How to Grow Your Brand On A Small Budget
While big brands like Google, Amazon, or Apple continue to dominate the consciousness of many people across the globe. Big companies with big budgets are often difficult to emulate or follow, especially for small businesses. But let’s not forget that there are millions of businesses in Australia and New Zealand that create two-thirds of our jobs.
Get More Traffic primary focus has been to help these small businesses achieve their own successes, often by taking inspiration from some of these bigger names and brands and implementing similar tactics and strategies that better fit the small business model.
In this post, we want to continue to help by taking a deeper dive into 3 ways that you can build your brand without having to spend a huge chunk of your budget on prime time TV commercials, or highway billboards.
Step 1: Offer Something Unique and Superior.
Author and marketing expert, Seth Godin often talks about how marketing is all about being remarkable (something worth being made remarks about).
Being remarkable is more than just finding small gimmicks, though. It’s about being different enough and special enough for people to take notice.
A local bag maker might not compare with Louis Vuitton’s marketing budget. However, that same shoemaker can leverage the fact that their products are locally produced from high-quality materials, and are lovingly made by an exceptional artisan.
Remember, you don’t need to dominate your industry. Instead, focus on serving customers within a niche market. Focus on local buyers who are after premium products. People are more than willing to pay for quality craftsmanship.
Artisan products may be time consuming and may not scale, but having something made by hand with extra love and care creates a sense of authenticity that factory-made products can reproduce. Also, having that item personalised increases its value even more for the customer that’s paying for it.
Being local has some powerful advantages against the larger competitors. In cases like these, it’s important to stress those roots, that authenticity, and intentionally distance your brand away from mass-produced products and rivals.
Step 2: Make Yourself a Trusted Expert
Content remains an integral part of every marketing campaign, whether for big brands or small businesses. Creating content (whether a blog, vlog, or podcast) can do wonders for your brand, especially if you position yourself as an expert and make it a point to always be helpful towards your audience.
“How to” content, specifically, has always been popular. Just look at Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, a book that was published way back in 1936 and has sold way over 30 million copies worldwide, naming it one of the best-selling books of all time.
Audiences love free tutorials that can help them become pick up new hobbies, or improve certain skill sets. Make sure your content is informative and actionable, relevant and practical while still containing the distinct voice that’s unique to your brand.
If educating others isn’t exactly your jam, you can always simply feature what it is you do, and how well and amazingly you do it. Nick Pedullá is a furniture craftsman based in Sydney who shares videos of how he goes about building and finishing his custom-made furniture to his 18,000 followers on Instagram. Cutting Edge Country has gained a following of over 22,000 on Instagram, sharing the quality of their boots, jeans, hats, and other fashion & giftware items.
Step 3: Invest in Online Advertising
What makes digital marketing and advertising worth it is that you’re able to find and target the people that are most likely to be interested in your brand and your products. You can target locally or country-wide, depending on your customer base, and serve ads to only the most engaged audience.
These days, it’s more important than ever to establish a footing online, especially for small-to-medium businesses. We understand, though, that diving into Google Ads, SEO, or social media can take a lot of time and effort. Thankfully, agencies like ours exist.
If you’re interested in taking your business to the next level, increase your brand awareness, and gain more customers, leads, and sales, call us today so that one of our agents can discuss how we can best help you and your business.
What Are Landing Pages and Why Are They Important?
Landing pages play a very important role in digital marketing. An essential part in the customer journey, landing pages are one place where you can turn visitors into either customers or followers.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a dedicated web page on a website often created as a part of a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s a standalone page where a visitor lands after clicking on a link in an email, or ads from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, Bing, or other social and search platforms.
Unlike other web pages which encourage the exploration of your entire website, a landing page is geared towards a single focus and predetermined goal. It makes use of compelling copy and a strong call to action to encourage users and visitors to take the next step in your customer journey.
What’s the Difference Between a Landing Page and a Home Page
The key difference between a landing page and a home page is focus. A home page is like a busy commercial district with dozens of crossroads and intersections. A home page is focused on directing visitors to other important sections and locations of a website, with multiple links, buttons, and entry points.
A landing page, on the other hand, is like entering and exiting a tunnel with a single destination. Your intention is to have your visitors see the light at the end of it. They direct a visitor towards a single purpose. That means that there are only very limited navigation options.
What Are the Different Types of Landing Pages
When it comes to design, there are several types of landing pages that exist on the web such as squeeze pages, splash pages, and infomercial pages. However, all these types of landing pages can be categorised into two main types:
- Lead Generation Landing Pages
- Click Through Landing Pages
Lead Generation Pages are a form of landing page whose main purpose is to collect data such as the names and email addresses of visitors. In exchange for that data, an offer is usually made such as free ebooks, whitepapers, exclusive content, or webinars.
This is usually done to establish a direct relationship with a user, nurturing that relationship over time and is used by both B2B and B2C businesses.
Clickthrough Landing Pages are more common for ecommerce and software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses. These landing pages are usually sales pages where the user can view pricing plans or go through the checkout process.
Why Are Landing Pages Important
Because of the high-intent nature of a landing page and its hyper-focus, they are often optimised to create the best possible results. From the design, to the copy and the offer, landing pages turn your website visitors into either leads or customers. This makes them more important than many other pages on your website.
A good landing page can be the determining factor that turns your marketing or advertising campaign into a success. That’s why it’s important to get it right.
Building a landing page, however, can be difficult, as it requires several sets of skills, including web design and copywriting. But that’s where agencies like ours come into the picture. With years of experience on our belts, building a landing page that converts is something we can definitely help you with.
So if you have landing pages that you feel need a quick makeover, or you’re starting from scratch, our experts are just an email or a call away.
Content Curation Tools For Every Skill Level
As with every piece of content that you write, the content you curate must have value. I’m sure we’ve all, at one stage, thought that there has to be an easier way to collecting links and images that may, someday, prove valuable to us. Well, there is, and for each skill level, so every marketer should make use of these content curation tools because they will make your brand/business/company more trusted and reputable.
Vanity Metrics: The Wrong Side Of The Coin
Every actionable step you take during a marketing campaign comes with data, and you’re presented with hundreds of tools to measure that information. The problem is, some metrics just aren’t that important.
Emotional Marketing – Make Em Feel!
The idea of leaving your emotions at the door when you get to work is antiquated for me.
Digital Marketing Strategies – A Quick Overview
With marketing techniques constantly adapting and evolving, it’s important to develop new tactics to reach your target audience.
Online Store Marketing Mistakes
Does your business sell primarily, or entirely online? Are you reaching your defined targets? This one’s for you…
Social Media Giveaway – A 10 Step Guide
Social media is inescapable. There are millions of business and brands taking full advantage of various social platforms to reach their target audience, increasing said audience and building a customer base.
Branding Mistakes Your Small Business Should Avoid
Branding to a business is sunshine to a flower, it cannot survive without it.
Conversion Rate Mistakes: 8 To Avoid
If you get a hundred visitors to your website every month, what is your conversion rate?