Building a brand from scratch is a true challenge. For any of you who have started a company or worked in a startup environment, this is certainly no secret. Most often, startups are challenging much bigger, well-entrenched competition, meaning long hours, creativity, and a massive budget are needed to steal market share and successfully grow your brand. In the case where resources are scarce, which is not very unusual for new brands, how can you promote your brand effectively? Here are five ways to successfully market your brand.
- Build a Great Functioning Site
Today, pretty much everyone goes online to research products and services before they contact the company, which means you need to make your Web presence known and open for the public. How are you going to make your site stand out so the people come back to you instead of your competitor? The functionality of your site has to be spotless, because if it is incredibly slow to load or too difficult to navigate, people will not wait – they’ll click off and go to another site if they aren’t viewing usable content in a split second. If your house is in order, make sure your content is capturing users’ attention. You can achieve this by digging into data you have on your audience, learning what they want, and delivering it to them. Sun Bingo is an example of highly functioning site with great features and very vivid and dynamic landing page. The site has a very modern and exhilarating design and it’s fairly easy to navigate. For those who love online games, the site will be very easy to use since all the important features are highlighted and everything you’re looking for is right in front of you. Check it out to get a full grasp of a highly functioning site.
- Don’t Be Too Pushy
Nothing will turn a potential consumer away faster than an obvious sales pitch. Customers today are incredibly irritated by pushy sales tactics, so try to build a relationship with your target market, build up the trust, and then you’ll inspire more confidence in them to consider your product before your competitors’. One way to do this in an online branding campaign is to provide your visitors with useful information that educates them about your products and industry in general. Instead of pushing your products or services, offer an insightful view of the industry as it stands now and where it might be heading. It will be much more appealing to people that way.
- Email Marketing Campaign Should Help
Not everyone in your target audience is going to know about your website, so you need to go to them. The best way to do this is to build up a quality contact list and send out emails that persuade them to visit your site. Online branding really gets a whole new dimension when the emails include something timely or fun like a special sale or sneak peak at a new product.
- Promote Content on Social Media
Social media is obviously a great tool for branding your business. In addition to using the sites for straightforward promotions, you can also use social media for promoting interesting content that might not have a hard sell, but still has something interesting to say about your industry. If your social media accounts share information that’s relevant and compelling, people will follow you, and in turn, more people will become loyal to your business. This is a very slow process, but over time, it works great.
- Have a Strong Online Branding Plan
Confused by the process of getting your brand noticed online? Many people are. The best way to safeguard yourself and your business from a lonely branding experience or worse, a terrible online branding reputation is to first have a plan. It may be wise for you to review the steps for building an Online Branding Plan and take everything from there.
