What’s the Key to Branding? (continued)
The three-stage approach is nothing groundbreaking. It’s simply about repetition, staying consistent, and being stealthy with targeting. Our first step would be to establish a social media profile. We recommend researching the popular ones, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Find one that best suits your goals for your company. If you know your business will be constantly updating products with great images on hand, Facebook might be a great option. If you think short updates would be sufficient to let people know what’s going on with your brand, Twitter might be an option. If you’re simply looking for networking and meeting with like-minded professionals, then LinkedIn is the way to go. Whatever that perfect outlet for your business might be, create a profile, update the profile with all relevant information and imagery, and post to it as many times daily as possible. In today’s world, you can’t really post too much, but we think about 3 posts a day keeps you on top of your game. Stay at this for a month or so and if you feel like you have this site down, create a new profile and repeat. Note: When you start something new, be sure you can maintain what you were doing on the previous profile in addition to the newly created profile. Don’t overwhelm yourself, make sure you have the time to start a new outlet without sacrificing the old. Continue this until your business is present and active on all social media sites that relate to your brand’s goals.
Social media sites are easy to manage, all they take is the necessary time. They’re also very cost-efficient as you have the opportunity to manage them for free. Although we do recommend using advertisements down the road, these can reach a great deal amount of consumers, for a relatively low cost.
Secondly, get out and get to know your market. Attend networking events, pass out flyers, hand out business cards, promotional items and anything else that you might think will start gaining traction for your brand. Stickers are great idea if you can think of something that’s eye-catching and isn’t too detailed. A simple logo and url works great and before you know it, you’ll start seeing these things pop up all over town (it happened to us!). There are plenty of opportunities to get out there and meet potential clients. As mentioned in a previous post, I spent the early parts of my career walking door to door to business owners. With this approach, I would guarantee a job a day if you hit the right amount of businesses. You can also hire a recent graduate or student on summer break to walk around the community passing out flyers. Believe us, it works! These are all very cost-attentive examples to brand your business.
Our third approach would be to locate who you’re truly targeting. Is there a direct niche your business might have? Do you want to attract males or females and in what age group? Once you’ve located this demographic, find out what interests them. Is there a specific magazine they might read, how about a local hangout or restaurant they frequently attend. Find out everything you can about your target..where they eat, where they sleep, who their grandmother is…no not really, those are a little creepy. But seriously, find out what interests them and take out a print ad if it’s a magazine. Try working out a deal to run a special through one of their favorite restaurant hangouts. Whatever it might be, you can be confident in the fact that your intended audience is seeing your brand. Your customers are out there, you just have to convince them it’s your brand they really want.
Remember, keep things simple, and if you have any questions as it comes to web design or marketing in general, feel free to shoot me a message at sean@simplemachinedesigns.com or drop me a line at 479-286-1377. We’re happy to be a part of the Northwest Arkansas community. 609 SW 8th Street, 6th Floor, Bentonville ARKANSAS 72712.
Thanks
