When you’re launching a business it’s important to build
your brand. But what does that really mean?
Your brand is your
business – it should convey your USP – unique selling proposition. It’s what makes your business unique,
recognizable, and accepted in the marketplace.
And despite what many think, building a brand doesn’t take a
lot of money. If you’re a small business
and have little to no budget, there are some creatively strategic ways to set
yourself apart from the pack, establish your brand as well as increase
visibility, bonding and sales.
Here’s some food for thought…
Name and Image.
Make sure your name clearly reflects what you do. Especially with the Internet,
business names are incorporated into your domain (or URL), so a name that is
synergistic to what your business actually does and is keyword rich will help
with search engine marketing. Your name should also be easy to understand not
using obscure words, lay jargon or nomenclatures. There’s nothing worse than a business name that
is not search engine or user friendly. If
you chose to pick a ‘creatively challenging’ name, make sure from a search and
human reader perspective, that your tag line, opening home page copy and meta
data all reflect clearly what you do and your related keywords. Lastly, your
name should have a long shelf life.
This just means it shouldn’t be tied to a specific
point in time that will ‘date’ it or make it seem obsolete.
Your image or logo should also clearly portray who you are
in a symbol or graphic. It should be eye-catching and be on most every
marketing you have – website, email auto signature, letterhead, PowerPoint
slides, business cards, etc.
Branding tip! When it comes to banner advertising, aside
from your primary mission of the campaign, which may be for leads or sales, it’s
a good idea to have your name and logo somewhere on the banner ad itself
(perhaps lower right corner) for a secondary goal of branding. Your banner is
going to be rotating on many websites and in networks getting perhaps hundreds
of thousands of eyeballs … that exposure shouldn’t be wasted.
Recognition. You
want to place your name, logo, tag line and other information about your biz in
front of your target audience. This
means placing content (editorial material) and promotional material in places
where your audience congregates.
Branding tip! Have a cost effective multi-channel marketing plan.
Do your research, surf the web and note
the websites, forums, and other locations your target audience frequents. Then,
depending on each location, when applicable, upload banner ads (with your logo),
relevant content, video snippets, and articles that reflect your company in a
snapshot. For offline locations, again,
go to specific locations where your ideal prospect would visit, then post
hardcopy marketing pieces. This is old
school, grassroots marketing, but it works for local branding and even is good
for business development with local businesses. The marketing could be in the
form of posters, tri-folds, business cards, and hand outs. Direct mail is another great venue that
doesn’t have to be expensive. Your most expensive items will be your list
rental costs and postage. You can reduce
list rental by refining your list to ‘selects’ based on zip code(s) and your postage costs can be reduced if you
pick something simple like a 6x9 postcard mailer.
Loyalty. Leverage
social media. This may take a little time for word of mouth to spread, but if
you talk to your audience, not at them, viral marketing start to happen. Encourage
friends, followers and fans to forward to friends and share news. Post exciting pictures. Engage with
readers. Incent and reward your audience
with special ‘social marketing’ only offers.
Ask for comments and interact.
This may seem like a waste of time but engaging with your prospects, and
building and cultivating the relationship creates bonding and brand loyalty. It
basically turns strangers into friends, friends into customers, customers into
multi-buyers, and multi-buyers into advocates.
And soon your advocates will be marketing your brand for you (for
free!).
Buzz. It’s
important when building your brand to cast a wide net and increase market
visibility and
exposure. Free press releases
are a great way to complement your initiatives. You can create a schedule for
continuity and presence, to have a free press release go out two times a
month. These releases should be
newsworthy and have useful information.
They should also be keyword rich (which will help drive targeted traffic
back to your website) and link back to the longer release on your website (i.e.
Press Room). Some free press release services I like are PRlog.org and
Free-press-release.com. For breakthrough
news or company milestones, you may want to compliment your free release with a
paid release. There are many online
press release distribution companies that have cost-effective rates. Some that I like are PRweb.com and
PRbuzz.com.
Branding tip! Don’t’ forget to upload excerpts (headline/synopsis)
of your release to social marketing and bookmarking sites like Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Stumble Upon, and more linking back to your ‘Press
Room’ for added distribution and encourage website visits.
Quality. Your
brand isn’t worth anything if your product or service isn’t of high-quality. Make sure you offer a good, solid product or service.
Do your surveillance, see what’s going on in the market place with your
competitors – with product, pricing, customer service, guarantees – and be a
leader, not laggard. Unfortunately, good reviews don’t spread as fast as bad
ones, so make sure to deal with displeased customers promptly and swiftly offer
to do them right by a ‘comp’ or other gesture of goodwill. Do periodic, brief,
customer surveys. These should be short (10 questions or less), easy (online)
and have incentive for participation (i.e. freebie). The data obtained from surveys are invaluable
for customer service, product development and more.
Branding
tip! Encourage customers to share their success
stories. Solicit for customer
testimonials and feedback. There’s nothing more powerful than a great
testimonial and customer advocates touting your business. With your customers’ permission,
you can republish these on your website and other marketing material.
Website. Make sure your website is conducive for
branding (amongst other business goals).
As mentioned above, have an area for customer testimonials. Also, have
visual and contextual features that reinforce your brand. For example, on the
top of your home page have your name, logo, slogan or tag line. Include a personal welcome message to your
visitors. Even better, if you have a
spokesperson, figure head or guru that is part of your ‘brand’, include a picture of that person so
visitors can connect a name with a face. If your brand is specific to a
product, like a publication (book, newsletter, magazine), have a thumbnail image
of that publication on your home page to make it more recognizable in the
marketplace.
Branding tip! Have a social media/bookmarking icon or ‘favicon’.
Create a social bookmarking and website bookmarking icon so visitors can quickly,
visually and easily identify your business in their list other bookmarked sites. A favicon is similar as a bookmark icon, but
a favicon also appears in the website browser window. For example,
if you go to MSN.com, you’ll see their favicon (multicolored butterfly) next to
their URL address in the browser window.
Your icon should encapsulate your business and standout. Use color, font
and symbols to your advantage. For more information
on creating a bookmarking icon, read this.
Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll need
patience. And there may be some trial
and error along the way. Depending on
your niche, you may even be competing with others that have a strong foothold
in the market. But hopefully these tips will
help give your brand a boost.
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