The Ways To Market Your Business When You’re Still Discovering Who You Are

Every small business out there goes through a period of self-realization. In many ways, it’s about identifying your brand, and therefore, your personality. Once you acquire this realization, you can find the best avenues in which to market your business.

Maybe a business that deals with the youthful demographics would benefit more through Instagram or other social media, whereas others that work at marketing products to older people and still benefit through letters and the personal touch. So if this sounds like you, and you’re looking for a way to, not just discover your identity, but also find the best processes to market your business while you are still going through this period of self-realization, what are the best marketing methods out there right now?

Making The Most Of SEO

We have got to begin here. Search Engine Optimization is very hot. Depending on where you go, some give the impression that it’s not a well-farmed area, but so many companies have SEO as the spine of their activity. As the digital landscape is constantly chopping and changing, it’s important to have your ear to the ground.

For any business just starting out, a small business Search Engine Optimization agency can work with you to ensure your company is climbing its way up the ranks. As there are so many different components of SEO now, it can be complex to find the right one that suits your need. The short answer is there is no one correct method. The sooner you learn this, the better.

Search Engine Optimization is as much to do with unique marketing efforts as it is being true to your product. Ask a random collection of specialists, and they will all give you different answers as to the one “best” way to improve your SEO. The best advice is to learn and grow with the landscape.

Outsourcing Your Efforts

It’s not always feasible, especially when money is a problem. But outsourcing your efforts, to other specialists, such as Search Engine Optimization agencies, various marketing specialists, or even via freelance platforms, gives you the chance to expand your company in as diverse a way as possible. And when it comes to the marketing landscape, especially with regards to Big Data,

Artificial Intelligence, as well as voice search capabilities and chatbots, you can’t be expected to know every single thing, and when you’re looking for the best method to liaise with customers, to get instant feedback on a and promote your products, it’s not always about what you know, but who you know. And as you slowly begin to realize where your business stands in the grand scheme of things, outsourcing gives you the perspective of an outsider. This is something that is essential, especially when you’re starting out and you are blindly stumbling through the business landscape.

Creating A Podcast

Yes, it’s nothing new. But the benefit a podcast has over a faceless marketing campaign is that it gives you the ability to connect with your audience on a more personal level. For anyone out there that’s listened to a typical podcast, there is usually a section where interaction with the audience is encouraged. It’s not a medium where you can put out content without any feedback.

In fact, most online content these days encourages that “back and forth” with customers and audience. The great thing about a podcast is that it helps you to become an authority figure in your niche market. And in addition to this, having continuity with a podcast, such as with one host, it’s a simple way for an audience to get accustomed to your style and manner.

In essence, you’re giving your business a personality and a mouthpiece. This means that if you find the right person, and you craft the content correctly, you can make the podcast a very effective component of your overall marketing strategy.

Utilizing Video

You would have to be foolish not to take advantage of the endless results video can offer. Even in the approach of Search Engine Optimization, it’s something that works wonders now. In fact, in terms of the mighty search engine, if you can get a video to come up as one of the main results, this is bypassing a lot of the various quibbles arising from formatting your content to climb up the search engine rankings.

The great thing about video is that it is relatively easy to set up. Where used to be was that production values and glossy filming techniques were more important than anything, but now, explainer videos, vlogs, and the most basic of filmed content can accrue many followers. The difference between video and podcast is a notable one. Many business owners would think they would need to pick one or the other, but it’s all about that sense of intimacy with the audience.

Podcasts are more intimate because it’s long form, giving you the opportunity to develop your relationship with the customer over the ensuing episodes. With a video, you can do this to an extent, as vlogs have highlighted, but when you’re looking to make that initial impact video is what appeals to all of the senses. It’s not necessarily an intimate medium, not as far as marketing is concerned but as you develop your brand and your identity, the visual medium becomes an extension of how you present yourself.

Granted, when you’re struggling to forge an identity, the temptation to go in all guns blazing with various dynamic editing techniques and lots of color is all too real. But as your business gradually accrues customers, and you ensure that you get an understanding of the gaps in your knowledge, you slowly begin to feel your way to the appropriate imagery and presentation.

Fixing Problems With Customers

What we can greatly underestimate, as far as the impact of a business image is concerned, is the effect we have on our customers. In the modern day, when we are in touch with our customers at the click of a button, our customer service skills can be a natural extension of our marketing capabilities.

We can focus a lot on flashy marketing gimmicks, ensuring that our content is being pumped out on a regular basis, but if we don’t please the customer, this could be our undoing. And as social media means that we are closer to our customers than ever before, if we do wrong by just one of them, and we don’t fix the problem, we will soon hear about it! Word of mouth marketing is still one of the most important strategies we can ever undertake. And we can’t leverage this unless we have an approach to customer service that is comprehensive, and delivers what we promise.

This means that as our business gains momentum, not only do we have to focus on the imagery and iconography that is imbued with our brand, but we have to do right by our customers by fixing the mistakes we make.

After all, via social media, when our dirty laundry can be aired for everyone to see, we need to develop a contingency plan to minimize bad publicity, especially when customers can tweet right at us with their problems. And we all know that if we directly message a business with a problem we’ve got, and they don’t even reply, this only adds fuel to our fire. Fix your problems, and you’ve got an advantage over your competitors that shirk responsibility.

Blogs And Press Releases

And sometimes, the old ones are the best. When we are looking for ways to maximize our efficiency in the search engine rankings or we are looking to create a wave of interest, blogs and press releases can very naturally expand our name. And as our business increases, so does the demand for quality content; it’s a self-perpetuating thing.

Nowadays, many people argue the efficacy of blogs, but the various offshoots, including infographics, serve similar purposes, albeit in condensed forms. And as the fundamental approach to search engine rankings relies on providing useful information, what with the abundance of fake news out there, blogs can distill a decent amount of information into a bitesize form for the average follower to consume helps to promote the business and help the customer at the same time. This is no mean feat.

Likewise, with press releases, the temptation to blow one’s own trumpet can seem self-aggrandizing, but when it’s done in an ethical context, such as aligning with a local charity, this helps to create a better buzz about the business.

As marketing your business involves a period of self-realization, you can use these approaches to get your name out there while you are still learning the ropes. After a while, you slowly learn what is essential, and what is useless and you will begin to pinpoint the simple and effective marketing strategies that work for your image and identity.

The big mistake so many companies make, especially when they are brand new, is to get on as many different platforms as possible. This is the marketing equivalent of spreading yourself thin. Instead, use some of these approaches as benchmarks, and drill deep into one or two of them for maximum efficiency.