The clients we work with need significant help in improving marketing effectiveness.  While nearly all of them see measurable revenue growth as a result of the strategy and tactics that we help them implement, a recent client met with particularly impressive success – giant increases in organic search traffic, above-average conversion rates, huge ROAS on paid advertising, and unbelievable email open and click-through rates. Of course, this success was at least partly due to the team’s flawless execution of recommendations, the thing that empowered this client to realize such massive gains was the position it held within its industry.  Specifically, over the years, this client had become the definitive brand authority – the most well-known and trusted brand in their space.  Even though brand authority is not frequently talked about, it is actually one of the most powerful accelerants of growth, making all of your marketing efforts significantly more effective.  We will take this Mosaic Minute to discuss brand authority.  

What is brand authority? 

A simple way to think about brand authority is to identify the most well-known, trusted,  and influential company in your industry.   To become an authority, a company needs to be an unwavering presence that offers all stakeholders – from other competitors to buyers – valuable thought-leadership and the best educational insight with a best-in-class product to back it up.  A quick way to assess where your company stands in terms of authority relative to the other competitors in your space is to ask these 6 questions about your brand and then ask the same 6 questions about each of your top competitors: 

  1. How much web traffic does your company receive?
  2. How many media mentions has your company received in the past 6 months?
  3. Does your company consistently deliver the best and most educational content about your industry and solution category?
  4. If the media is looking to interview someone in your industry, do they turn to your company as an expert?
  5. Are other websites linking back to your content?
  6. How are your company’s reviews and NPS scores?

At Mosaic, we have a formal process for understanding a company’s authority relative to competitors, but even without that, this gut check will help you understand where your company stands.  Higher authority means it is easier for a company to win every growth battle. 

TL;DR

Having authority is absolutely essential for your company because it acts as a force multiplier on all of your growth efforts, but building authority can be challenging. Luckily, there are definitive steps you can take to start building your brand authority and even become the leader in your space. It will take time and effort but the return will be well worth the investment.