If you break down your morning routine, you may realize a majority of the things you do ladder up to your outward appearance: taking a shower, fixing your hair, changing your clothes, etc. It’s possible all of this is done in an effort to present yourself in the best way possible to the people around you.

When developing a brand presence, it’s important to take the same kind of care. You should make certain choices on behalf of your brand to showcase it to potential purchasers in the best way possible. This can happen at the creative level – sticking to brand guidelines and a consistent messaging / look and feel – as well as at the paid media level – monitoring your brand’s share of shelf to make sure your brand is actually showing up when and where you want.

Creative

All brands, big or small, should follow some kind of visual guideline. This allows consumers to recognize your brand at an unconscious level. For example, if you see an ad with a yellow background and bright red lettering, you may think of McDonald’s before you even see a logo.

In the same vein, retailers also have strict creative brand guidelines that they require advertisers to follow. Not following these guidelines can lead to lengthy back and forth creative discussions. Managing your creative under one E-Commerce Creative Management platform allows you to stick to these retail specs and guidelines while also building in your own brand presence. Custom templates within the RapidAds creative tool make it easy to load your brand style guide information upfront and leverage for beautiful ads time and time again.

Paid Media

When shopping online, have you ever searched for a certain brand but ended up purchasing another because the other brand was the first thing you saw? That is competitive targeting at work…and it works! A poor brand presence when it comes to paid media can result in lost sales like the one in this example.

As a brand manager or someone who makes decisions for a brand, the first thing you want to do is protect your brand name. Are you losing share of branded search terms to other competitors? That is the lowest hanging fruit in managing your brand presence. Once that is in a good spot, the next best place to look is category terminology. Determine a list of top five (or fewer) search terms that define your category. These typically have the highest search traffic and give you the greatest opportunity to introduce yourself to a potential new customer.

If you’re unclear on which search terms may give you the highest potential for a sale, the RapidAds sponsored products keyword research tool is a great place to start. This will give you a ranked list of 200+ of the highest traffic keywords.

Click here to learn more about maintaining your brand’s presence from both a creative and paid media perspective!