and in the news. Managing the chatter online can feel like a daunting task, mostly because so much of it is out of your control. After all, 77% of consumers read reviews when they’re browsing local businesses. 79% of consumers expect brands to respond within 24 hours after reaching out on social media. There are so many channels where people can talk about your brand, it can be tough to listen and respond to it all. Luckily, there are plenty of tools and strategies you can use to protect your brand and reputation. In this post, we’ll give a clear overview of what you need to know to manage your business reputation including: What is reputation management? What is brand reputation management? Reputation Management for Businesses How to Build a Reputation Management Plan Reputation Management Software Reputation management techniques can include
Your personality makes you unique — a differentiation that doesn’t just apply to people. Brand voices will make each company recognizable in a world full of different streams of information. So how can you set your brand up for success? A powerful brand voice that can not go unnoticed, because it is strong enough to make people pay attention. This post explores the elements that create a brand’s voice. You’ll also learn how you can create your brand voice and examples that can inspire your team. Table of Contents What is a brand voice? Creating a Brand Voice Brand Voice Examples Brand Voice Template Crafting Your Voice Your brand voice should be uniform across platforms. According to Crowdspring, 90% of potential customers expect to have a similar brand experience across different platforms. Your company should sound the same on social media, in email communications, and even on packaging. Further, your
90% of people buy from the brands they follow on social media. But the role of social media in brand building is more complex than it used to be. Brand saturation, creator communities, and more have changed the way that people interact with brands on social media. You can’t just build a brand with a great logo, quirky copy, and a pleasing palette. Audiences today are looking for something more. The Role of Social Media in Brand Building To successfully build your brand on social media, you can start with creating a great visual brand. But you can’t stop there. You need to dig deeper into your users and what they’re looking for online. Let’s talk about the big ideas that impact branding on social media. 1. Social media is where subcultures connect. While pretty much everyone you know is online, they’re not there to talk to just anyone. On
A writing style guide is essential for any business — especially if there are multiple content writers on the team. As you create more and more content on your website and blog, inconsistencies are bound to creep in. One reason? Lack of clarity about the style in which you’d like to write in. Disjointed communication across the multitude of content creators in your organization can be a culprit, too. Either way, failure to decide upon accepted editorial guidelines is a recipe for inconsistent messaging. That’s why at some point, most companies will need to develop a writing style guide. A writing style guide indicates the basic rules of writing everyone agrees to follow to ensure consistency across all content, like whether you should capitalize the “a” after the colon. Note: If you write content for HubSpot, you should not capitalize the “a.” But wait… if that’s the case, why would
Take a second to think about one of your favorite brands. A logo, storefront, color, or memorable ad campaign will likely pop into your mind. That’s because a brand’s visual identity is a powerful tool for telling a company’s story, building customer affinity, and increasing revenue. If done effectively, visual identity can communicate a particular feeling or message without words. But a poorly-designed identity can confuse customers with lackluster messaging and disjointed graphics. So it’s no surprise that consistent brands are 3.5x more likely to have strong brand visibility than inconsistent brands. Visual identity plays an essential role in branding, so it’s important to understand what makes up an identity and how to create one. We’ll cover all of that and share examples of successful brands that have developed a strong visual identity. What is a visual identity? A visual identity is the visible representation of a brand, from the…
Products are never just products, right? Coca-Cola is more than a soda. Starbucks is more than coffee. Ray-Ban is more than a pair of sunglasses. Interacting with these products provides experiences, and we buy them with that experience in mind. Better yet, the companies that create and market them know exactly the experience they want you to have when you make (or consider) a purchase. That’s why they cultivate their brands. From the language in their Instagram caption, to the color palette on their latest billboard, down to the material used in their packaging, companies who create strong brands know that their brand needs to live everywhere. They know their names extend far beyond the label and can entice consumers to choose their products out of a lineup of options. Who doesn’t want that? I know I do. That’s why we built this guide — to equip you to create…
When I met my friend Mark, he had just spent the last two years in the pandemic’s social isolation creating an impressive collection of three-dimensional, colorful psychedelic artwork. He knew how to create the art he cared about; what he didn’t know was the keys to branding for artists. As an artist myself, I know how challenging it can be to balance the joys of creating meaningful art with the responsibilities of marketing yourself in a way that can cut through a lot of the noise. It can be frustrating to produce marketable work and not have anyone notice it. Rarely do artists have the budget to hire marketing professionals for their team. A key to getting your artwork seen (and purchased!) is branding yourself as an artist. Now, you’re familiar with all kinds of brands: Think Pepsi versus Coca-Cola. Not only do you know the names of these brands,…
When I met my friend Mark, he had just spent the last two years in the pandemic’s social isolation creating an impressive collection of three-dimensional, colorful psychedelic artwork. He knew how to create the art he cared about; what he didn’t know was the keys to branding for artists. As an artist myself, I know how challenging it can be to balance the joys of creating meaningful art with the responsibilities of marketing yourself in a way that can cut through a lot of the noise. It can be frustrating to produce marketable work and not have anyone notice it. Rarely do artists have the budget to hire marketing professionals for their team. A key to getting your artwork seen (and purchased!) is branding yourself as an artist. Now, you’re familiar with all kinds of brands: Think Pepsi versus Coca-Cola. Not only do you know the names of these brands,…