With an increasing amount of competition, properly marketing your brand is now more important than ever
According to a House of Commons briefing paper, there were 5.7 million businesses in the UK in 2017, up by four percent compared to the previous year. But with 99 percent of businesses either small or medium sized, getting noticed and standing out is harder than ever before.
Thankfully, the marketing resources a business has at its disposal are extremely broad, giving every entrepreneur or enterprise the opportunity to target and secure those all-important customers.
So, regardless of whether you specialize in handmade jewelry, recruitment consulting, or innovative spray painting, here’s how to market for your brand.
- Define your brand
First of all, you should define your brand by creating a unique message and voice, which is often determined by your mission, industry, and audience. For example, you could be conversational and friendly or informative and formal.
By defining your brand, you’ll be able to better target clientele and give them an insight into what you stand for. Connecting with customers on an emotional level is increasingly important, as purchase decisions are often based on trust.
- Get customers on your side
When defining your brand, conducting some customer research is crucial, as you’ll need to know who you are speaking to. But taking the time to discover your audience’s location, demographics, behaviour, and other characteristics will pay dividends in the future too.
With a deeper understanding of your customer base, you can speak directly to their individual needs. In turn, you’ll be able to leverage their interests and influence to build an even stronger identity.
- Make your employees brand ambassadors
Do not underestimate the potential of employee advocacy. In a survey of 588 professionals conducted by Hinge Research Institute and Social Media today, 79 percent of businesses benefited from better visibility thanks to employee engagement on social media.
Other advantages include increased brand recognition, increased web traffic, improved brand loyalty, and better search engine rankings. Finally, employee advocacy can encourage customers to become advocates too, reinforcing your brand’s positive, people-orientated image.
- Learn from and leverage your competitors
The comprehensive spectrum of marketing can feel incredibly overwhelming, especially if you’ve got limited resources to play with. But this is where learning from and leveraging your competitors makes perfect sense…
In fact, rival companies in your industry will have done much of the hard work already. All you need to do is monitor their activity, build on their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses. Just remember to differentiate yourself with messaging that’s distinctive.
- Keep marketing your brand with honesty and consistency
Publicizing and promoting your brand is an ongoing process, which doesn’t stop as soon as you start witnessing success in the marketplace. So, keep the wheels turning in everything you do, from offline materials such as business cards to online platforms like your website and social media channels.
All the while, remain honest with your messaging and consistent with your voice. Otherwise, it won’t take long for customers to see through your efforts as just another money grab.
Written by: Jessica Foreman, freelance writer
