Best Branding Tools – Skyrocket your Growth!

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Branding Guidelines For Startups

If you're starting out then resources are scarce and every dollar you spend is huge. To help you make the right branding choices as a startup, we will dive into the focus field of startups. What should you focus on and maximize to ensure growth? And which are the best branding tools for a startup budget. We have included only the absolute must-haves.

But first, let’s focus on what should be your main priority.

Be Definingly Different

I have spoken to countless startups and the most common mistake is their perception of being different. Often I hear answers like: "we care about our customers." Yes, no company in the universe cares about their customer. Oh, wait... Sorry for the sarcasm. I know that there are businesses out there just for the quick buck. However, there are a lot more businesses that actually want to improve something.

So what makes you definingly different? You might be active in a market that doesn't give a lot of space for innovation. The good news is that you already possessed a definingly different aspect before you started the business. What is the one thing that could make every business unique, yet is rarely being used to its full potential?

It’s… YOU!

Customers don’t trust businesses they trust people. They want to identify themselves in you. Their need or problem should be your problem or need. That way the customer knows that you have done everything you can to take away that pain. Focus on placing a face to the brand and start building a relationship with your audience. Have an incredibly long 'about me' page where you talk about the common pain. Add pictures but don't make them either too professional or too casual. Also, make sure to add a personal touch to your story. Being vulnerable might sound soft but it's the best way to sell. 

People Invest In People, Yet Your Product Must Be Advantageous

At first, you need to convince people to trust the people behind the brand but afterward, they will turn their eye to your product/service. You must offer a better solution for their problem than your competitor does. You can have the best branding tools and strategy, but that will never get you profitable when your product sucks. Research your competitor, learn from critique, and continuously improve your product.

Tips to convince your customer:

• Have a dedicated and thorough landing page about your product
• Make ‘vs’ articles on your blog where you directly challenge your competitor’s product
• Review your product/service portfolio monthly and adjust appropriately
• Build your testimonial portfolio
• Make use of video marketing as it’s seen as highly trustworthy evidence

A Flying Start With The Best Branding Tools For Startups!

The right tools will help you to become profitable a lot faster. However, I know that software can be expensive and that you can’t afford to invest a lot of money when you are just starting. That’s why we’ve selected the best branding tools for startups. These tools are based upon quality and value for money. These are the bare essentials that will truly benefit your early growth.

Thrive Themes – Best Branding Tools For Conversion!

Grinding long hours to see your website traffic grow is satisfying and maybe even addicting. However, visitors are kind of useless if they stay visitors. We want them to buy from you! That's why we must optimize your conversion rate. Thrive Themes gives us the tools to build a website from scratch with the main goal to convert visitors into customers. Premade opt-ins, forms, and popups will help your conversion rate massively!

With Thrive Themes Suite you get:

• Theme Builder
• Architect page builder
• Thrive Leads (very useful tool)
• A/B testing
• And much more!

We use Thrive  Themes ourselves for both clients and our agency. It increases the conversion rate by a mile and helps you to become more profitable.

Don’t Have Hosting Yet? Consider The Number 1 Recommended WP Provider

For the aspiring entrepreneur who is overwhelmed by all the hosting providers, don’t worry! WordPress has expressed the following hosting provider as the number 1 recommended hosting provider. They have been around for a long time and are working closely with WordPress to give you the best possible hosting solution.

Who am I talking about?

We are talking about Bluehost. Bluehost offers affordable quality hosting for entrepreneurs. You can start your website in a matter of minutes through their smart installing tool. You don’t need any coding skills. Furthermore, Bluehost is compatible with the best branding tools for startups. Ensuring that you will get the most out of your branding tools.

KWFinder – The Absolute Best Branding Tool For Startups

KWFinder is my absolute favorite and the best branding tool for startups. Why? Because if you are willing to do the work, you will drive massive (free) traffic towards your website. SEO and content marketing have a high return on investment. It will provide you with future growth and help you create a sustainable business.

Why do we prefer KWFinder over other SEO tools for startups?

• Because the pricing is very affordable
• It has the most accurate measurement system to find profitable keywords
• User-friendly and beautiful UX design
• Top-notch support through live chat

If you want to learn more about KWFinder and how to apply content marketing, please read our KWFinder article.

Branding Guidelines For Small Businesses

You’ve successfully managed to escape the deadly zone of startups that fail, yet there is still work to be done. You want to increase your profitability and prepare your business for steady growth. In this chapter, we are going to give tips on how you can secure steady growth for your business. Afterward, we will handpick the best branding tools for small businesses that will directly contribute to your goals.

Before Getting The Best Branding Tools... Maximize What Works!

The main benefit of having a small business over a startup is the knowledge you have obtained during your starting phase. You know what works and makes you money. It might need to be optimized, but at least you have a basis of data to work from. Take the time to review your product/services portfolio.

What has been working the best for you?

Write it down and take one hour each day for the coming month to actively think about innovation. How can you maximize the potential of this particular product? Maybe you can work on the distribution and smoothen out the process. Or invest in the R&D to stay ahead of the competition. Whatever it is that you do, focus on that one step.

The most important step for small businesses is to focus on what’s working and maximize the effect before adding more channels, products, etc. You had a good start but you lack the resources to tackle many issues at once. Double down on what is working and make sure your focus lays on the processes that are working and generating money for you. 

Prepare Yourself For The Next Step…

Besides maximizing your strengths, we also want to take a look at your long-term growth. Online branding is all about being present in the mind of your customer. That's why you should think about how you are going to brand your business for the coming years. The best branding tools for this job are e-mail marketing, conversion, and SEO tools. Why? Because they are focused on the long game with high returns. The key is to build your e-mail list and drive organic traffic to your website. You can automate this process and therefore generate profit 24/7.

Best Branding Tools for SME’s

So what are the best branding tools for small businesses? We are going to shift the short-term growth towards the long-term. We want to create sustainable profits that will secure the future of your business. To do this we need the best branding tools in SEO, conversion optimization, and e-mail marketing. These areas are very lucrative and sustainable for the future of your business. To help you succeed, we’ve selected the best branding tools for your small business!

KWFinder – Secure Your Future Growth Through SEO

For both startups and small businesses, there is only one good SEO tool and that's KWFinder. KWFinder has the most accurate measurement system to find profitable keywords. Furthermore, KWFinder's UX designing is brilliantly beautiful and works like a charm. You don’t need to be techy to work with KWFinder. It will show you which keywords are worth pursuing and for a fair price. More importantly, you will get high-level support through live chat to help you whenever you are stuck. The support is being done by SEO experts instead of your normal John Doe.

Thrive Leads – Your Conversion Canon!

Thrive Leads will help you grow your e-mail list and build a profitable e-mailing list. Don’t wait with this process till you are bigger because you will miss a lot of profit. E-mail marketing has the highest return on investment of all digital marketing solutions. However, without good conversion tools, you won't have anyone to mail to. That's why Thrive Leads is an essential tool. You will get access to your customer's e-mail and therefore obtain the opportunity to promote your brand. Thrive Leads helps to empower your best branding tools for small businesses.

Sendinblue – The Best Branding Tools For SME Email Marketing

Sendinblue embodies the small business spirit. They started as a small email marketing software provider but have grown into a giant. Although their remarkable growth has made them bigger than anyone could ever imagine, they never lost the SME attitude. Their software is designed for small businesses. With Sendinblue you get efficient e-mail marketing software for a fair price. You can try Sendinblue out for free! Definitely, worth the try, I would say.

Read more about Sendinblue here.

Corporate Branding Guidelines

When you’ve successfully managed your small business into a large corporate company, then you will face a new challenge. It will become increasingly difficult to sustain high levels of growth. The market will flatten a bit more and you will feel the competition more intensely. Your branding is more important than ever before. It’s what makes Coca-Cola the king of soda, Apple the king of Gadgets, and Nike the king of shoes. Let’s talk about strategy and finding the best branding tools for large enterprises.

It’s All About Consistency And Scaling Up!

To grow brand awareness and make customers forget about your competition, you will need to consistently send branding messages to your audience. These messages can be literal messages but also images, videos, or feelings about your brand. As a startup or small business, you focus on a few channels and maximize these. However, that is not enough for a large enterprise. You'll need to make use of every available branding tool to scale up.

Areas large enterprises might want to explore:

• Complete social media presence
• PPC (paid advertising)
• Pay for content to increase your organic growth
• Video marketing for visual brand awareness
• Marketing automation

Large Enterprises Need The Best Branding Tools For Awareness

The areas described in the last chapter are difficult and there are a few software providers that offer you full-service solutions. Most of the branding tools only cover a small area of online branding. However, there are branding tools that cover all areas and therefore are more suitable for larger enterprises. Because remember, you want to make use of every available channel to grow your brand and profit. The best branding tools that we are going to discuss are SEMrush and ActiveCampaign.

Best Branding Tools For Large Enterprises

Large corporate companies need something different than SME's or startups. The bigger you become the more tricks you need to keep growth coming. To help larger companies sustain their growth level, we’ve selected the best branding tools that not only focus on large companies but also are large companies. Especially SEMrush knows how to maintain growth as they have recently enlisted themselves on the NY stock exchange with incredible results. Let’s take a look at the best branding tools for large enterprises!   

SEMrush – The Most Powerful SEM Software On Planet Earth

SEMrush is by far the most powerful and complete SEM software there is. Instead of a handful of tools, you will get 40+ tools to strengthen your online branding. That makes SEMrush the king of the best branding tools. Its software is powerful and complete, therefore you won’t need countless tools. With SEMrush you can build your online presence effectively, manage local SEO (for each office you have), and monitor your brand awareness online. 

With SEMrush you get:

• SEO tools
• Local SEO
• Advertising tools
• Social media management
• Content marketing
• Competitive research
• Brand monitor

SEMrush does exactly what we talked about. You can make use of all the available channels to keep your growth ratio high and healthy. Especially the brand monitor will give you valuable information about how your brand performs in comparison to the competition. The competitive research features are especially necessary for large enterprises because to grow you need to take market share from your competition. For large enterprises, this is the best branding tool to monitor and use its data to alter your strategy upon.

ActiveCampaign – Best branding tools for Enterprise branding

ActiveCampaign will help you automate your enterprise on a large scale. From e-mail marketing to CRM and sales, ActiveCampaign helps you to automate it. The software makes use of machine learning and AI, making it a highly efficient tool. ActiveCampaign will assign one of its experts to your enterprise and help with the transition to their platform. That means you will have a dedicated account representative. The customer service is marvelous. Fast and thorough support is important because as an enterprise you can lose a lot of money in a matter of minutes. Luckily, ActiveCampaign gives enterprises priority support.

Why is automation interesting for your enterprise?

• It will make your (fellow) team members more cost-efficient
• Your business will run partly on auto-pilot
• Machine learning will increase your deliverability of e-mail
• The data is highly valuable to your business
• The integrations are unlimited

ActiveCampaign has proven to be a worthy partner of enterprises for years now and they are not slowing down. Features are being added none-stop as are the support and education opportunities. In my opinion, it's the better alternative for Hubspot which is overpriced. But don’t take my word for it. Request a free demo and experience the software for yourself!

You've Got The Best Branding Tools... What's Next?!

Now that you've got the best branding tools, what's next for you?

Educate yourself further and learn the secrets of branding to defear your competition.

• Why social media marketing is important
• Tubebuddy Chrome extension
• LinkedIn Private mode
• Is YouTube to mp3 downloading illegal?
• Branding board tutorial

If you have any question at all, please leave me a comment down below! I woud love to hear from you