Branding your business is how you become more than just another face in the crowd. It?s through branding that Apple earned a market value of over $724 billion and one of the most loyal followings in the world. How do you go about building your brand?

5 Essential Branding Tools:

1. Social Media
   
   In 2015, marketers spent $8.3 billion on social media advertising. It wasn’t because they love Tweeting. 63% of millenials use social media to stay up-to-date on brands. Almost 90% of 18-29 year olds are on social media. Even adults 65 and older are getting on-board with 43% now online.
   
   If you?re not friends with Facebook and blogging bores you, consider hiring a social media marketing company for better online branding.
2. Search Engine Optimization: The inclination to ignore it is still strong. Do we really need to worry about how the search engines view us? Isn?t good content enough?
   
   Yes, you do need to worry about SEO strategy. Americans alone conduct 12 billion searches a year. Of all online interactions, 93% begin with a search engine.
   
   No, having good content is not enough. The first search result generated by Google has a click-through rate of 33%, whereas the tenth spot receives a measly 2.4% of traffic.
   
   Thinking you’ll just buy ads? Paid ads will put your name in front of consumers, helping you reach those 5-7 band impressions needed to be remembered. However, three-quarters of users ignore paid ads entirely.
   
   While your ad may help get your name out there, it won?t buy you much traffic. What will? SEO content marketing.
3. Content marketing is useful and relevant content provided to build customer rapport. It?s about branding first and selling product second.
   
   Consumers love content marketing. Most search engine users don?t go online solely to buy a watch; first they?re going to research the best watches available. Educate them on why they need your product or service first, then guide them to where to buy.
   
   Businesses should also love content marketing for branding: It costs 38% less than traditional marketing but generates three times as many leads. For two-thirds the cost you can have three times the profits.
   
   The trick to content creation is to remember viewers read 28% of the content on a webpage. To keep their attention, you have to hook them early. Images are a great way to draw viewers. Articles that have images receive 94% more traffic than those without.
   
4. Email marketing: the only digital marketing strategy that generates a higher return on investment than SEO. (The marketing strategy with the lowest ROI? Banner ads.) Despite having an ROI of $44 per dollar spent, less than 10% of companies have an email marketing team.
   
   Whether you choose to handle email marketing in-house or hire an email marketing company, remember this: Timing is critical. If your email isn?t opened in the first two days after being sent, the chances of it being read drop drastically. Avoid sending emails on weekends when open rates are noticeably lower.
5. Designing a website
   
   10 seconds. That?s all the time it takes for consumers to create an impression of your website and company.
   
   Those 10 seconds are critical to branding: 46% reported that a website?s design is their top criteria in gauging the integrity of a company.
   
   Err towards darker colors for more traffic, page views and time spent on the site.
   
   Location is also key. Viewers scan a webpage in an F shape, so put what you want them to see most on the top and left-hand side of the screen.
   
   Don?t forget to make it mobile-friendly, too. In 2014 mobile browsing exceeded desktop traffic.
   
   Sound daunting? Web development companies are a great aid in creating a professional website design.