a branding survival guide - s3. · pdf filemost successful startups in the world: google....

A BRANDING SURVIVAL GUIDE

A M E T A C A K E E B O O KM E T A C A K E . C O M

C O N T E N T S

WHAT MAKES A GREAT BRAND?

START AT THE CORE OF YOUR BRAND

YOUR BRAND IS SOMETHING FAR DEEPER

THE INTERNAL BRANDING CHECKLIST

HOW TO BUILD A BRAND-CENTRIC WEBSITE

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR WEBSITE TO ACCOMPLISH?

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

THE KEY INGREDIENTS TO YOUR WEBSITE’S FIRST IMPRESSION

A WHAT AND A WHY

SIMPLICITY

SPEED

GOOD COPY

HOW TO BUILD YOUR BRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA

7 BRANDING BLUNDERS TO AVOID ON SOCIAL MEDIA

HOW DO YOU DEFINE YOUR BRAND?

A SATISFYING MOBILE EXPERIENCE

BE HELPFUL

BE PERSONAL

CONVERSATION WINS

QUALITY CONTENT RISES TO THE TOP

POSTING TOO FREQUENTLY

#TOO #MANY #HASHTAGS

AUTO DMs

SPEAKING IN THIRD PERSON

POINTLESS POSTING

BORING UPDATES

PRETENDING YOUR COMPANY UPDATES ARE SOCIAL MEDIA

W H A T M A K E S

A G R E A T B R A N D ?

YOUR BRAND IS

NOT YOUR LOGO.

OR YOUR WEBSITE.

OR YOUR PRODUCT.

OR ANY OTHER

COMPANY ASSET.

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It’s something that can be felt, but not entirely explained. It can be recognized,

but isn’t always realized.

YOUR BRAND IS SOMETHING FAR DEEPER

Apple’s brand is not that beautiful Apple icon staring at you from the top of your laptop or the back of your iPhone. It’s the feeling you get when you see that Apple icon. It’s the subtle but real excitement you sense when walking into the local mall’s Apple store—the excitement that is rarely ever felt when walking into any other store in the mall.

Disney, the brand, isn’t Mickey Mouse or its world-class theme parks. Disney is the childlike exhilaration adults get when taking their kids to that magical world. It’s the overwhelming joy a child feels when the life-size Donald Duck walks up to them and gives them a high five.

A brand is not a company. It’s the emotion you feel—good or bad—when encountering a company or its products.

And thus, good branding isn’t measured in how pretty your logo is or how cool of a website you have. Good branding is determined by the level of emotional connection it creates with a customer—making them feel good, or cool, or charitableby being associated with you.



START AT THE CORE OF YOUR BRAND

Let’s take a moment to consider one of themost successful startups in the world:

Google.

When it comes to branding, companies tend to get hung up on the deliverables —a name and a logo—but Google is a great example of keeping it simple.

Instead of focusing on those outward aspects of branding, they focused on their internal company culture and moving their products forward. They’ve made their brand a top priority from the very beginning.

Don’t misunderstand us. The outward aspects of branding are important. They determine how you will be perceived by the world. But before you focus on those external components, follow in Google’s footsteps and ask yourself, “What does my brand represent and who am I connecting with?”

And now? They’re a huge company—the ultimate startup.

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IS BRANDING REALLY WORTH ALL THIS WORK?Absolutely. Without a properly refined brand, your business will lack direction, purpose, and depth. Your brand is the thread that runs through everything you do and every decision you make. When you’re considering adding a new feature or how to market your business, you should always be thinking about that core thread. It’s critical to have a guiding compass, especially in the often-stormy early stages of a startup.

Let’s take another quick look at Google. Their company dedicates the time and resources to come up with their doodles that celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and important events. The doodles make them no money, but they continually contribute to building their brand. Think about what you can do in your business that will have the same effect.

THE INTERNAL BRANDING CHECKLIST

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Why does your business exist? What made you start it?

What kind of person is your business serving? What need is it fulfilling?

What’s your business model? How are you going to make your money?

What does the brand stand for? Tie this in with your answer to why your business exists—what is your driving motivator?

What words do you want people to associate with your brand?

What’s your promise? Your unique value proposition?What makes you different from your competitors?

Do you want to cut through the fluff typically associatedwith your industry? Do you want to provide a calming

experience in an industry that’s usually high stress?Ask yourself the questions above to set your brand apart.

BRANDING TIP


H O W T O B U I L D A B R A N D-C E N T R I CW E B S I T E

WE USE THIS 3 PART

PROCESS TO HELP US CREATE

BRAND-CENTRIC DESIGNS

FOR OUR CLIENTS. BEFORE

YOU START BUILDING YOUR

WEBSITE, ASK YOURSELF

3 QUESTIONS...

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR WEBSITE TO ACCOMPLISH?

Asking a lot of questions helps us understand their brand and their company. When they tell us the story of their brand, we can begin to picture why they do what they do.

The first question we ask clients is, “What role does this website play in your business? What goal should this website accomplish?” We want to establish the rationale behind the website we’re building.

Your Brand Is Important

From the tone of Facebook posts to the way call-center employees interact with customers over the phone to the way customers are greeted at a store location, thebrand should come through and give the customer the same experience every time.We call this 360CX™—a consistent customer experience across every touchpoint.

Protect Your Brand Integrity

Social media, and Internet access in general, leaves plenty of opportunity for customers to shout about a bad experience they’ve had with your brand. These types of interactions make your website even more important, as it provides a reinforcement for the quality of your work and the services you provide.

Your Website = Your Persona

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Successful companies define the core elements of their brand and convey those elements at every opportunity.

Your website is likely the first place people will visit when they learn about you. In most cases it’s also the first touchpoint of your brand, so your website should offer a definitive autobiography of who you are.


This is your best opportunity to set the tone and control how people perceive and interact with your brand. It’s your opportunity to provide a curated experience from the moment they hit the home page.

You have a fantastic opportunity on your site that you can’t possibly have in your call center or at an offline store. You can communicate your brand message clearly and interact with customers in a way that engages them with your brand.

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HOW DO YOU DEFINE YOUR BRAND?

The first step in defining your brand is a clear understanding of what your brand is, what it stands for, and why it exists. What distinguishes your brand from others like it? What are the most important brand attributes, and how do you communicate them to your customers, partners, and employees? What are the core elements that really define who you are? Packaged all together, these elements become your unique brand.

The trick here is understanding your brand well enough to know why it exists. You need to be able to describe it in just a few short sentences, and you have to really believe in your brand and embrace the ideals it represents. It sounds easy, but sometimes it can be difficult to strike just the right note.

If you really want a website that reflects those core values, it’s not enough just to have a designer or a developer put together your site. You need someone who actually understands branding.

Design That Meets Your Brand Objectives

You need someone who knows how to communicate the correct emotion through your name, your logo, your messaging, and the creation of your brand style guide.

These are all representations of your brand’s core attributes and value proposition. Once these key elements are defined, the site design should then flow logically from there.

The key elements may include the look, feel, colors, font or type treatment, and visual or graphic elements. Having a team that includes a brand manager, a developer, and a designer collaborating to blend all these elements together is essential to an effective brand-centric website.

Sometimes we work with clients who are so new that their business doesn’t even have a name. The process from the very start is to learn all about the company and what it aspires to be. From there, we will work with them to come up with a name that reflects the brand.

Once we have the name and we understand the brand, we will develop a visual treatment of that, and from the visual representation of the brand, we will design the website.

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WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

We find that we get much better brand-centric designs when we’ve taken the time to populate the wireframes with content. We really push our clients and work with them to come up with the right bold statements and supporting copy. Then we honeit until we find their brand voice.

You can dress someone up to the nines and put them out there, but

it’s that first “hello” that makes a first impression complete.

That’s what the website copy is: the voice

of the brand.


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DEVELOPING A SITE THAT’S TAILORED TOYOUR BRANDAND THE RIGHT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TAKES TIME AND HARD WORK.

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ONCE YOU’VE DETERMINED

WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY,

YOU HAVE TO DECIDE

HOW YOU’RE GOING

TO SAY IT.

T H E K E YI N G R E D I E N T S

T O Y O U R W E B S I T E ’ S

F I R S T I M P R E S S I O N

Web travelers are fickle.

They visit your site demanding to be entertained, surprised, or educated, and often times they never think twice about leaving without sharing what you’re saying or buying what you’re selling.

You can choose to lose faith in web travelers altogether, quit trying to attract them to your site, and come to resent every unique visit Google Analytics reports.

Of course, the way you respond to this less-fortunate truth is your choice.

Or, you can choose to believe that these faceless visitors mean no harm, but rather they simply need a few key things from you in order to do what you want them to do on your site.

If you choose the latter and you give them the benefit of the doubt, here are 5 key things your visitors willl need from you in order to have a positive experience with your brand website:

A WHAT AND A WHY

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We call it the 3-second rule in web design. Essentially, if a visitor can’t answer what the website is and why someone should stay in 3 seconds or less, you will lose them.

Answering what it is can be done in a handful of ways, but none is better than a clear(not creative) banner title or subtitle. BMW does a fantastic job of answering this question at moment one. Check out this headline: “We only make one thing. The ultimate driving machine.” For someone who has never heard of BMW, there is absolutely no question what BMW does.

Answering why they should care enough to stick around is all about creating an emotional connection and making an invitation. No one does this better than TOMS Shoes and their One forOne campaign: “With every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need.”

SIMPLICITYNo one wants to have to go to class to learn how to navigate your website. And perhaps the easiest way to put training wheels on your site is to simplify your menu.

Don’t get creative when it comes to navigational menus or page titles. Be boring. Be predictable. Be clear. And save your creative genius for wowing them on the actual page your menu is leading them to.

If you don’t believe us, you may want to take notes from the kings of innovation themselves: Apple. Notice the simplicity of their header navigation.

SPEEDAs with any form of hospitality, you never want to

make your guests wait.

Visit Google PageSpeed Insights and analyze your domain. This tool will separate your traffic into

mobile and desktop and give you actionable tips to improve your site speed.

If you’re under 50%, try doing these things:

Compress images

Change hosting

Use browser caching

GOOD COPY

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You’re at a new local coffee shop. Just the smell of the beans as they are being brewed makes you want to try one of everything on the hanging chalkboard menu, but as you read, you’re met with a sobering moment.

The same goes for every word you use on your website.

Write copy that’s enjoyable, readable, invitational, and shows signs of offering some level of expertise.

“TRY THE COFFEE WITH WHIPPED CREME. OR ANITHING WITH WHIPPED CREME AND CINNAMUN.”

This shop could have the best coffee in the world, but at this moment, you’re not about to spend a dime. When the maker of the coffee apparently didn’t finish third-grade English and shows no sign of expertise, it doesn’t matter how great the product may smell, you’re probably going to be a bit less excited about buying.

A SATISFYING MOBILE EXPERIENCE

The statistics say that more than 36% of all of your visitors will be on a mobile device. We’d say

36 out of every 100 guests deserve a little consideration.


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It may be easier to think hospitably when having friends over for a game

or a meal. However, don’t miss the importance of first impressions

and hospitality online.

Why? Because if you give a guest what they want, they

will give you what you want— be it comments, shares,

or purchases.

H O W T OB U I L D Y O U R

B R A N DO N S O C I A L

M E D I A

HERE ARE 5

PRACTICAL TIPS ON

HOW TO BETTER USE

SOCIAL MEDIA TO

FURTHER YOUR BRAND.

Online platforms are theperfect outlets to developand broadcast your brand,but you have to carefully

consider what to sayand how to say it.

BE HELPFUL.All sales are inherently built on trust.

We trust that Nike hires good manufacturers and uses good materials to produce quality shoes. So we buy Nikes.

Trust is built not by announcing your latest product line, but in helping your potential customer. Don’t use your social media for endless self-promotion. Use it to foster a relationship and earn trust by helping your target market.

What do they need? What are their interests? How can I help them today, regardless of if it’s a direct sale to me or not? There’s nothing worse than boring and

generic social media. Take the time todevelop your brand voice with a tone that

captivates. Or just be Taco Bell andoccasionally say funny stuff.

BE PERSONABLE.


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Hi Kyle Anderson (323), I hope you enjoyed your gf’s bday and the flowers that you didn’t bring when you no-showed for your 815 res. Thanks.”

@redmedicinela

CONVERSATION WINS.

THE GOLDEN RULE.

Company updates aren’t social media. They’re just media, and they’re often boring andirrelevant to your followers.

Be social. Click reply. Comment back. Converse with competitors. In the end, ask yourself,who would want to be friends with someone who only talks “at” them?


The restaurant Red Medicine would be the first to tell you that projecting frustrations via social media is never a good choice. It

became a national headline and buried the restaurant in bad Yelp reviews.

QUALITY CONTENT RISES TO THE TOP.

The better (and safer) way to win fans and get the right kind of attention is to simply

and consistently create quality content.

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Yes, you could try to garner attention and get retweeted based on shock value. However,

do so at your own risk.

Surely you have some raving customers. Simply repost a testimony you have received from

your store or customer service logs.

“Social Proof” is the trust built by letting other people talk about your brand on social media.

This is some of the most compelling content you can share.

SOCIAL PROOF: LETTHE CUSTOMERS SPEAK.

7 B R A N D I N G B L U N D E R S

T O A V O I D O N S O C I A L M E D I A

“WAFFLE, KETCHUP,

AND OLIVES WERE A

BAD CHOICE.

#PROJECTILETHROWUP”

The intimate details of a throw-up session are never a good idea on social media.

But what about the other, perhaps less-offensive but equally obnoxious, activity that many brands currently entertain on their social feeds? Here are 7 things your brand should cease doing (immediately) on social media:

POSTING TOO FREQUENTLYThough we liked you enough to follow you, we don’t like youenough to read 24 tweets and one blog per day. That is,not unless you’re giving out free cash or a cruise to theCaribbean with LeBron James.

Yep. That pretty much explains it.#TOO #MANY #HASHTAGS

AUTO DMsThough they were extremely popular a few yearsago on Twitter, Auto Direct Messages have become overused and massively abused. If you’ve done this in the past, double check to make sure your auto DM app is turned off!

SPEAKING IN THIRD PERSONWe can see your brand name right there

with your profile pic. No need to mentionit again in your update or tweet.

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SEVEN BRANDING BLUNDERS TO AVOID ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Try interacting with youraudience like Taco Bell.

SEVEN BRANDING BLUNDERS TO AVOID ON SOCIAL MEDIA

POINTLESS POSTING

One of the more incredible paradigmshifts social media has created is education-based marketing. Neverpost just to post. If you’re hesitant about posting something, take SethGodin’s advice and make sure to ask

yourself this question first: Is my content interesting, relevant, and useful? Take advantage of direct communicationand begin to help people. And if you don’tknow where to start, try BufferApp.com.

BORING UPDATES

WRAP-UP

Nobody wants to listen to or buy from a robot. Don’t let your customer service end at your store. Get some personality. Be personable. Take another cue from Taco Bell.

For the sake of your company and the social uni-verse, let’s all agree on at least these seven things.

Commit to giving a bit more time and attention to your social media, and take advantage of the unparalleled opportunity to build a deeper connection between your audience and your brand.

PRETENDING YOURCOMPANY ANNOUNCEMENTS

ARE SOCIAL MEDIA

Your company news is media.It’s not social and it’s often

boring. This is not what yoursocial media audience wants

to hear. Don’t use social mediaas your PR outlet. Make it apriority to always put your

audience first when itcomes to deciding what

content to post.

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IN THE END, BRAND IS ALL YOU HAVE.

Because in the end, this emotional connection is the only thing that will keep them coming back.

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And yes, you have your beautiful website with loads of traffic. But what’s stopping the next competitor from spending more money on development and marketing to curve your analytics?

And yes, you have your loyal fan base now, but the second another company makes them feel better than you do, their loyalty will fade.

Decide how you want your customer to feel when they encounter your company. Find out how to get the right assets and message in place to make them feel this way. And don’t compromise at any touchpoint in creating this same brand experience for them.

Yes, you have your product and it’s patented. But there will always be an alternative.

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Because in the end, this emotional connection is the only thing that will keep them coming back.

At Metacake our mission is to help great brands and businessesgrow. We create delicious digital experiences that are visually stunning and successful. We build websites, applications,mobile apps, ecommerce platforms, and marketing campaigns with a customer-centered approach across a spectrum of industries. We create value for our clients by constantly analyzing and optimizing their customers’ experience to ensure growth and success.

Our team has served some of the top brands in the world, including:

digitally delicious.

A Taste of Metacake

Metacake is a customer-focused design, technology, and marketing team.

$500MILLION

IN MANAGED

OVER

RESOURCES

5+BILLION

SERVED

EXPERIENCES

21INDUSTRY

IN 2 YEARS

AWARDS

Say Hey!Get a growthassessment

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