5 Things you Must know about Branding your Small Business

5 Things You Must Know about Branding Your Small Business

Branding a business and that took a small one is quite a daunting task. It is however doable with some forethought and consistency. With some tips you can establish your brand in the market and make your own space.

Knowing Your Customer:  Customer is the king in the business circle and everyone in the scheme of things demand plug and play facilities. The world has moved beyond logo and designs. You need to build relationships with your customer. This is possible when you are fully aware of what they need and can you serve them on a platter. As a businessman you need to understand what they purchase, why they purchase and how they purchase. Which channels they use to peek into businesses similar to that of yours.

Zero in to your niche audience the ones who benefit the most from what you offer. Customize your brand and services to this niche segment to focus on them primarily rather than trying to create an appeal at once on several quarters. As your business grows and enter into new markets you will for sure carve out more niche sectors which will need to be tapped. When you begin marketing for your niches then you can design value propositions with each target market in mind and address their distinct needs.

Knowing Yourself:   First step begins by knowing yourself and your product. What inspired you to create the business? Is there anything new that you are bringing on the table for your customers that would compel the audience to look into the product and go ahead to buy them? Your brand must sell itself. You can make it by offering the simplest solution for a common problem which ails a customer or you are offering something unique not available in the market. Whatever it may be it is that something vital that you have to offer for your potential customers. Focus on that and deliver the best, customers will make a beeline for you in the long run.

Communicating Effectively:  As people say, “first impression is the last impression”, it is very important to get the first step right. The product may or may not be good but hallmark of good salesperson is that they turn the ordinary into extraordinary through their tongue. In the process your customer himself will start advocating your product just because he fell in love with you in the first place. So open communication always helps you in your business and the world starts taking notice of your company. Investing time and energy into fostering long-lasting relationships with your customers will pay you rich dividends in future.

3. Communicating Effectively

Design to Impress:  A well designed product sells on its own since appearance counts. The style and design of your logo, headline, catchy phrases, color, and so on must be unique, lend an aesthetic appeal and touch the heart of the masses. Such products give a surety to your customer that it won’t go wrong. This reinforces the value of your product in the mind of your customer and eventually builds the brand. You need to turn your customer into a fan of your product with the best designed e-mailers, brochures, advertisements, websites, etc.

Consistency:  More often than not you know what your favourite drink tastes like, you know what the smell of the scent that you use every day, and you can make out what the phone which you ordered online looks like. This is made possible due to the familiarity and consistency of products such as these which you use regularly. In the same way it is utmost important that the product you wish to sell is known to the audience and you are consistent with it. Without consistency your product will not be recognized and profits won’t come to you. So build up on the great array of designs that you have come up with for your product and deliver them on a platter for your customer. Your research, design and message consistency determines your success besides building long-lasting and profitable relationships and the game begins with your website, the front-end of your business.

content marketing strategy

9 Content Marketing Ideas for Success!

Content Marketing has evolved over the years, and attempts to woo future customers with traditional self-praising ads are just not adequate. Customers want to know more about your product, interact with you, and see if they are getting value. It is only then, they will become advocates of your brand and buy your products and services. Thus, content marketing is a means of achieving this trust and building a long lasting relationship.

Make a top 20 list

You can start off by making a ‘Top-20’ listing; search the web for top Bloggers, Tweeters and Instagram influencers, for your particular field. You can provide detailed information about these 20 people and what is so special about them. Let the audience know why you are so interested in their blog. Be genuine and make it interesting. You may also tag these influencers, in your postings. Some of these influencers may even re-tweet you, thus giving a lot of traffic back to your website and even improving its SEO value.

Answer industry specific questions

Content writing is all about providing value. People are always on the lookout for valuable information. You can answer various doubts pertaining to your industry via forums like Quora as well as your own blog. People will thus, get to know you by reading your answers and this helps you gain the reputation of being an expert in your chosen field.

Let the world know your Team

Interview your own team member. Let the audience know what an average day in the office, feels like. Talk about their aspirations, dreams, life and current affairs. Your fans and visitors on social media, as well as your blog, will realize that they are not dealing with machines, but human beings.

Reveal your new products (sneak peek)

Reveal your new products to your audience first! They will feel special by your gesture and love to be the first ones to start the buzz.

Make a tutorial video about your product

Make a video about how your product is used. Not every product needs a tutorial for usage instructions, as people will usually be familiar with them. However, if it is a new and revolutionary product, about to take the market by storm, it doesn’t hurt to show the world how it actually works. And the video will definitely generate a buzz!

Have a 50% OFF sale

Nothing sounds dearer to the human ears than hearing someone say “FREE” OR “50% off”. So capitalize on these magical words, and announce a 50% sale. Also make sure it is for not more than 3 days; create a sense of urgency! Make a nice graphic, put it on your website and watch the magic happen!

Hold a contest

Outside of a 50% sale, the other word which generates an equal amount of interest is “Contest”. Plan a contest for your fans. It may be as simple as taking a ‘Selfie’ with your product and posting it on social media. You may use the services of Gleam, in order to increase the chance of your contest being shared and becoming viral.

Participate at an event and write about it

 People love to hear valuable tips as well as experiences of others in the same field; you may include such topics to make your content writing all the more interesting. For example, if you were at a trade show, you may re-collect your experiences there and write a blog about the whole trade show participation. You may even compose a point wise checklist of the “Do’s and don’ts about trade show participation”.

Share the inspiring story of how you became an entrepreneur

People crave for inspiration, and if it is coming from people of their own field – then there is nothing like it! Share your story and tell the audience about what inspired you to start off on your own. Tell them about the difficulties you faced and how you overcame them to setup your own business. Let them know, what it takes for a business to succeed.

These are the different ways in which you can use content marketing to provide value as well as market your products and services.

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Content Marketing for your Business

There are many ways to market a business. The writing good content is just one of them. If done correctly, it has the potential to single-handedly generate more leads.     

TYPES of content

A good content marketing strategy is one of the many effective ways of promoting a business. Every  effective content marketing strategy often involves various types of content or blog postings.  Below is a list of content marketing examples which are an essential component of your content strategy.

Graphics and Information

Infographics are found everywhere on the web. It is nothing but a combination of relevant images and text put together. Pictures combined with text carry more impact than just text. Images again can be classified into at least 7 types:

TYPES of content-quote post

  1. Quote Text

You can easily make images around text quotes which are present in your blog. You may otherwise use relevant quotes.

  1. Graphs and Statistics

People just love statistics and charts. They are a quickfire way to convey information, as opposed to writing an article on the same. The saying, “A picture is worth a worth a thousand words” definitely holds good here.

  1. Meme Images

This is another interesting image type. This usually consists of a scene taken from a famous movie, with the actor in a picture, saying a famous dialogue, that is tweaked to validate the point you are making.

  1. Screenshots

There is nothing close to screenshots, especially when you are explaining something to your audience. If you are a web design, graphic art, DIY, or even games website – there is no better way of getting your point across – other than a screenshot. This will invite the audience to see through your eyes and resonate with what you are talking about.

  1. Custom Graphics

There is nothing better than custom photos when it comes to attracting your audience to your products. For e.g. if you are a restaurant, you may share restaurant interior pictures with relevant description. You may also share pictures of menu items along with their names and ingredients. If you are selling T-Shirts or clothes, the audience obviously doesn’t need Stock photos. They specifically desire photos of your product.

  1. Humorous Images

Photos are given a suitable caption to achieve humorous results and imminent virility. Funny pictures again have a tendency to go viral.  Apart from virility, a dash of humour can actually be humanising; you will be perceived as approachable human beings and not just any other business. These posts can also be shared on twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google plus, apart from your blog.

Thus, we can have different types of image postings as part of our content marketing plan or blog to make it more interesting.

TYPES of content-video

Great Videos

Videos are definitely very popular amongst internet users. Every day, about 4 billion videos is watched on YouTube. It has a following of 1 billion people. A motion video expresses a concept more beautifully and when it is combined with voice over and music, it has the ability to inspire people to act on it. You may upload the video to Vimeo, YouTube or Dailymotion. There are again, different types of videos which may add variety to your blog:

  1. Explainer Video: This video can also be put on your home page, apart from your blog. People love to see introductory videos about your business, your products and services, rather than having to read about it by clicking 3 – 4 different links. This video sets up your value and proposition; the viewer will gauge you based on your video, so make sure it is done professionally.
  1. Product Demo: You may have a short product demo made for your latest products. Many companies have seen a surge in sales, thus using product videos to their best advantage. The video can even be as simple as removing the  cover like it is done in a car launch, or perhaps removal of the wrapper – thus displaying your product to the audience. 
  1. Testimonials: Testimonials are a way of adding a touch of authenticity to your products and services. People would love to see real people speak favourably about how they benefitted from your product, rather than read written reviews. 
  1. How-to Videos: These are a very popular class of videos, and when done rightly they go viral. Your audience loves how to videos, and when you show them how to get what they want, then they will love you. The result? You go Viral!

Relevant Book Reviews

You may read the latest books in your niche subject and post a review of the same on your blog or social media; by doing this on a consistent basis you will gain more knowledge and obviously be regarded as an authority in your respected field.

TYPES of content-feedback

Invite Customer Reviews

Having customer reviews on your site generates trust. It is always good to have video reviews. But for some reason, if you cannot have them, make sure you have them emailed to you. Also, make sure that the review contains their name and snap, just to prove that they are real people. Positive reviews lead to positive results. However, make sure, that these reviews are a mix of positive and negative ones; and never delete negative reviews. If you have 100% positive reviews on the site, then they will look fake and tailor-made.

Building Top 10 Lists

Produce a list of, “Top-10 or 20 Best or 25 Point Check List”. For example, if you are dealing with body building supplements, you may produce the following lists – to generate engagement. Check out the below examples.

  • Top 10 biggest bodybuilders of all time.
  • 20 best protein foods for building muscle mass.

The audience is very fond of such lists and they even tend to go viral.

Internal Linking

Always provide links to a few other articles in your blog, at relevant places in the blog post. This will make sure that your other blog articles also get traffic and the user feels that he has come to a one-stop-shop for knowledge in that given field.

We can thus use different types of content marketing examples in getting our message across to the right people and can bring valuable inbound traffic and leads. A content marketing strategy should include different types of postings, to resonate with different types of audiences and make an impact.