3 Ways To Build A Brand Outside Social Media
Social media is such an effective marketing tool and it should always be central to your brand building efforts. It’s an ideal platform for building a brand because you can connect with customers on a more personal level and you can really put your personality across in posts.
There are a lot of great examples of businesses that are using humor to strengthen their brand on social media, but that’s just one way that you can do it. If you can build a relatable brand on social media, you should see a big increase in sales.
But it’s important to remember that social media isn’t the only way to build a brand and you also need to focus your efforts elsewhere. So many businesses put all of their time into social media and they neglect other strategies.
Most people are on social media these days, but there are still people that don’t use it, and you’re missing out on those potential customers if you don’t diversify your marketing campaign.
These are some of the brand building tools outside of social media that your business should be using.
Email Marketing
If you get it right, email marketing can be a good way to drive traffic to your website, and most importantly, strengthen your brand in the eyes of new and existing customers. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t get it right.
When you receive an email from a business, you probably don’t bother opening it half the time. We all get a lot of spam emails and most of them go straight into the trash. That is most likely the case with your marketing emails as well and if you want to be successful, you need to increase your email open rates.
Choosing the right people to send them to in the first place is important, and picking a good title and sending emails at the right time of the day will help too.
Once you get people to open emails, you need to make sure that you are offering them some good content that will help to strengthen your brand.
Simple adverts for products won’t really do much but if you give them deals and offers or links to useful content, that will help to build a brand.
Trade Events
When you display your business at a trade event, you will reach a lot of people in a short space of time and you show the attendees that you are a leader in your industry. If you can get a spot speaking at one of these events, that’s an even bigger branding opportunity.
The only problem is getting noticed. There are hundreds of businesses at trade events, so why should people take an interest in yours?
You need to invest in some custom trade show displays, and try to think outside the box. If you have a lot of visual aids and eye catching displays, people will stop and take a look. But if you have a boring display that looks just the same as every other business there, they will walk straight past.
Some good free gifts won’t hurt either. If you can make yourself stand out, you will connect with a lot of potential customers and do a lot for your brand.
Print Publications
Newspaper sales are down in a big way and most people go online instead, so why spend the money putting ads in print publications? But what you have to remember is that there are a lot of specialist publications out there and they do still get a larger circulation.
They have been hurt by online alternatives a little, but you will still get a good audience if you post ads in a magazine that relates to your industry. The other benefit is that the people that read these industry specific magazines obviously have a keen interest in the products and they go to these sources for information about the industry.
If they see your company advertised in there, they will assume that you are an industry leader and it will strengthen your brand in a big way.
Social media is an important part of your brand building, but it’s equally important that you put resources into these alternatives as well.
