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By Anna Curnow, Internet Strategist

I think we would all agree that your brand should mean the same in whatever environment your customers chose to interact with you. However, the methods of building your brand online are quite different to the traditional offline methods.

Let's first take a look at the most recognised online brands (based on a survey of WEBENZ staff):
Google
Yahoo
Hotmail
Amazon
And of course WEBENZ;-)

I know there are others that you will be able to think of but what quickly becomes clear is the reason why they are most recognised. Namely, they work well and provide a useful service…… good functionality.

What is also clear, is that the visuals are not nearly as important. While the TV commercial gives the visually attractive, quick, almost intangible brand sensation, the online brand experience is nuts and bolts, how well does it work for me.

Take a clothing label as an example:
Fancy Clothes Ltd makes stylish office and evening wear for women in the 20 to 35 age group. Their brand values are around quality workmanship, fashionable designs and exclusive product.

Offline their marketing effort focuses on a TV campaign that presents the Fancy Clothes customer as a successful attractive woman with a great career, lots of friends and living in a cosmopolitan environment. All these are sensations that the customer will identify with when watching a commercial.

Fancy Clothes Ltd also have a website through which they sell their products directly. They initially consider presenting the Fancy Clothes brand with a sophisticated Flash animation much like the TV commercials. It would afterall be consistent with their offline marketing efforts.

However, they might be better to consider the requirements of those visiting the site - namely to browse the clothing range and to purchase the items they like. Because the brand has an exclusive feel lets reward customers for registering with the site by offering a pamper pack as an incentive with the first purchase. From then on, we can welcome them personally to the site!

These customers are expecting something that is seamless, stylish and high quality. The online brand experience that matches this is one of simple clear navigation, uncluttered layout, clear presentation and focus on the clothes. Buying the clothes themselves would be easy and the site should be able to store any customised tailoring that they need. The colours of the site would match the offline marketing but the functionality of the site is what will give the online brand experience.

In summary, the offline branding is about sensation, impression, gut feeling. Online branding is about what happens when you interact, the getting to know you part.

When you have a Functional and Technical Specification prepared by WEBENZ, the very first thing our consultant does is to ask about your business, your brand and your customers. This is to identify the very best functionality to allow you to extend your brand online.

An example of this, was our work with Maxwell and Williams who wanted to present their dinnerware products online. We identified their brand values as being about quality, value and stylish presentation and built the site accordingly. The focus is on the product, presented in the most attractive way. Customers can easily move through the many different ranges and make a choice about what they are interested in. To emphasize the value aspects of the brand, the site is minimalist apart from the product shots but also offers a 10% discount to survey respondents.
I can't stress enough, how important it is in every occasion to start with fully understanding your brand values and to make sure the online experience reflects all of those values from a functional point of view.

Get WEBENZ to empower your brand online. Contact Simon for more.