From Rags To Riches: Top 5 Ways To Build a Successful Brand
Team Branex
By profession, I am a computer science graduate. I did a graphic design crash course and right after that, I designed a brand logo for an eCommerce website. Luckily, I got selected as an intern in that firm. So, the first lesson I learned after venturing a foot into the professional world was that education never stops, and no matter how well-drilled and erudite you think you have become, it is your skills that get people’s attention in the market.
I am a devoted learner of life and business. My first job in an eCommerce store taught me a lot. I was usually the first to cross over the threshold at work and was no stranger to burning the midnight oil. I was so deeply immersed in the system that I wanted to learn everything happening in my industry, and everything else that was going on beyond my field of interest.
The reason behind, right from the time when I could identify a dog from a cat, and count my secret stash of chocolates, It was my dream to start a brand and make it a thriving success.
My interest took root in ecommerce and I wanted to build my own store and sell things online. I gathered experience in digital marketing, delved deep into how to drive massive traffic to my website, and started brainstorming ways to turn those visitors into clients!
My journey began with a website, a graphic designer, and a customer agent who was my friend. In the earliest days of our fellowship, we whiled away the time playing checkers because we received no orders. The day of deliverance arrived at last when we got our first order. Although it was a small value order, I was over myself with joy. In fact, everybody was excited to get the ball rolling at last.
Since I considered myself rather a newbie back then, I became the jack of all trades, getting my feet wet in everything, failing continuously in the effort to juggle multiple facets simultaneously, and learning from it. Which was certainly a bad decision, because our time on this planet is numbered, and in that time, we need to eke out a decent living, make an impact, and die happily.
But, as they say, life is not all rainbows and flowers. In life, everything is defined by moments. In some moments we succeed, and in some moments, we learn. Failure is inevitable. but I believe in taking risks & sharing my knowledge with others.
So, here are the lifelong lessons which I learned along the way in pursuing my business idea.
This is one form of creative visualization that I have consistently capitalized on to achieve the impossible. The second stage of visualization is to be more creative with your mind's eye. Going outright wild with it. Here you need to envisage the bigger picture in your mind. If you can portray your grand success in your mind, you will be able to achieve it soon.
Instead of squandering your energy on Pokémon and other such distractions, use your imagination. We’re all blessed with a beautiful mind that can create incredible things.
When I first launched my website, I got the idea in my head to jump into the social media realm on my own. So, instead of hiring an agency, I invested my time and efforts in watching YouTube videos. These courses helped me with garnering a basic understanding of social media and I was able to jump-start the brand.
After the initial success, competition got stiff and I was forced to look into the SEO. Again, I invested three whole days on the internet, watching videos and tutorials, and learning various methods on different forums.
If you invest time in something, you get results. And once again, my brand was able to stay afloat in the competition.
One of the best lessons I ever learned is that the world absolutely needs you. It wants you to be YOURSELF and be truly unique. And it most certainly doesn’t want you to sit on your butt and waste your talents. Be yourself and like anything, learn from the experts, who are succeeding at creating beautiful, inspiring messages on social media.
Gary V in his book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, talks about doing two things for the customer before asking them to reciprocate a favor. Offer something. Offer something different. Ask for a favor. Repeat. Once you meet more people, you’ll keep learning and growing. And you’ll gain allies and fans of your own who will help you build your brand.
Eliminate time wasters and focus on executing your ideas. In your business, try different strategies. Some will work. Some will not. But, real success comes from failing with consistency. When hiring anyone in Google, they must mention more than one incidence of failure on their resumes, which goes a long way towards providing a testament to their courage and how they dealt with adversity and came out stronger.
1. Spend Time in Creative Imagination
“Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” ~ Albert Einstein There is so much talk about mindfulness and meditation. But people find it difficult to maintain focus while they ruminate. The best way to meditate is to solicit a place of blissful solitude, close your eyes, and lose yourself in a higher dimension. Now, use the power of silence to immerse yourself in the taste of success and feel the sweet savor of accomplishment tantalize your tongue. Imagine your website receiving record traffic on that day. Customers place an order on your website and feel happy about it. You are delivering orders with ease and your bank account is adding figures by the day.
This is one form of creative visualization that I have consistently capitalized on to achieve the impossible. The second stage of visualization is to be more creative with your mind's eye. Going outright wild with it. Here you need to envisage the bigger picture in your mind. If you can portray your grand success in your mind, you will be able to achieve it soon.
Instead of squandering your energy on Pokémon and other such distractions, use your imagination. We’re all blessed with a beautiful mind that can create incredible things.
2. Take Online Courses for Free
This goes back to the idea of gleaning knowledge for the sake of gaining skills. No matter how accomplished you become in any field, there will always be new developments and things that you are oblivious to. The good news is that there are tons of online courses that you can jump on free of cost, and get drilled in without spending a dime. There are myriad great course offerings as well, such as Udemy and Coursera, they are offering a wealth of priceless courses at a very limited cost.
When I first launched my website, I got the idea in my head to jump into the social media realm on my own. So, instead of hiring an agency, I invested my time and efforts in watching YouTube videos. These courses helped me with garnering a basic understanding of social media and I was able to jump-start the brand.
After the initial success, competition got stiff and I was forced to look into the SEO. Again, I invested three whole days on the internet, watching videos and tutorials, and learning various methods on different forums.
If you invest time in something, you get results. And once again, my brand was able to stay afloat in the competition.
3. Mastering Social Media Marketing
If you are willing to generate sales and expand your reach, you need to ace your social media marketing game. There is tough competition out there, and if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition, you need to reach out to the maximum people and get yourself heard. One of the lessons I learned is that the ‘world needs you. Despite all the competition out there, there is still room for your brand. Develop a social media strategy around some core values. Be authentic, be passionate, and be user-friendly to your customers.
One of the best lessons I ever learned is that the world absolutely needs you. It wants you to be YOURSELF and be truly unique. And it most certainly doesn’t want you to sit on your butt and waste your talents. Be yourself and like anything, learn from the experts, who are succeeding at creating beautiful, inspiring messages on social media.
4. Learn the Art of Converting Connections into Raving Fans
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." ~African Proverb Independence is good. But you cannot build a startup on your own. You need to solicit help from others. Social Media is a sure-shot way to build strong relationships & foster bonds with your customers. You need to hear Seth Godin talk about building a tribe. This tribe will become your repertoire of raving fans, who will become your ultimate brand ambassadors. You don’t need a master’s degree in psychology to understand the desires of your customers. You just need to analyze data with the right tools that are available in the market.
Gary V in his book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, talks about doing two things for the customer before asking them to reciprocate a favor. Offer something. Offer something different. Ask for a favor. Repeat. Once you meet more people, you’ll keep learning and growing. And you’ll gain allies and fans of your own who will help you build your brand.
5. Focus on Execution
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~Sylvia Plath Persistence is the key to success. As an Entrepreneur, you will face tons of failures. But make sure that those failures don’t stop you from trying again. Think. Execute. Fail. Try again. Fail harder this time.
Eliminate time wasters and focus on executing your ideas. In your business, try different strategies. Some will work. Some will not. But, real success comes from failing with consistency. When hiring anyone in Google, they must mention more than one incidence of failure on their resumes, which goes a long way towards providing a testament to their courage and how they dealt with adversity and came out stronger.
If you treat your customers badly, offer poor UX, ignore their emails, or don’t meet their needs. They are more apt to bounce off your website and never come back. A study shows that 60% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience. While another study suggests that 74% of marketers believe that customer experience alone greatly influences the willingness of a customer to be a loyal brand advocate.
Also Read: 
But the challenge here is… how to deliver an excellent customer experience.
The expectations of tech-savvy customers are rising at an exponential rate. They expect every interaction as the best experience they can have with any brand regardless of its size, type, and industry. Therefore, it’s high time for brands to invest their time, energy, efforts, and resources in cultivating a stellar customer experience.
Here are some effective strategies that help brands create an out-of-the-box customer experience strategy that will surely help improve customer satisfaction, reduce churn rate, and improve ROI. Let’s get into them!
Sephora – the fashion brand gives its customers an innovative and intuitive experience. You can get makeup tutorials and beauty tips if you converse with a Sephora chatbot on Kik. The virtual assistant also provides product reviews and ratings when you are shopping in a physical store.
O'Reilly Media is an American media company founded by Tim O'Reilly, which has been named “the Oracle of Silicon Valley” by Inc. Magazine and “The Trend Spotter” by WIRED.
The internationally recognized, multi-faceted company delivers online learning and publishes books and websites. The technology and business learning company runs many conferences in an attempt to motivate business owners to create more value for their customers. O'Reilly Media’s experts always strive to transform the world by spreading and amplifying the knowledge of innovators. You can learn about emerging technologies and business trends at O’Reilly Media and hone your entrepreneurial skills. O’Reilly’s Safari online platform offers live comprehensive training, videos, and books from more than 200 of the world’s best publishers.
Vinod Khosla is the founder of Khosla Ventures - a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that assists entrepreneurs in running technology-related businesses. He is a great entrepreneurship resource that is the hub of the latest insights about artificial intelligence, big data, leadership, marketing, product, sales, enterprise, and other important topics that can help small business owners launch and grow their businesses.
If you are looking to kick-start your restaurant business, the 
Sallie Krawcheck is the CEO of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women entrepreneurs, launched in 2016. The sole reason for Ellevest’s existence is to serve women’s needs by capitalizing on an algorithm that keeps women’s incomes and lifestyles in mind. The blog helps women entrepreneurs gain valuable insights on financial planning, investment tips, guides, and other important business strategies a woman might need to run her business successfully.
Eric Ries is an American entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, ‘The Lean Startup’. His blog, Startup Lesson Learned, is one of the finest entrepreneurship resources for small business owners that helps them navigate the choppy seas of launching a profitable business. Leveraging his out-of-the-box techniques and winner strategies, entrepreneurs can also come up with winning ideas to make their startups successful.
BizWarriors is a great platform for business owners, operated by two serial entrepreneurs, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren. The blog shares stellar tips and tricks for small business owners, the latest technology trends, effective business strategies, and useful information that enlighten entrepreneurs to stay ahead in this digital age.
Daymond John is a businessman, investor, author, and motivational speaker. His blog is abounding in the best practices and strategies that help business owners expand their brand reach, increase sales, promote their business, and other valuable pearls of wisdom that help them grow and take their venture to unprecedented heights of success.
Barbara Corcoran is a businesswoman, speaker, consultant, and investor. Her blog helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and salespeople learn about the how-to’s of building a successful business. She shares team-building tips, the latest business trends, and essential guides on how entrepreneurs can stay on the right track, in addition to useful snippets that almost every business person is keen to learn about.
Do you want to know what put Zuckerberg to the top of the echelons, and different from the rest? What traits does he possess that separate him from those he has long crossed over? How has he successfully crafted a billion-dollar empire for himself?
Also Read: 
Here we have selected a few people who cannot get enough of traveling and have come up with stellar blogs for helping travelers and entrepreneurs experience cultures across the universe by just taking out a little bit of time from their busy schedules.
Also Read: 
Burger King has creatively leveraged photos of restaurant fires in its creative marketing campaign. The campaign “Flame Grilled since 1954” shows an unbelievable series of print ads, portraying real-life emergency scenes of actual Burger King Restaurants at times when it caught fire. The brand wanted to convey the message that no matter what the situation is, they always flame-grill their burgers, even amid disastrous upheavals.
Cameron Conrad, CEO of KonSocial, has shared his experience with diversity in the business.
“Since getting into drop shipping, I could work from anywhere at any time and earned the freedom of turning my useless free time into unconditional profit. Over a short period, I've managed to build, scale, and sell multiple 6-figure drop shipping stores and produce powerful results.”
The year 2018 will bring along more eCommerce-based entrepreneurial opportunities to the marketplace.
There is also a new breed of businesses, for instance, Cointal, a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange that is helping consumers purchase products in countries that currently don’t offer digital services. Consumers can buy and sell coins via a simple web interface. This allows engagement and helps business owners create a loyal community in exchange for some bounty and time.
You can expect more startups soon that will do crowdfunding with blockchain technology.
Take The Deep End as an example. This web consulting and internet marketing agency used a cinemagraph on their landing page to convey their brand message and a sense of professionalism and intelligence, by portraying a man in glasses at work on his laptop, with a subtle backdrop of a bookshelf behind him. This is when you notice a subtle movement; a reflection of a moving train glinting off the window glass. This unique framing is a smart play on “the train of thought” and keeps the audience riveted!
Similarly, Weltrade’s homepage has also made a classy use of cinematography. As you hover over the models in the hero image, they subtly come to life, completing a chic, formidable setting.
Adding cinemagraphs to your landing pages is indeed a worthwhile option to coax visitors into checking out the actual contents of your website.
If you peruse through the website of Tiffany & Co., the brand has leveraged a cinemagraph on their product store page to showcase their Rubedo metal collection. The striking image of a gorgeous woman standing in the open air, with her hair whipping in the air, instantly grabs the eye. This is when your eye flits from her waves to the scintillating neckpiece she is sporting over a chic plunging neckline. The neckpiece is subtly swinging about her back, perhaps caught in a gust of wind, and keeps you hooked in its glamor.
E-commerce businesses can also leverage the power of cinematography and showcase their products with a bit of motion. Look at this 
Cinemagraphs are also a great option for your restaurant business to showcase the details of dish preparation by using a more interactive image series. The dripping of a sauce from a succulent-looking burger, or tendrils of steam wafting off from a cup of coffee, remind users of their dining experience and whet their appetite.
Using the right visual elements on your About page can help convince your future clients and customers about your expertise. Adding a cinemagraph of your entire team can help you earn their trust. The human mind can remember and recognize faces. Using cinemagraphs of your team along with the complete bio and their names can work best for your prospects.
You can also use moving testimonials to build customer trust and show potential customers a positive brand history. In addition, you can leverage behind-the-scenes of your workplace to flaunt your future clients how the magic happens.
Bitcoin is the most popular payment option that many eCommerce websites, airline company websites, and other online stores are using these days. This trend is not going anywhere anytime soon, and will consistently mature to bring a massive change in the financial sector. Entrepreneurs who are looking for a bright future should welcome it with open arms. Some major retailers are hopping on the cryptocurrency trend bandwagon and are planning to issue their own secure currency in 2018.
2018 is going to see artificial intelligence become smarter, more improved, and personalized. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will penetrate further into our lives and be incorporated into a more diverse range of applications. AI is expected to make an appearance on almost every new platform, app, or digital device and more likely take on new and diversified roles.
The mobile game Pokémon Go is one of the most remarkable digital developments in 2016 that has taken the world by storm and made many brands take notice and invest hugely in augmented reality entertainment. With the advent of augmented reality glasses, brands are now able to offer a more personalized shopping experience as well. Brands in the future will create more customized AR experiences that will allow a user to try a product without actually physically touching it.
Also Read: 
Smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, exploded in popularity in 2017. They are only going to gain more traction in 2018. People have gotten used to talking to smart voice assistants because digital assistants will help users perform their daily tasks in a more hassle-free manner. We can expect to see more brands experiment with this burgeoning development.
5G internet connection is 10x faster than 4G, making it even better than most available internet services. In 2018, 
In 2018, more and more companies are expected to invest in developing their own consumer-facing chatbots to communicate with their customers and provide excellent customer service. These advanced bots rely on artificial intelligence to provide interactive and highly personalized user experiences. Brands across every industry such as restaurants, travel, real estate, and eCommerce are planning to develop custom bots in 2018 for better customer support, to improve their sales performance, and to increase their marketing ROI.
The immense integration of technology into our everyday lives has made it necessary for brands of all types and sizes to stay aware of all the latest tech trends in order to address the demands of consumers and stay ahead of the curve in the crowded market.
L.L.Bean has decided to incorporate a friendly tone in their emails to pique the curiosity of their inactive subscribers. While their dormant members may have missed a lot by not keeping up, the Email reassures them that they still have time to catch up. Considering that most people may not want to be bugged by a constant stream of Emails. They also offer their subscribers other ways of connecting with them, such as Twitter and Facebook. The wander-lust-inducing picture in the Email also serves to create interest in their outdoor gear.
This is another great example of a re-engagement email which shows a unique yet creative way of knowing your target audience. Urban Outfitters used a format that perfectly caters to a generation that loves texting. This way, the brand succeeded in capturing the attention of its readers. The format is easy to comprehend and encourages their subscribers to read on and respond. It perfectly suits their communication style. Phrases such as “come back” and “miss you” in the subject line can resonate with your audience and make them feel special.
Pinkberry came up with a creative idea of re-engaging their subscribers and incentivizing them by offering a free product, a sweet seduction to be sure. They used the term “miss you” to make their readers feel emotionally connected. After all, there’s nothing like a free froyo to say “Welcome back bro”!
Grammarly used an interesting way to re-engage its inactive subscribers by giving them a badge called a “Wrinkle in Time badge”. They used a persuasive CTA button GO to encourage its users to click the button and use the service again. They also persuaded their readers to check their premium version and encouraged them to check the special price.
Habitat came up with a creative way to keep their email subscribers engaged and in the know at all times. They gave them the option to engage and encouraged them to connect on Facebook to stay abreast of their latest developments.
Who doesn’t love surprises? Surprises come with a lot of emotional baggage, ringing a distant bell and making us feel almost childlike again. Birch Tree has beautifully leveraged this sentiment in their re-engagement email by providing their subscribers with two amazing options which they can garner at subscription. What a rewarding way to re-engage!
Feelunique tries to win back its inactive subscribers by giving them a plethora of exciting offers. They offer their subscribers a chance to join their VIP shopping club and avail 10% off on every product for a lifetime. For subscribers, it’s rather impossible to resist these exciting offers.
Lowe’s sent a re-engagement email to capture the attention of their inactive subscribers by informing them that they have made some improvements in their products since they have been away. They have smartly highlighted how millions of satisfied members are using their services. They also incorporated social media buttons in the footer to create more engagement across multiple platforms as well.
Cross strives to win back its inactive subscribers by offering an exclusive discount of $10 on their next purchase. They have adorably humanized their brand with the “sniff sniff” microcopy. They tried to sway their subscribers by highlighting a message at the bottom of the copy training to their shoe donations, showing how they are bringing comfort to people in need.
