Brand launching: how you make an impactful first impression
New brands are launched every day. Some are noticed, others are not. How do you make sure you are among those who are noticed? And especially noticed by the people you want them to see you?
Personalize based on your audience
Think where your audience is before you launch your brand. Where do they live, which bars do they go to, where do they eat, where do they shop, … It’s very important to know your audience otherwise you can’t do this.
A hint could be to make personas. Divide your audience in different groups based on geographic and demographic information. The people in one group need to be similar to each other. Then imagine the group as 1 person. Describe this person. Choose a name, age, family situation, income, what is his job, … A great tool to make persona's is on the Hubspot website.
After this you can define the places where your audience is present and face their challenges and problems they have. At the moment you launch your brand, the communication must be at those places. This is either offline and online.
Give yourself time
Definitely set a timing for yourself and work towards it. But don’t rush everything. It is better to take time to do everything at your best. A brand launching have lots of pieces which can variate in time and delay. A lot of the activities such as public relations require lead time. Your planning should begin at the very early stages of the branding process. In this case you have time enough to strategize and execute all the activities.
Try to create a final launch calendar in detail. Make for each target audience a communication plan and put everything on a single launch timeline. Include every step of the communication process and the exact content/ communications being delivered. This is better to follow up your activities and to stay stick to the schedule.
Be consistent in your communication
Before you can launch your brand, you’ll need to make sure that all your marketing and communication is on one line. From vehicles to POS-material, website, e-mails, social media, …
You have to identify all of your internal and external audiences. Which are vendors, partners, employees, industry, media, communities and clients. Think about the way how you will deliver the message to them and through which channel. Choose the right delivery because you need to connect with your audience.
If you found the right delivery then you have to make sure everyone’s on the same page within your business. So, when you launch your brand you can make an external impact. Make consistent and targeted set of messages and send it out through the right mix of media online and offline. Stay consistent in your brand messaging, this includes the style of your advertisements, your color choices, using the same slogan, …
Why do you want to do this? You want to make sure your customers remember the message you want them to remember. Any differences will confuse them and make them think you haven’t got a strong brand.
A little help is to analyze your industry. Look at the media they use and check if it works with their audience. Because their audience is probably your audience too. Gather a lot of information from the competition and try to do better. Don’t try to be everywhere online. Choose the channels that your target audience is using. Keep in touch with your audience through these channels. A review or positive comment of them is way more worth than you promoting your brand. Reach them through blog owners, influencers on social media or the press. People nowadays look for a confirmation from people like them.