How can an everyday small business build their brand in a crowded marketplace? Advertising alone won’t do it. The Ad hoc method of logo and message displays in any form of media, just is not enough to build an effective brand. Although many advertising companies would like you to believe otherwise.
If money and advertising alone could buy a position of favour, Henry Ross Perot would have become President of the USA.
Fast forward a few years later and study how Trump did become president. He used money yes, but more importantly he’s an entertainer. Everything he does gets him attention. The good and the bad. And THAT is Brand Building!
Publicity Builds Brands
A well thought out publicity tour will build a brand. Advertising can help to keep it going. This means you need a good PR (Public Relations) strategy.
Social Media for Brand Building
Use the free media available to you as well. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest can help get your brand message out. Some simple things you can do to build awareness is to create and/or publish interesting events. If you have a newsworthy event like a new employee or special interest promotion – this is a good opportunity for a press release coupled with your social media and a business blogging post.
But please don’t be boring about it.
The new employee news announcement will probably only be interesting to the new employee and perhaps their mother.
By tagging your new employee in a Facebook post, they will likely share it, their family and friends will like and share too. This process will give your business brand a bit of exposure. To get more traction on social media it needs to be interesting.
Will it be interesting to anyone else? Can you make it interesting?
Some ways to add spice to a bland post is be to highlight some of the following;
– Why did you hire this new person
– What new special thing are they bringing to your company? For Example: do you sell sporting goods and did your new employee raise money for charity by participating in a marathon?
Why not tie this in with your social media marketing campaigns? One possibility is you can couple the social news announcement about your new employee with an offer. Such as – everyone who drops by your Facebook page to welcome her /him to the company will receive a 20% off coupon.
Free Business Marketing
You can pay for a press release but it can happen for free too. There is a better chance of being published and picked up on the local newswire if your press release is professionally written and contains top quality images or graphics. A well done press release can grow legs. A poorly done press release will die on the spot.
Although you can write up an advertisement and pay for a position in a magazine or newspaper there are three main advantages to getting picked up in the press.
1. Cost: a print ad can cost $5000 or more and will only take up the space that was paid for. A well framed press release can occupy full page or even span across several pages.
2. Authenticity: a paid ad generates automatic skepticism where a news story conveys believability.
3. Attention: by habit people READ articles and SKIM advertisements.
Generally speaking, an effective PR campaign is between 10 to 20 times the value of advertising alone.
Now that you have your information out there, the next step is to make your brand memorable.