One of the key challenges that small businesses face when entering the market is boosting brand reputation. This is vital, as no business can grow if people are unaware of their presence and why they should be chosen over the competition. Your company could offer the best value products/services, if you don’t, you miss out to the competition if you do not take steps to increase brand awareness. When you have a strong brand identity and you are easy to discover, it can help you to stand out from the crowd whilst also showing that you are a key player in the industry. Boost your small business’s brand awareness with the following steps.
Search Engine Optimization
On today’s internet-driven marketplace, the search engine results lists are hugely important and you will need to appear as close to the top of these as possible to increase awareness of your company and drive traffic to your website. You can improve your ranking through the marketing discipline of search engine optimization (SEO) – this allows small organizations to compete with the biggest names in the industry by increasing visibility and reputation. SEO can be slow and should be viewed as an ongoing process, but it can deliver powerful and lasting results.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Running a pay per click (PPC) campaign alongside an SEO campaign is an excellent idea as PPC delivers immediate results. Instead of improving your ranking in the organic listings, PPC places adverts in highly visible places online with the sponsored section of results lists being the most common. Although these results are not as trusted as the organic listings, they are still used by consumers and are a superb way to very quickly boost brand awareness.
Content Marketing
Generating a constant stream of content for your target audience is crucial for increasing credibility and awareness. Whether it is a guide, blog post, video or any other type of content, it should encourage the reader to take action and this content can also be useful for any search engine optimization campaign too.
Social Media
Unsurprisingly, one of the best ways to enhance brand awareness is to have a strong presence across various social media channels. These are powerful tools for modern companies as they allow you to connect with existing and potential customers all around the world. Set up high-quality, professional pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and connect with as many people and other organizations as possible. Regularly post updates, comment on posts and use these handy tools to increase your following.
Contests
Holding a contest on social media where users must like, comment and share a post can very quickly increase brand awareness and help you to obtain followers. The cost of the free product or service will not matter when you have tripled your followers and you have a lot more traffic coming to your website. This is particularly useful early on when you are trying to get your name out there but do not have a large following yet.
Purchase Traffic
Directing traffic to your company website can be a challenge, but this is also how you increase brand awareness and hopefully make sales. For small businesses, purchasing traffic from places like Traffic Masters is a great way to get traffic initially and can have a huge impact on your success. These places use targeted advertising which serves your landing page to millions of visitors from all around the globe – a great way to get your name out there and promote your products/services.
Host An Event
Improving brand awareness is not entirely focused on digital efforts. An effective online tool is to host an event which will provide you with the ability to meet people face-to-face. Whether this is a summer BBQ, an in-store promotion or a workshop where you share your expertise, these can be a brilliant way to showcase brand identity and personality. People like to feel that they are dealing with people and not a corporation and this is one area where small businesses can succeed over much larger brands.
Networking
You can also show your face and promote your company by attending events in the local community. Always be friendly, shake people’s hands and give them a business card. This will help your name to spring to mind while also showcasing your personality.
Sponsorship
Getting involved with the local community is another way to show that you are not just a corporation while also enhancing awareness. You could event a particular event or a local sports team, but just make sure that it is something that is relevant to your target market and not something that could be polarizing as this can have a negative effect as many businesses discover.
Promotional Gifts
People like nothing more than free stuff. Reinforce your brand with promotional gifts that include the company name so that your business quickly comes to mind when they need a product/service that you can provide. In addition to this, this can also help with word-of-mouth marketing which remains incredibly effective and worthwhile.
Referral Schemes
Following on from this, referral schemes can be a great way to quickly get your name out there while simultaneously encouraging customer retention. Provide any existing customer with an incentive to invite their friends and family and you will quickly see plenty of new customers who can then invite their friends and family. Before long, you will be reading a much wider audience and a large number of people will be familiar with your company.
These are the best ways that a small business can boost brand awareness so that they can increase their customer base and improve sales. It can be challenging to compete in the market when you are a small company and must compete against much larger brands, but there are ways that you can get noticed and there are also a few advantages that you hold over the large companies that can help to attract consumers to your business.
