Your Brand Pinto Pony: The One Key To Your Brand
Your Business Pinto Pony Factor
When I was a kid we would go to the movies and watch westerns. I loved Red Ryder and Little Beaver, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and others.
And, sure enough, when I was eight and nine I focused on some horse in the movie and loved it every time that horse appeared in a scene. I was way into horses. I filled sketchbooks with sketches. I went riding every weekend on The Mesa on the wonderful and responsive Queenie. I did horse chores and loved every minute. Every year my Dad gave me a cowboy calendar on New Year's Eve. When I left the movie theater, the one undying memory was: the horse.
That’s why when, as an adult, I first heard the song Pinto Pony (Cover, Mary McCaslin), I resonated. Yep, whatever is happening in the big screen story, that pinto pony was my focus. I remembered.
PINTO PONY
(Paul Siebel)
(c) 1970 WB Music Corp
See him ride the pinto pony
Underneath the western sky
See him shoot the banker down
See them chase him out of town
Man I'd like to have that pinto pony.
See him kiss the seňorita
Underneath the Texas moon
See the posse closin' in
They got a special rope for him
Man I'd like to have that pinto pony.
See them shoot it out in the cantina
Down below the Rio Grande
ňıSee them hang him from a douglas fir
See the preacher take his silver spurs
Man I'd like to have that pinto pony.
Those lyrics tell one action packed story with a lot of drama, just what you want in a Western movie. But the narrator, just like I was when I was a kid, focuses on the pinto. Your business probably offers a number of products or a variety of services. What you want is the one pinto pony that captures your customer’s imagination and makes your business memorable. It’s your brand.
What’s Your Pinto Pony?
When someone arrives at your website or watches a video or sees a digital media post what’s the one thing they remember? The one thing they keep in their mind?
That’s your Pinto Pony Factor. That’s how your site visitors are bonded to your business. Know what your one focus element is and aim to keep it consistent. In order to differentiate your business from your competitors, you need to know that one element.
Use associated images to help strengthen that message.
Incorporate keywords and associated relevant vocabulary in your content
What you are doing is creating your brand in the eyes of customers and your recognizable entity for search engines.
Think of some big brands:
Apple
Google
Microsoft
Coca-Cola
IBM
Those are the top 5 brands in the world according to Interbrand and Forbes. You know immediately what’s in your head when you think of these companies. Aim for that same type of characteristic understanding of your brand.
To kickstart your thinking, read your company mission statement. Make a list of the key concepts in that document. Use that list as signposts you can use whenever you talk about your business. Collect words associated with those key concepts with tools like a good thesaurus, a reverse dictionary, and keyword research to discover related keywords.
Then ask the one question David Amerland suggests in SEO Help: 20 Semantic Search Steps That Will Help Your Business Grow (p. 157)
What is the one word that totally describes your company and brand?
You may be surprised that it may take you several days to arrive at the right one word. Be patient, let the words percolate in your head.
Monitor Your Brand
Once you have established that one differentiating factor, whatever you think your brand is or what you want it to be, you need to check. It may not be what you think.
Regularly monitor the keywords associated with your business to ascertain that the right concept is associated with your business. Skilled SEO practitioner, Omi Sido says, the way the outside world sees you is your external brand.
Your branding is eventually what other people say about you, no matter what you think….Your brand is what other people are whispering about you when you are not in the room.
Round Up Your Brand Identity Clues
Whether your business is burgeoning or established your Pinto Pony Factor will characterize the way customers and potential customers think of your business and how they will continue to resonate with what your business offers.
To discover how others see your brand, do these three quick searches to reveal the keywords associated with your brand.
Google Search Console (Analytics)
On the Search Console dashboard scroll down on the left to Search Traffic. The first subheading is Search Analytics. Here you will find a list of the query search terms people used to arrive at your site.
If those query search terms reflect your business vision, your brand image is clear.
Google Keyword Planner
Second, enter your domain on Google Keyword Planner to see what keywords are associated with your business.
SEMrush
Enter your domain on SEMrush to discover an entirely different set of keywords associated with your brand.
These three searches will give you an overview of how your brand is perceived by keywords found within your site, by queries that result in your brand, and by terms associated with your brand. If they are all in alignment, your message is clear. Your brand has that pinto pony that differentiates your business from your competitors.
Train Your Content
If you find that the keywords currently associated with your brand do not reflect what you want about your brand, then take some time to build key concepts on your website and in the posts you share on social media and elsewhere to align your content to reflect the very core essence of your business. Aim for that one word that reflects your concept, find related phrases, and sprinkle them throughout your content. Then your site visitors will say, Man, I'd like to have that pinto pony.
Zara Altair
May 11, 2016
