Small Business Branding Strategies that Work
Designing Your Business Communication
Small business branding platforms such as newspapers, magazines and radio ads as primary forms of advertising are no longer at the top of the list of effective means of small business branding strategies. Instead, in this age of everything-electronic, effective small business branding strategies mostly involve online marketing methods. With Internet marketing having grown exponentially in the last ten years or so, business owners will tell you that it’s virtually impossible to survive without a website and online marketing tools to brand your small business. Since taking your business online is no longer an option, but a necessity, here are some online small business branding strategies to help get you started.
Social media marketing–perhaps the greatest tool for small business branding to ever come about. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are being utilized by businesses both big and small to get their name out there and interact with current and prospective customers and clients. With social media marketing, you create profiles for your business in the social networking sites, and then you can start connecting with the world to increase your customer base. The key to success in social marketing is participation. The more you participate on a regular basis, the more success you will likely experience. If you are not a big fan of social media marketing, that’s understandable, but you must realize that these sites, originally created for “social” reasons, are now keep businesses afloat and are never going to go away. If you don’t get on the social media marketing bandwagon and your competitors have, then you may as well start to plan your next career.
Second, a small business branding strategy that works is having a well-written, well-designed and well-optimized website. If you need to hire a professional, then do so as it will be well worth the investment. With so many Google algorithm updates, it takes very knowledgeable content writers and search engine optimizers to write and optimize a site so that search engines rank your site well. If you sell golf clubs in Denver and someone Googles “golf clubs Denver,” you definitely should show up on Page 1 of Google. If not, you have a problem with your site, most likely, and need expert advice on what needs to be done to get you ranked on Page 1.
Third, include a blog on your website. For many reasons, search engines love blogs (and people do, too). Blogs are filled with updated information (usually supported with graphics of some sort and comments from readers) and are often quite entertaining. They’re a great way to supplement the content that exists on the main pages of your website. For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer who specializes in car accident injuries, you could have blog posts about what to do if you’ve been injured in a car accident, what is involved in a civil proceeding vs. a criminal proceeding if the driver was criminally negligent, what damages victims are entitled to, and how contingency fees work. Blogging is a small business branding strategy that definitely works.
For more ideas on how to brand your business, check out other PaperDirect blog posts on how you can create a branded website cheaply and online marketing ideas.