Hugo D. It has never been easier to start a business than it is now. However, it has never been more difficult to get recognized! With so many businesses operating at the same time finding a niche that isn’t heavily oversaturated can be challenging.
Rather than trying to find an unsaturated niche, carve out a space for yourself in one that’s already teeming with competition. A strategy for doing this is making yourself more recognizable, so consumers give your brand precedence over other people’s.
Here is how you can make your brand more recognizable in the tech age:
Using Social Media
Social media is the new town square. People go there to talk, share, and vent. Unless your business has a presence on social media building a positive reputation for it will be almost impossible. Consumers regularly search businesses on social media to find their pages, in order to verify their authenticity. If a site does not have its own social media page it is not exactly uncommon for consumers to avoid doing business with them. With so many scammers online it’s not hard to see why this is; why take risks?
However, just because social media is an important place for businesses to set themselves up does not for a second mean that it is easy building an audience there. If you want to improve your brand’s engagement numbers then you may benefit from buying followers and likes. Consumers will typically not follow or engage with pages unless a large number of other people already are – by buying likes and followers, your social media page looks like it is already performing well and that it is enjoyed by many other people.
Brand Collaborations
On social media you can collaborate with other brands and businesses. Collaborations can be highly effective ways of boosting your audience numbers. You should only ever collaborate with niche-adjacent brands, however. Never collaborate with businesses offering the same products as you.
If you sell underwear, for example, then collaborate with companies selling jeans or any other kind of overwear. Collaborating with companies offering the same products or similar ones to yours can be a pretty effective way of downsizing your audience, as they’ll end up going over to the business you have collaborated with if their products are better than yours.
You can also collaborate with influencers on social media. If you are not familiar with the concept of influencing, then influencers are social media personalities with large followings. Influencers use their content to encourage their followers to buy and support the brands that sponsor them.
Working with influencers can be a highly effective way of boosting your reputation, and attracting more followers. Make sure the influencers you work with are specialists in your niche. If you sell clothes, working with health and beauty influencers instead of fashion ones doesn’t make much sense, for example. Influencers are not cheap to work with but are very useful for growth.
Relevant Products
Technology has made designing products easier than ever. With a simple internet search, you can find out what the most successful brands in your niche are doing, what their products are, and how they have made them. This ability to find out what’s relevant in your niche in an instant makes it easier for you to design your products more effectively. Your business’s products always need to be the best that they can be. If they are not, consumers will not want to buy them. Researching your competition can be a good way of borrowing ideas.
Make sure that if you are taking other people’s ideas and making them your own that you make changes so as not to infringe upon trademarks or copyrights. If you do not take steps to prevent trademark infringements, you could be taken to court and sued. Litigation against your company could damage your reputation and put you in the media spotlight for the wrong reasons; having top-of-the-line products can bring you to people’s attention for the right reasons, however. Spend as much time as you can using the web to improve your company’s offerings.
Consistent Branding
Social media isn’t the only place your business should have a presence. It will also need its own website. No business can achieve success in today’s highly digital world without a website. Even businesses that offer physical services like plumbing or property maintenance need their own websites. Across all of your business’s sites and online platforms, make sure branding is consistent.
Inconsistent branding can make people second guess it, giving them the impression that you are some kind of scam company. On another note, make sure you have a high-quality logo and a good name for your business, as these things can play important roles in building an audience.
Building Reputation
Your business’s reputation is something that you need to put a lot of thought into; you also need to put effort into building it. Unless you have a good reputation, nobody is going to want to deal with you or buy your products. Building a positive reputation can be difficult today, as there are many different businesses to compete with. People also leave reviews on businesses’ Google and Trust Pilot pages. A single negative review can be very damaging to an organization’s reputation; you can buy fake positive reviews for yours if you are interested in making yourself look as good as you possibly can.
Another effective way of building a good reputation for yourself is to sponsor smaller businesses or charities. Sponsorships can get your name out there. Sports teams are the best organizations to sponsor, as your business’s name will be shown on all of their merchandise and clothing. If they play in a large stadium then your logo will appear on banners situated just behind the sidelines.
Sponsoring charities can also be a good idea because it makes your business look like it cares about giving back to the community and helping good causes. Make sure you sponsor causes that genuinely mean something to you. Giving to charity does not just have to be a clever business move, it can also be something done out of the kindness of your heart or because you are passionate about a specific cause.
To achieve success in business, brand recognition must be built. In today’s digital age building, this has never been easier. As long as you have an internet connection and a basic understanding of how social media works, you can get your business’s name out there. Ensure you are consistent and put a lot of effort into marketing, so you get the best results; nothing comes easy in life.
