10 ways to boost your brand visibility
In this guest blog, Beckie Sanderson, Branding Designer, Online Marketing & Publishing Specialist at Miss Digital Media, shares 10 Ways to Boost Your Brand Visibility.
Whether you have a new or an established business, have recently rebranded, or are planning a launch to promote your products and services, getting eyes on your brand is vital for its success. Perhaps you are reopening your business after lockdown, or maybe you’re returning to your business after taking some time out. Either way, tackling all of the things you need to do to get your brand visible again can be tricky, especially in a very competitive market.
You might feel overwhelmed that there are so many things that you need to do with your branding and online marketing. It can be confusing to know where to start and what to prioritise. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, my Branding Checklist will help you to prioritise your time and investment in developing your brand.
If you apply any or all of these tips, you will make a significant difference to the visibility of your business and its products and services.
1. Ideal client
Start with knowing your ideal client inside out. You need to know who are they, why they need your products and services, what problems can you solve for them, how can you transform things for them, and where you can find them online and offline. Doing your research is the key to success in identifying your audience niche and clarifying the unique selling points of your business. Once you have this nailed, getting your brand visible to the right customers becomes a whole lot easier! If you have recently rebranded or launched a new product or service, you may need to revisit and update your ideal client profile. Get access to my Ideal Client Worksheet for some help.
2. Up-level your brand
Consider what you could do to take your brand to the next level. Do you need to learn new skills? Do you need to invest in developing your brand identity, such as an updated logo or branded graphics? Do you need to develop a brand strategy? Do you need to build your brand awareness? Or perhaps it is a case of clarifying your mission and purpose in your business and brand?
3. Marketing plans
Depending on whether you are a sole trader, a partnership, or if you have a team of staff, the amount of time, budget, and resources you have may dictate how much you choose to invest in any particular area of your branding or online marketing. As such, a marketing plan and strategy will help to ensure a return on investment. Also, be aware that a strategy that works well for someone else’s business may not be right for yours. You may need to plan a combination of strategies such as paid advertising campaigns, PR, SEO, or organic marketing through networking and referrals. You will need to decide what tasks you will outsource and what you will be able to do yourself. Whichever strategies you decide to employ, you could use the “plan, do, review” approach to monitor their effectiveness and measure your return on investment. Admittedly, having a plan is great, putting it into action and sticking to it can be tricky. Even I have to hold my hands up here - I’ve been guilty of winging it! Sometimes, you just have to take the “suck it and see” approach, test something out, and review it after a measured amount of time so that you can learn from your customers’ feedback on what to improve.
4. Content planning
As well as boosting your brand visibility, content planning will help you to build consistency and grow your audience across your online marketing, blogs, social media, and email marketing channels. Planning will enable you to be productive with your time, money, and resources and will help you to implement your marketing strategy, i.e what, where, when, why, and to whom you should publish your content to. This ensures you are acting with purpose and helps you to get the right message to the right people, and in the right place at the right time.
5. Email marketing, mailing lists, and landing pages
Email marketing is the perfect place to boost your brand visibility. As such, building customer mailing lists are a great way to grow and nurture your audience. In fact, email marketing is said to have a much higher conversion rate than that of social media, (however, I’m slightly sceptical about this as it will vary greatly dependant on the type of business, the quality of the mailing list, the quality of content, and how well the emails are designed.) Also, maintaining an audience outside of your social media platforms is very sensible should we ever lose access to our audience on these social platforms. With email marketing, you must be aware that GDPR compliance is necessary, you must register with the ICO, and you must offer an unsubscribe option to your readers.
6. Create big content
Big content – such as books, eBooks, videos, courses, challenges, and activities to engage your audience – generate leads and help to build a passive or semi-passive income. Focus on bigger pieces of content by repurposing your existing videos, blogs, posts, and graphics. This also helps to develop your brand consistency and communicate your key messages. You can also create new content to share on different platforms, where you can interact with your audience, create a community, and build the “like, know and trust” factor. Make a great lead magnet that people will want to use. However, be aware that many won’t even open the download, so don’t give too much away for free – just a taster of the good stuff is enough!
7. Networking and collaboration
They say it’s not what you know, but who you know! Getting yourself out there is so important to build your reputation, raise brand awareness, and boost your visibility. Creating connections with potential customers and clients is an essential part of running a business. Whether it be online or offline, networking and growing your tribe are so important. It’s not all about sales either, as meeting like-minded, passionate entrepreneurs is inspiring. I encourage you to think about what people and businesses you could collaborate with. What audiences could you reach and help? What projects you could get involved with that fit well or complement your brand and its products and services?
8. Community
Growing a community on any online platform takes a lot of time and effort. Nurturing and growing your audience takes real dedication. You will need to build rapport with your audience and engage with them so they can come to know and trust you. Maintaining all of that is the real challenge when doing it alongside all of the other things you need to do in your business. However, the benefits of having a well-engaged and growing community are priceless! You will have much more success on the launch of products, services, and promotions because your audience is primed and ready for what you have to offer. Think about what you can do to build or grow your community. Could you set up a Facebook group or a room on Clubhouse? What can you do to raise engagement in your existing community? A challenge? A competition? Perhaps you could invite guest speakers or do live interviews?
9. SEO, keywords, and hashtags
Please don’t underestimate the power of SEO, keywords, and hashtags. They play a very important role in your brand visibility. Website SEO affects many things, including your position in a Google search listing and website traffic. Keywords also play a part in creating effective copy for your website and blogs and maximise your website’s SEO, performance, and ability to attract your ideal clients and customers. Keyword research is also really useful in writing blogs and copywriting for online adverts and social media posts. Your chosen keywords and phrases can be used as hashtags on social platforms too, as they will also help your content to reach and engage new followers, ensuring your brand is visible to the right audiences.
10. Data and analytics
Track and interpret your social media insights, website traffic, and click reports from email marketing. They can give us valuable clues about what works and what doesn't. They highlight what our audience and customers like, love, and hate! However, it can become slightly obsessive if you check this stuff too often. I'd recommend monthly reviews of social analytics and 3 monthly reviews of Google analytics website data to assess growth and engagement and to identify areas for improvement.
Hopefully, these tips will help you to get on track with your branding priorities and have inspired you to think about new ideas to try. I'd recommend mixing things up a bit and trying something new - whatever that may be!
In addition to sharing my top tips and advice, I am offering free 1-2-1 consultations, and if you sign up to my mailing list you can download my Boost Your Brand eBook with printable resources including my Ideal Client worksheet, Marketing Mix Template, Branding Guidelines Worksheet, and my Branding Assets Checklist!
