No matter the nature of your business, or the market in which you operate, your brand and how you position it should be at the heart of any decision that you make or strategic operations that you complete. When it comes to positioning your company as the go-to business in your area, having a brand that customers and clients know and can identify with will ensure the longevity and success of your firm.
So, if you have not taken the time to make sure that everyone, from your colleagues to your clients, loves both you and your brand, then it is the time to make some serious changes. If you want to get noticeable results, then you need to focus your attention on growing your brand and increasing awareness.
For most businesses, branding and brand engagement is not always placed at the top of their list of priorities, as company executives fear that this will cost their venture or could be an expensive investment to maintain. However, if you want to get results from day one, then you will need to include a brand strategy and guidelines as part of your initial business plan and yearly brief.
While the branding process can take time and work, it will be worth it as you will notice that your business engagement increases and your clients and customer base begin to pay more attention to your current portfolio or services that you offer. Failing to include branding in your business plan will cost your firm in the longer term.
Understand your target market
First, if you are looking to boost your brand online, then you need to understand your target audience and demographics to help you to begin to consider how your marketing strategy and positioning can compliment this. By understanding your target market, you can begin to develop your online tone of voice; it will be the style, language and even format which you use across your entire online presence.
You need to make your tone engaging to boost interaction online. Remember when you are considering your tone of voice, you can also start to draw up any initial thoughts on imagery or assets that can be created to support and enhance your efforts. Visual content, such as video works best, but this can be expensive to produce if you do not have an in-house tech specialist. Consider using Bonsai Finance to fund any initial brand materials or visual content that you need creating. Be sure to take the time to do your research and get to know your target audience, as this will mean you create a brand that really gets you the results that your business needs to grow and thrive online.
Consider social media positioning
If you are looking to raise your online profile, then you will need to make the most of social media to help increase the number of followers you have. Also, ensure that more people like and share content from your brand and most importantly so that you can eventually look to create a team of digital brand ambassadors who will champion and support your brand. While this may sound like a lot to manage, you can break this down into sizeable targets that you can reach over time.
First, take time to consider which social media platforms will meet your online needs. While Instagram is ideal for sharing flash imagery and photos, you will perhaps consider for creating an online community, Twitter for instant news sharing and LinkedIn for boosting awareness of your career openings and highlighting your company values. Not all of these channels will work for you, so pick and choose carefully.
Now you can start to focus on creating relevant content, posts, and tweets to help boost your brand engagement. Taking on digital ambassadors can take time, but while this initial investment is slightly lengthy, this is a quick and low-cost way to raise your brand profile and get the traffic that you need to your social media channels and website.
Consider campaigns
Now that your social media channels are branded and running efficiently, plus your team of digital ambassadors is in place, you can begin to work out your strategic approach in terms of online campaigns to boost your brand and target certain services or products that you need to sell or push. Just as with traditional marketing methods, an online campaign will need to run for a given period of time and will need to be supported by a comprehensive and planned social media strategy to ensure that you gain new leads and raise your business profile.
Luckily you can be as creative as you need to once your social media channels are branded, plus, you will also need to consider using tools such as Hootsuite so that you can automate key posts and provide coverage to your channels even over the weekend also. Once your campaign has run its course, then complete a post-campaign analysis to decide which areas worked well, and which factors you will be avoiding in the future.
If you are looking to boost your brand and raise your business profile, then it is vital that you consider ways that you can do so online, as this will provide you with a higher amount of traffic to your website and ensure that your brand remains in the public eye and mindset. If you have not previously included branding in your business budget, then it is time to make a change, as this will pay off in the long term.
Research and get to know your target market so that any posts or content that you post and provide is in your tone of voice. Consider producing video content to boost your engagement numbers. You will also want to research which social media channels work best for your business needs, as this will vary by your firm and your market. Finally, have social media tools in place so that you can automate key tasks when you are running marketing campaigns. Get ready to make your brand stand out.
