Building a brand gets you name recognition that translates into online searches, web site traffic, and conversions, right? Not in all cases. You may try to position yourself as one thing, but your target market is looking for something else. And it doesn't matter if you can fulfill that need, too, if your audience can't find you!
Gord Hotchkiss wrote an article for Search Engine Land that expresses the matter in terms of who owns the search page, or really controls the process. He focused on those running text ads in the search engines, but some of his points rang true for organic search results as well. If you're a marketer or advertiser who wants to differentiate your company from its competition, you're not going to like what you're about to read: depending upon how you go about it, you might be doing your organization more harm than good.
Hotchkiss used airlines as his example, but any competitive industry in which a large company known for certain advantages (or even a single advantage) casts a long shadow would serve. If this sounds anything like your industry, pay attention. Everyone who flies knows that Southwest competes on price more than any other airline – and what's more, price looms large in the minds of potential airline customers. Many airlines try to distinguish themselves on factors other than price, but they need to fly the same routes as Southwest, and they need to fly them at prices that won't make customers automatically choose Southwest instead.
Say that a searcher wants to find cheap airline fares to Phoenix. She types “discount plane tickets Phoenix” (or something similar) into her browser. She finds Southwest. Your airline flies to Phoenix. Does she find you? No. Why? Your marketing department is so focused on getting out the word that Your Brand Airlines is never late and has the best safety record in the industry, that it forgot to mention you also fly to Phoenix at prices that compare favorably to Southwest's. They're focused on branding your airline, but our hypothetical customer doesn't care that you're “not really about” discount airfares. Maybe if she knew about your safety and on-time record, she would care – but how is she going to find it when price is the first thing she's looking for? She won't – and you will have lost a customer.
Photo by Cubbie_n_Vegas; use permitted via Creative Commons license.
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