Building Your Web Hosting Brand
Reference | in reseller hosting guides
In traditional marketing, branding campaigns are designed to embed a company or product name into the consumer's psyche. A brand is thus the proprietary visual, emotional, rational, and cultural image that we associate with a company, product or service. Excellent brands will standout, will impact the consumer and convey quality and value-for-money perceptions. A good brand will provide a good first impression and evoke positive associations with the brand. The brand identity usually consists of brand names, logos, positioning, brand associations, and brand personality. A brand identity is the sole public image of a product, line, or service. It is the visual connector between firm and customer.
A good brand identity stands out from its competitors, as it demands attention and more effectively markets to its audience. A good brand identity communicates directly and indirectly. It consciously and subconsciously draws a consumer to a product, service and the company. Branding is tremendously important to the Web host reseller because image is the most important factor to an online-based business.
Since the service that the reseller is selling is intangible, in comparison to other products and services that take up physical space, it is necessary to convey a sense of professionalism and competence in order to facilitate sales and profitability. The most successful Web host resellers achieve this sense of professionalism and competence through their brand identity. Because the nature of Web host reselling rarely permits face to face interaction with customers, it is important the consumer base their relationship with your company on solid visual stimulus.
The brand identity constitutes such visual stimulus especially if the reseller is engaged in mass marketing of their products and services. For this reason visual identity is the core component of the brand. A good brand should always have an effective logo that is unique; instantly communicates the nature of the business; appeals to the target audience; and works in the context of all communication vehicles which you design and use.
The most important factor is that the visual identity should be consistent, repetitive and retain a sense of longevity. Another important component of the brand identity is a positioning statement, or tagline. The positioning statement is usually used in conjunction with the logo and business name in all promotional materials, from business cards to Web sites. This, once again, ensures consistency and continuity of both visual and verbal image the company presents to its customers. The positioning statement should clearly state or reinforce what the reseller does. Other characteristics of the positioning statement are that it should be honest, brief, memorable and as unique as your company logo.
The notion behind branding is to immediately convey what your reseller organization does to consumers when they examine any element of your promotional materials and marketing collateral. Because immediacy and interactivity defines the Web, the Internet serves as an excellent way to extend to your brand to new audiences and markets. By marketing a product on the Web, it is possible to closely target appropriate groups and even individuals, and in a sense develop the brand specifically for them. This should be objective of any competent reseller.
 |
OLDER: Choosing a Budget Web Host | | | NEWER: Press Release Distribution-The Most Effective, Immediate and Authentic Way to Communicate with your Audience |  |
Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
About This Issue | Read Digital Edition
Comment anonymously or log into your WHIR account
Logging in allows enhanced commenting features (such as external linking) in news, features, blogs and more.