“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
– Jeff Bezos
Recently, a Niche Quest multi-location health care client was acquired for $450 Million. The buyer’s head of digital marketing referenced one of the factors leading to the purchase was the strength of the “Brand Equity”.
What is brand equity, and how can you get a heaping plate full to grow your business and change your life as it did for our client?
You may be thinking brand equity only applies to big companies, celebrities, and politicians. Not true. Small to mid-sized businesses, real estate brokers and investors, Insurance agencies can build strong brand equity in their market with the right online strategies. The result turns your market into an influential, 24/7 salesforce whether you focus on a single town, multi-town, city, state, or region.
Let’s look at the power of positive brand equity and how branding and publicity SEO can help grow your business.
What is Brand Equity, and Why is it Important for Your Business?
Discovering the meaning and power of strong brand equity is like finding buried treasure when you’re down to your last dollar. No matter whether you’re a startup, a solopreneur, or a seasoned business looking for ways to grow, once you start to learn about brand equity, you’ll look at your business from a fresh, new perspective.
Let’s start with the definition of brand and equity.
Brand Definition
According to The Economic Times, “A brand is a name given to a product or service such that it takes on an identity by itself.”
Brand names you may recognize are Ferrari, Nike, Starbucks, and Sotheby’s.
Equity Definition
Equity is the value of an asset after removing all liabilities. For example, the equity in a home worth $1 million with a $250,000 mortgage is $750,000.
Brand equity then is the value of your brand name in your market. Brand Equity is the key to becoming a dominant business in any market, whether a local painting contractor or multi-location health care provider. The result of Brand Equity is a trustworthy, memorable business people talk about. The ultimate benefit is a steady flow of new business at higher profit margins.
What are Examples of Brand Equity?
Think about the brands I mentioned above: Ferrari, Nike, Starbucks, and Sotheby’s. You can picture what they look like when you see their name in print.
Ferrari – Just the mention of Ferrari creates a mental image of a sexy, red, exotic sports car. You can see a picture in your mind. The connection gets even more profound and emotional. You may think race cars, luxury, expensive, elite, unique, exclusive, or wildly successful. You may associate Ferrari with celebrities, professional athletes, fashion models, and elite locations such as Monte Carlo, Monaco, Beverly Hills, and Miami.
Nike – When you think of Nike, you may see a mental image of an elite athlete, a runner, a tennis player, or a basketball player. You may have a mental picture of not just an athlete, but Tiger Woods playing golf at Pebble Beach or Tom Brady throwing a touchdown at the Superbowl, both displaying the Nike Swoosh logo on their shoes, hats, and shirts.
Starbucks – With Starbucks, you may have a mental image of their store, location, and latte. You may be able to imagine the frothy milk and aroma of their fresh roasted coffee. Their coffee is just coffee, their frothy milk is just milk, and they cost about $5 per cup. When a business can sell a cup of coffee for $5 while their competitors sell for $2, they’ve built brand equity.
Sotheby’s – Sotheby’s is a company with valuable brand equity. They are world-renowned for getting premium, astonishing prices at their art auctions. They instill this identity of achieving premium prices for artworks for their clients in their real estate brokerage business. Sotheby’s is well known as one of the most elite real estate brokerages for selling ultra-expensive, multi-million-dollar luxury homes. Sotheby’s has built invaluable brand equity.
What are the Benefits of Building Brand Equity for Your Business?
Here are six benefits of building your business brand’s recognition:
- Name Recognition – Familiarity is a crucial factor in sales. You may have read that it takes seven touches or interactions with a prospect before buying from you. I have read that the number has increased to twenty-one because the average person sees over 5,000 ads per day.
- Trust – Zig Ziglar, author, and motivational speaker, said, “If people like you, they will talk to you, but if they trust you, they will do business with you.” The ultimate benefit of building brand equity is a growing business, increased revenue, and achieving your dreams. To get there, people need to trust you first.
- Belief – Consumers go through five steps of awareness about your product or service. The lowest level is a lack of understanding about your business. Initially, they lack trust. As they go up the awareness ladder, they start to believe your product or service may be right for them. Level 5 is when they believe what you have is right for them. The only barrier left to purchase is the cost. “OK, I’m ready. How much?” Strong brand equity will move the consumer up through the five levels of consumer awareness.
- Memorable – when a person remembers you, they will come back to you when they are ready. The critical factor to being extraordinary is a clear message and repeat exposure.
- Word of Mouth – According to HubSpot, 90% of people trust referrals from family and friends. Building brand equity will build a memorable, trustworthy business. Social media grows word-of-mouth referrals and recommendations at an exponential rate.
- Price Premiums – Many marketing agencies continually market their services as lead generators. Without a business strategy focused on building Brand Equity, a business has the uphill climb of becoming trusted. Companies concentrating only on lead generating will only compete on price. Trying to compete on price can be an exhausting, time-intensive process.
A business that invests in building a strong brand identity will get more new clients with higher price margins and increased customer lifetime value.
Who Can Benefit from High Brand Equity?
Any business can benefit from building brand recognition and equity. We helped a Smith and Company Painting grow from $200,000 to $2,000,000 annually with dominant visibility on Google, Google Maps, Google News, and display ads.
We also helped a small health care company go from relative obscurity to a dominant brand in their target geography, being purchased for $450 million.
In both cases, we defined their geographic target and then broke their business down by niche. Both companies became the dominant trusted source in their market. New clients came from online searches, referrals, and social sharing.
Both companies implemented the Niche Quest Branding and Publicity SEO Formula and still are today. The common denominator is perseverance. We implemented the system; the clients never deviated.
Managing Brand Equity
When you look at the most successful businesses with positive brand equity, they continually reinvest in amplifying consumer perception and customer loyalty. Their strategic brand management enhances their perceived value with positive associations with other recognized businesses or significant points of interest.
For example, real estate broker Cogent Realty in NYC wrote a blog about office space costs at the World Trade Center. In this case, Cogent Realty, a small real estate agency, built valuable brand equity by associating their business with brand name buildings such as the World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building to name a few.
Association of your business with other brand names has the power to amplify your Brand Equity.
Sample Businesses and Real Estate Companies Who Can Benefit
- Real Estate Agencies, REITS, Investors, Developers
- Shopping Center Owners
- Office Building Owners
- Ski Resorts
- Caribbean Resorts
- Self-Storage Owners
- Mortgage Companies
- Breweries and Wineries
- Insurance Agencies
- Contractors
- Home Builders
- Home Service Businesses,
- Health Care companies
- Assisted Living facilities
- Cosmetic Surgeons
- Physical Therapists
How the Niche Quest Branding and Publicity SEO Formula Can Help Build Your Brand Loyalty
Most people think SEO is a tech strategy, especially SEO marketers. They are wrong. SEO is a sales strategy driven by content. The internet is built on content.
Content comes in the form of articles, images, and videos. What drives content is your content strategy.
Here’s an example of a content strategy.
An insurance agency may sell auto, home, and business insurance. So does every other insurance agency. To stand out from the crowd, to build brand equity, an insurance agency can target the deep niches within their business. Using the blog on their website, they can publish content about Tesla insurance, Ferrari insurance, fine art, and jewelry insurance, cyber insurance, and countless niche markets.
Each niche article on their site can be promoted with the Branding and Publicity SEO formula. This is a powerful strategy that builds trust. It makes an insurance agency memorable, turning existing clients into a 24/7 sales force.
There are ten elements to Branding and Publicity SEO that we have developed over years of testing and applied to hundreds of businesses, including our own.
- News Campaigns – articles related to niche services or products for your business with links to your website. Google, Bing, and other search engines follow the links to your website, boosting the ranking results. Articles also rank on Google for expanded visibility. Yahoo and other high-value news sources can produce results for many years.
- Guest Blog Posts – Additional articles submitted to sites such as Google Sites, Medium, Tumblr, and other high authority sites provide links to your website.
- Podcasts – Guest blog posts are converted to podcasts appearing on Google Podcasts, Apple, Pod Bean, and other links to your website.
- Slide-Sharing Websites – Articles are converted into slide shares on slide-sharing websites.
- Infographics – Infographics are made and submitted to Pinterest and others
- Videos – Content from the guest blog is converted to YouTube and Vimeo with links and other SEO triggers.
- Blogs – It is beneficial to have your site filled with keyword-rich blogs like you read here.
- Display Ads – Our proprietary 10x Display Ad program is a key element of building brand equity with Branding and Publicity SEO
- Google Business and Maps Profile is another vital component of the Niche Quest Branding and Publicity SEO Formula. Many of our clients’ businesses receive 100,000 visitors monthly to their sites, and others have 2,000 mobile phone calls in a month. Most business owners are not aware of the untapped potential.
- Fake Google Profile and Maps Removal – Many businesses knowingly or unknowingly have keyword-stuffed their GBP and Maps accounts. This keyword stuffing is a violation of Google Terms and Services. Our fake maps removal service will move businesses out of your way who steal your brand equity and clients.
Contact Niche Quest Media
Interested in building a profitable brand with the Niche Quest Branding and Publicity Formula? Fill out the contact form or give us a call at (203) 762-1366 to discuss your business or real estate.