5 Branding Techniques for Small Businesses without Burning Cash
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Branding Techniques for Small Businesses without Burning Cash
Table of Contents
Business branding is not rocket science and it’s not a rich kid’s game. Though, most of the small business owners consciously believe that branding is a big thing and needs a lot of monetary investments. But in this age of internet marketing revolution, this notion is entirely wrong.
When the design of your product and website is important, there are a few other techniques which over a period of time can build a strong brand of your business.
Invest in Contents
Your contents are your online identity. But before you start developing contents, first know your customers, their needs, intents, pain-points, preferences etc. Afterward, start creating contents that will induce your audience and turn them into your customers.
SEO is one of the most important aspects of modern internet marketing skills which not only gets businesses but also increases the online visibility of a company. The more visibility you gain, the more people will know you. This will help you build a brand gradually.
You can create a variety of contents, like blog posts on your site, guest-posts on others’ websites, press releases, videos etc. Additionally, publishing relevant infographics and podcasts can establish your authority which intern helps in building your identity. Your contents must reflect your brand and its visions consistently.
The more high-quality contents you publish, you will be noticed more by your customers and clients. Over a period of time, this will create the buzz.
Be Social on Social Media
Social Media sites are great places for building your brand. The key mantra of social media success is – be social.
Sharing is caring. Yes, that’s true, but before you expect someone to share your contents and engage on it on social media, first you share others’ contents. This will gradually build a loyal follower base on major social networking platforms. Interacting with your prospective customers and clients on social media, and answering their questions on different Q&A groups are sure-fire techniques to draw attention. While interacting, don’t voice like a company, instead be casual and make conversations personalized.
Your primary objective of using social media should be relationship building. Build strong and meaningful connections with other brands (not exactly your competitors), thought leaders of your industry, future customers and clients. You can do this by extending your helping hands to them. You can assist them in accomplishing and achieving something great with your knowledge, skills, and resources. This will not only help you in getting many valuable appreciations but sometime this may bring a precious testimonial from an influencer of your industry.
Bid on Google & Facebook Ads
SEO takes time. Therefore, until your website starts ranking organically for most of your targeted keywords and user intents, invest in Google and Facebook Ads.
Google ads give your brand immediate visibility and qualified traffic. This not only gets you businesses from day one but many of your customers will know your brand and its products.
Apart from bidding on your targeted keywords, you may also bid on your brand’s name, and more importantly on your competitors’ brand names. Doing this will increase the chances of getting more search impressions and businesses. If you can rightly position your new pizza brand on Google ads for keywords like Domino’s pizza and Pizzahut Pizza, you will get a ton of customers’ attention.
In addition to this, you may also run a Facebook brand awareness ad to grow awareness about your business and its products. Targeting the right set of audiences and their interests you can place your brand, its unique value propositions, and exciting offers immediately. You may also script your brand story, showcase that with an exciting video ad on Facebook, and connect with your viewers emotionally.
Manage Brand’s Online Reputation Like Pros
Your brand’s online reputation and reviews tell about the quality of its products. So managing those appropriately and timely make the experience of your customers positive. This not only builds more trust in your brand but your customers will also feel more comfortable purchasing your products.
The foremost thing to take care here is the value addition. If your products fail to add great values and experience to your customers’ life, your brand will fail eventually. Therefore, design products which will make your customers’ life easier, bring them great experiences and offer seamless after-sales services. Remember, your happy customers are your company’s biggest assets.
Asking your customers to write reviews about your products and their experiences is a good practice. Make it a regular habit. Nonetheless, a few of your customers may not write all good things about your brand. Offering them an immediate solution with a few add-on facilities may turn them positive. Happy customers and clients are the biggest advocates of a brand and they can spread strong positive vibrations about it and its products. Remember, word of mouth (WOM) marketing is a powerful tool for branding.
Bank on Influencers
When influencer marketing is not a very new thing, this has been used by many internet marketers in recent years. But ironically, small businesses are not using it to its fullest.
Getting an endorsement or a testimonial from an influencer can be huge exposure for your business. This not only excels your brand’s visibility but also portrays a positive image of it. Additionally, this helps in several other ways, like SEO.
Building strong relationships with prominent authorities of your niche is pivotal for your brand. Use social media platforms and other online outlets to get connected with the right influencers. When pitching them directly for a paid endorsement is one way, you may also offer them a free copy of your product. This may help you get recommendations, brand mentions, and sponsored reviews from targeted influencers.
Wrapping Up
Today’s generation is going more and more brand conscious. Online customers believe in researching the company and its products before they purchase or subscribe to anything. This makes the branding essential for a business, be it a small business or a big corporate house.
Develop relevant contents focusing on customers’ needs, engage with your audience on social media channels, bid on paid marketing, manage brands’ online reputation, and invest in influencer marketing. These are the great strategies to start amplifying the brand equity and its purpose. However, small business owners should as well work on building their personal brands to establish their authority and spread their values.
But most importantly, build a great product that keeps its promises when offering a smooth after sales service to develop a long-term relationship with customers.
Author Bio:
Soumya Roy is the Founder & CEO of PromozSEO Web Marketing Academy, a digital marketing training academy in Kolkata, India. He is a veteran digital marketer and search engine specialist with over 11 years of experience. Soumya is also the lead digital marketing trainer at PromozSEO. He enjoys writing contents on topics related to digital marketing, SEO, PPC, social media marketing and many more.
