If you have a startup business, or one that is not doing as well as you'd like, it's time to kick your marketing and branding into gear and get things rolling! Effective marketing can jumpstart your traffic, pump up your revenue and skyrocket your profits. Many small business owners suffer from inertia-- they have no idea where to start, so they do nothing. Obviously, getting started is crucial, and doing it right is vital! Here is my simple three-step plan to get started branding and marketing YOU and YOUR business:
1. Create a logo
1. Create a logo
It should be unique and be able to be used everywhere, and for a long time. Your logo is what will tie all of your marketing, both online and offline, together. Think of large companies and their logos-- people recognize them easily by their "brand" mark, and that is what your goal is with your logo as well. How many of the logos and brands below do you recognize? Probably almost all of them!
For lots of good ideas about designing a good logo, check out this logo design tips post on Mashable. There are many sites where you can play with logo design yourself, and only pay when you find exactly what you love. Check out this blog post that has lots of resources for free logo designs and inspiration.
2. Create a website
No matter what other online presence you have (social media like Facebook, Google+, Instagram or Twitter, for instance) you MUST have your own online home! Customers and potential new customers expect to find you online. Additionally, when you market your business, you want to send customers to your own website. You have limited control over websites that you do not own! And why would you want to help someone else's business grow, instead of your own? Build a website that is a good reflection of your business!
There are many options for building a website these days. This Forbes articles about building a website has some good information for do-it-yourself web creators. In addition to the physical website itself, remember that you will need good written content, great visuals and that all-important logo that we mentioned initially.
There are many things to think of while building your website:
- Responsiveness
- HTML and CSS coding
- Colors and fonts
- Icons
- SEO setup
- Social media sharing
- Navigation and menus
- User discussion
- Images
- Blog setup
- Hosting
- Graphic design
- Website content
- Marketing setup
While building your website, you should be sure to make it SEO-friendly and Social Media friendly as well-- this will make it easy for people to find it via search engines as well as Facebook and Twitter.
3. Create and link social media
After your website is created, you will want to create complementary social media accounts. Use your newly-created logo to tie your branding together well, and be sure to link directly back to your website from your social media sites.
You do not need to be on every social platform; figure out what your goals are for the website and your marketing, and then decide which social media networks are best for you. If you have a professional services business, LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to be; if you have a craft business, showing images on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest will work. Think about marketing this way-- where are your customers? That is where you need to be as well!
Amplify your message via the right channels. Share news and information from your website and blog to your social properties. This image shows how interdependent Social Media and SEO have become.
If you need more tips on SEO and social media marketing, follow my Facebook page at http://facebook.com/DGMrktng or follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DeniseGabbard. If you need further help getting started with branding your business, feel free to email me.
This package is everything you need to begin branding your business online and offline! The package is affordable at just $3000, and to make it even more doable for small business owners the payments can be divided into separate monthly payments. That means you can get online within just a few days!
Contact me at denise.gabbard@gmail.com today and I will get you on my branding package schedule!
I have put together a new "Business Branding " package that includes these items:
- logo creation
- website creation and revisions
- complete web content writing
- creation of three social media accounts
- 12 months of website hosting
- 6 months of social media marketing
This package is everything you need to begin branding your business online and offline! The package is affordable at just $3000, and to make it even more doable for small business owners the payments can be divided into separate monthly payments. That means you can get online within just a few days!
Contact me at denise.gabbard@gmail.com today and I will get you on my branding package schedule!
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