How to Turn Your Product Catalog Into a Brand

ONE WITH THE FORCE

Star Wars is straight up stupid.

Crazy, isn’t it? How the tiniest phrase can instantly grab your attention. A form of reactionism(?) perhaps. Yet another fleeting stimulus to quell the insatiable Dom of Bore.

Perhaps you’ve seen past my soliloquial charade already, perhaps you’re hanging on my every word… If the latter happens to ring true, focus on one word: ‘Engagement’

When all is said and done, it all boils down to this.

Did I manage to garner your interest and engage you, my audience? If so, I have succeeded.

I have understood my audience well enough to form this amalgam of both topic & ‘genuine’ interest, and have managed to sneak in a little product placement now that we’ve gained solid ground.

And hey, maybe I didn’t. That’s fine too. Maybe calling Star Wars stupid – and meaning it – was the killing blow.

I chose to take that risk, as I choose to look at the results of that action.
Create, Target, Risk, Examine.

Your products are an extension of you. Of your brand (more on that later).

Place yourself in every piece of content you produce and Sell. Your. Self.

Find your Target Audience and the rest will come easily...

A MENTAL IMAGE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

...enough. The rest will come easily enough.

Finding your target audience is arguably the most important part of this whole shebang. However, nurturing this newly developed foundation is a different beast entirely.

Learn to treat all of your content in the same way you would any blog post, or twitter blurb. Insert yourself – your brand – into all the nooks and crannies of your blogs, product descriptions, bios, and start building the image you would like to exude.

Block-by-block, post-by-post, all of this starts to add up, eventually coming together to form this image of your product, your brand, of you, that your audience can resonate with.

This content strategy is always a long-term prospect. Don’t expect to publish three posts and suddenly become ‘Reddit King Pete’, or ‘My-Word-Is-Law Jackson’. Though, you shouldn’t be dissuaded either!

The initial content creation push is always the most common roadblock people face when it comes to the consistency that is required in order to brand themselves successfully. However, if you push through that initial slump and get your second wind, you’ll look back and understand how necessary it was to be consistent with both tone and frequency.

Time to put my money where my mouth is and offer you a mental image you can get behind.

Imagine your brand is this massive mosaic you’re building. Bit-by-bit, parchment-by-parchment, you’re slowly adding to the whole of something yet unfinished. You can kind of make out bits and pieces and the general image is faintly visible — but it’s still in the making.

Technically, this specific type of mosaic will never be finished as brands are constantly evolving beings of social metadata but once the foundation has been mosaic-ified, that’s it. Everything that comes after that is simply an addition to that which you have built.

TO CUT A LONG STORY SHORT….

Wow. Can you believe it’s taken [x] paragraphs to mention the good ol’ conversion funnel? I cannot fathom a marketing article without mention of our dearest friend.

Side Note: If you think about it, funnels are actually terrible metaphors for conversions. Literally everything, like 100% of anything that goes through a funnel, will pass through said funnel.

[Insert Funnel Photo]

Who came up with this concept? *Facepalm Emoji*

Metaphor-validity aside, your content plays a very large role in funneling these converters-to-be through the… well… funnel. I guess.
Too much, and you risk losing their focus. Too little, and issues of trust and authenticity crop up.
Omission, is one thing. Though it should not be confused with Intrigue. There is a very important difference between leaving stuff out on purpose & leaving stuff out on purpose.

For lack of better phrasing; Leaving stuff out without leaving stuff out can (if done correctly) not only enhance the product listing – but can even be used as a brand calling card, if you will.

STICK TO YOUR MARLON...
...Brand(o), that is.

When you think ‘Godfather’, you think GODFATHER. (assuming you’ve watched what is arguably the greatest trilogy of all time. If you have not, please immediately stop whatever it is you are doing and proceed to remedy this tragic ailment.)

Movie(s) aside, the importance of branding cannot be overstated. In Mathematical terms:

Understanding Your Audience + Selling Your Feeling = Compelling Branding

Building a successful & compelling brand is the culmination of everything we have discussed thus far. Approach your content in a way that sells your brand, not simply the product.

So, you tell me.

Is it simply Compelling Branding…

…Or is it An Offer You Can’t Refuse.