Did you ever notice that certain names get so much popularity that they become general names? In case of services/products they are usually known as Brands, those brands can be of a specific market or group of people. There is a misconception that branding is for larger companies only, whereas that’s not true, branding is equally viable for both large and small companies. It definitely needs a lot of time, effort and patience which indeed is difficult for businesses to give but here is the good part, it certainly does not require a huge bank account, therefore even the smallest of businesses can enjoy being a brand.
Usually small businesses are focusing on neighborhood marketing, and gathering their customers from there, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t go for branding. If brands can be target market and location wise, then why can’t a small business have the opportunity to brand itself in a community and proclaim itself a local brand?
Why to Turn a Local Business into a Brand?
A brand acts as a distinction of one’s product against competitors, because brand is not a company only, it is a personality. It has an image, impression, associated perceptions, and attitudes etc., creating its identity. Thus the experience of a product/service forms the brand and later on a consumer not only can easily identify but can rely on the same brand even with other products of the same brand and it doesn’t matter if the customer has ever experienced its other products or not. This level of trust comes with branding, giving a business its competitive edge. Branding is the ultimate destination for everlasting value and success.
Why Is All The Focus On Keywords & Locations, Why Not On Branding?
A winning brand is the one who is closest to its customers, which has become very difficult as customers are paying to get rid of ads and any other promotional material. In such a situation, local marketing is the solution, where a local marketer puts maximum time and effort to optimize keywords and locations which are used to attract customers; this is to impress your clients showing that you value their money.
Since this process is continual and won’t end. What if you along with this you start building their brands by providing them different brand building opportunities helping them to enjoy an everlasting value of their brand? Indeed it is possible, and gives an extra edge to your own business, by adding a competitive edge.
Create a Brand: 6 Tools for Local Marketing
Play simultaneously with brand building and direct response to achieve revenue and value both at the same time without any further time or financial investment from your client.
1. Mention the Brand Consistently
Consistency is the key to success and we know that if the name, address and phone number stays same in all the profiles of social network and over the websites, it will give an edge as a customer will memorize it easily and will use it whenever required. GO-Globe is an example of NAP as their name, address or numbers has been the same everywhere on the internet, resulting in ease of contact. It is necessary to make your business a brand, as a brand is specifically identified by its name. Thus branding calls for other aspects to be considered as well.
Description: Do not just use this to make use of key words.Instead, apply descriptions to emphasize the brand name, company history, consumer base, praise, accreditations and other relevant material. Using the details of employees and key people behind the success of a particular project injects personality and flare.
Consistency needs to be in uploading images and photos too. A relevant image/picture is of a thousand words itself, it develops the interest of customers and so different types of images must be used. Usually people think an image is only a picture of people or a cartoon, whereas it can be a company logo too.Logos are essential to familiarize people for recognition.It must not be changed.To create an identity of a brand, its consistency is very important. When it comes to branding or creating an identity people like to relate themselves with their brand,using fake or general pictures do not help much but pictures of the actual staff and vicinity are more relatable. Videos are another way of making your connections strong with your customers so upload a short and professional video of the work area. In case of any videos and work area images, logos are of prime importance. It not only needs to be visible but prominent enough as well.This will become the brands identity.
2. Repute Building
Name and identity can’t work alone to make brands, a good and positive reputation is as crucial. A reputation is a combination of services provided during or after the sale process along with a healthy relationship with customers. The good experience not only ends in the sales and relationship, but it creates good word of mouth, reviews and most of the times recommendations which eventually help in creating successful brands. As these reviews are sources of trust in business and engage new customers easily. Unfortunately, there is a risk associated with reviews, they can be bad too.This deal could be converted into a good one by responding it in a manner that reduces the risk and creates a positive impact that the people behind the mask of their business care about their customers.
3. Consistent Social Profiling
Social media is usually used to create a connection with customers; it is of utmost importance that all social profiles contain the same information.Varying information loses the trust of customers. Just imagine if we have different messages or images, it would give a feeling of doubt or drag us away from the main objective which eventually affects business. Do maintain the social site decorum and maintain it as per the requirement and resize the images, logos and reshape and tailor it accordingly, but keep in mind that it does not affect the overall impact.
4. Publish Authority Content
The topic to be published on your client’s blog needs to be the true image of their business and should relate to their forte, so it can have a strong and long lasting impact on the customers. The topic must cover the potential questions of the customers so they can be equipped and can rake in maximum benefit. To make it real the author biography and picture works best as the customer starts developing their associations and feel themselves connected with their brands. But here again, consistency is the key to success, the photo of the author and its style should remain constant so customers can create an identity easily.
5. Community Engagement
If it’s about connections then obviously it requires a business owner to be visible in every place where connections can be formed. Such as forums, blogs, online communities, groups, any other social network. All of them create a positive impact on customers, hence they required to be monitored 24/7. To engage with potential customers and grab their interest, later they can be materialized.
6. Video Marketing
Video marketing is a better version of marketing as it’s a combo of audio and visual both, which means attracting a customer won’t be as difficult as if it’s in case of only text or an image. Here sounds, voice pitch, colors, style, and other features create an impact and are combined to put a constructive impression on customers to engage them along with answer any potential questions. Some marketers and business owners are fully aware of this fact, they have a series of videos to get maximum benefit with this strategy, and through the video a message could be spread widely in no time at all by using different platforms.
Conclusion
Last but not least, giving special and customized attention to clients and earning perpetual brand value for them will bring a competitive edge.This branding is not to mislead from the massive leads, but merely to create the individual identity of a business, so they can get an advantage over their competitor. Customers can learn to trust a name even the product/service is new to them. Remember that in the process of creating a clients’ brand we eventually create our own brand as well.
