Three Basic Tips for Online Business Branding 
Posted by Udegbunam Chukwudi on September - 16 - 2011
Our society today is all about brands. Almost everything in business comes down to being recognizable and interesting. Online businesses must create a brand that stands out among the millions of other online enterprises. This is no simple task. However, with a little branding help and a lot of dedication, online success is attainable. Follow these three basic tips to create a brand for your online business that communicates exactly what you want to say about your company and that is attractive to the right consumers.
HOW TO BRAND YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS EFFECTUVELY
1. Target Your Niche Properly
Being able to read and understand your audience is the first step to creating a successful brand for your business. Without knowing who your product or service is targeting, there is no way you will be able to effectively find them in the market. You must create a brand that appeals to your target audience’s interests. The first step of any branding plan should be evaluating your current customer base and determining your desired customer base. Consider your own goals for your company and then try to weigh in the interests and expectations of your audience. By understanding what both you and your customers want out of your business you can narrow your branding efforts to better communicate with your potential consumers. Branding is all about knowing who to brand towards.
Example: Have any of you noticed that 95% of TV ads for noodles in Nigeria are focused around kids? Well that’s niche targeting for you. They know kids are the ones that push parents to buy noodles thus they make their ads kiddies oriented 
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2. Be Clear
Simplicity and clarity are key traits of a successful brand. Try to keep things simple when it comes to design. Your company’s logo is a huge part of what determines your brand. All too often, companies create logos that extremely intricate and elaborate. While these logos are no doubt beautiful and interesting, they do not typically make for a strong branding campaign. Your brand’s logo should be clear, concise, and simple. Companies should design a logo that is clear and easily recognizable. Create something easy and stick with it. You want people to see your brand’s logo and know exactly what company it represents. Customers should latch on to a logo in the same way that they latch on to a brand. Your brand, in many ways, is defined by your logo.
Example: High Fashion Brands Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana are synonymous worldwide with the simple logos LV and D&G respectively. Keep it simple and it will stick to people’s minds like GLUE!
3. Be Consistent (Always)
This tip is very connected to the previous one. Consistency is essential to a successful brand. If you are constantly changing your company’s name, logo, slogan, etc. there is no way that your customers will be able to keep up. Create something notable and stick with it. Consistency will help your company find a customer following. You want something that is easily recognizable and noteworthy. By remaining consistent with every detail of your brand, you will more easily make a lasting impression on the consumer market. Furthermore, brand consistency translates to other aspects of business as well.
If you are constantly changing your company’s name or image, your customers may interpret this as fickleness or unpredictability. Consumers want a company that is confident in their brand and their business. It could be construed as a lack of trust in your own product, if you are constantly changing things around.
Example: There are four major GSM networks in Nigeria and of the lot, Airtel Nigeria has undergone some serious name/logo changes in as little as 5 years. From Econet, to Celtel, to Zain and now Airtel. This frequent name changing is the main reason why I’ve NEVER bothered to buy their SIM and subscribe to their network. They reek of some major lack of seriousness 
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Demonstrate that you are reliable and trustworthy with consistent design and a consistent brand.
These are just a few tips to get you started branding your small online business. More tips coming soon and if you’ve got tips of your own, feel free to share with us by leaving a comment below.
Photo Credit: Vincent Teeuwen
Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.
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Hi Mariana,
Really interesting post, plus use of real example makes it more clear and awesome. Branding is very important for future prospect of any business so always specific about name or logo of your company.
This is a great article Mariana. I enjoyed it. But instead of displaying your email address on the author bio, why not use anchor and link to your “about us” page.
Spammers are looking for emails to hijack. But all the same, I enjoyed reading your piece. Good job.
Some folks tend to respond better to email addresses then contact pages and I guess that’s why she chose to display her email directly.
These points are very valid .Being consistent and being very clear about what you do and what you stand for always stands a brand out.
I would add that the visual elements that identifies a brand (logo and signs ) should be also consistent and easy to recognize…
Thanks for the great article! I am going to implement these ideas right away.
One more simple idea you might want to try is having a “thank you” business
card.