Is your small business getting crushed by bigger brand names? Are you tired of trying to improve your Google ranking and attract more customers?
Brand development is key for businesses of every size; it’s just that larger firms have a distinct advantage. They have more money for advertising, better name recognition, and more customers. How can you fight against that kind of power?
It is possible to stand out in a crowd, even if your business only has a few employees. Sticking to an effective branding strategy is vital, and can help businesses become more visible to their target audiences.
Jump ahead to:
Who Is Your Target Audience?
Customers prefer to buy from brands that they know and trust. In the digital retail era, companies have more options for marketing and advertising.
Online ad campaigns can be tailored in dozens of ways: location, age, gender, and shopping habits. You can start with a branding campaign, also known as an “impressions” campaign. Just a few quick ads to get your business name in front of potential clients.
Brand development is most effective when you know your target audience very well. Are they professionals or students? What is their annual income? Are they women or men?
Developing a brand starts with defining and refining your target audience. Take the time and do some market research. Put together test panels to see people’s reactions and monitor their interest.
The great thing about brand development in the digital retail era is that you don’t have to spend much on advertising. You might want to mount a printed ad campaign at some point, but there is no reason to do so in the beginning.
Reaching Out to Your Core Demographic
Once you know who your target audience is, you can start to reach out to them. You don’t have to mimic larger brands, but you do need to develop a consistent branding image and message.
Conventional brand building strategy, for example, may say to use pink when you’re marketing to women and teenage girls. Once you do your market research, you might find that your audience is really tired of pink. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you might have to be creative to stand out from your competitors.
Most importantly, you want to develop consistency among your printed messages, online emails and advertisements, and brand packaging. Ideally, you should start with a meaningful, memorable logo that represents your brand.
While you want your logo to be original and interesting, make sure that you’re not overdesigning your brand’s message. Sometimes a simple logo is best. You might lose customers’ interest if they can’t pronounce your business’s name or if the logo is hard to read.
If you’re undecided about a logo and tagline for your impressions campaign, you can run an A/B test to see which is more effective. Advertising and marketing software can also help you organize your website according to effective, highly-searched keywords.
Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
There are more than 5 million small businesses in the U.S., and the retail market is expected to top $2 trillion in the next few years. If your small business doesn’t have an established web presence, now is the time to start.
While you’re developing a brand, you always want to make sure that your website is optimized for SEO. SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of organizing your website according to keywords and search terms. The higher your business ranks on Google, the more business you will get.
It might seem overwhelming, but there are companies that can help you with digital marketing services and SEO. They will sit down with you and review your long-term goals, organizing a digital advertising campaign that will help your brand development.
It’s important to realize that it may take a few weeks to start seeing progress with your Google rankings. Larger brands will probably continue to dominate the top spots, but there is room to advance for even the smallest brands.
One thing that you can do is to build up your social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter engage millions of people every day. If you run a few advertisements and create a group that people can join, you should be able to build up to a few thousand followers in less than a year.
Finding the right way to attract and retain customers is an ongoing process. If you’re not happy with the results right away, continue to optimize your website and ad campaigns.
More Tips for Effective Branding Strategy
Overall, the most important thing you can do is to keep reaching out to your target audience. After you do some market research, you may be surprised to find that your core demographic isn’t exactly what you thought it was.
You may find that you appeal to a younger audience than you thought, or that your brand is popular in another country. Nowadays, shoppers aren’t limited by geography: you may have an untapped market somewhere else in the world.
Luckily, you can target your advertising by geographic location. Branding strategy experts can help you craft effective advertisements and innovative taglines. Don’t feel like you’re in this alone: there are always professionals waiting to drive your brand to success.
If you have an established brand but feel that you’ve gone stagnant, try some creative branding ideas. Run a small giveaway on social media, asking your followers to share your posts for a chance to win. See if your local television station or newspaper will do a story about your business.
Work with the Pros
We design branded websites, logos, and advertising campaigns. We can also help you build email lists, develop your contacts, and convert warm leads into sales. Our experts are committed to helping you improve your conversion rates and generate long-term, loyal customers.
No matter what size your budget is, we can help. Please send us an email and we can create an effective branding strategy for your business.
This post was published by Donald Kim at Optimized Webmedia. Optimized Webmedia is a customer centric, 360° Digital Marketing agency, specializing in SEO, Google Ads PPC, Content Writing, Social Media Marketing, and Website Design. To learn how Optimized Webmedia can help optimize your website to attract more visitors, book a free consultation and ask for our free SEO Site Audit.