Promoting or branding yourself online is a bit different from direct marketing.
You’re going for a longer term goal instead of the immediate sale. But, when you successfully brand yourself or your business, all your other marketing is enhanced.
Branding yourself or branding your business is a process that allows prospects to get to know, like and trust you before they open their wallet for you. But, once they buy from you, and you deliver on your promises, they’ll be loyal customers and even evangelists – spreading your brand far and wide.
But, to successfully brand yourself you’ll need to plan strategically, tying in all your promotional materials, including your online properties. The marketplace for consumers is moving online rapidly as smart-phones and tablets allow us to stay connected while shopping and socializing. Google’s push for local listings mean even the smallest shops with the most specialized niche products must build an online presence and use it to brand themselves.
There are 5 items you need to address to develop a brand online:
Your URL or Domain Name
The Keywords You Show Up in a Search of
Your Website’s Look and Functionality
Your Business’ Blog and
The Social Networks You Participate In
Each of these topics deserves their own article but let’s quickly define the 5 items. Then I’ll post a separate article to cover in depth how to brand yourself and your business online with each of the 5 elements.
Your URL or Domain Name is your internet home. Behind the letters and numbers in the URL is a unique locator code that tells the infrastructure of the web where to get the information stored there for the requests they receive from browsers.
Keywords are the words your potential customers use to search for your products and services. A guy looking to get his hair trimmed in Cincinnati might type in haircut or hair cut (yes those are 2 different keywords /keyword phrases) or hairdresser, etc.
Website: Most businesses maintain a static website that functions like a brochure. If you have the skills or hire a webmaster you may update it more frequently. It includes your address, phone, email, hours and some product/service information.
Be sure you have a mobile friendly site for smart-phone users and that you DO NOT have flash coded elements (these can’t be seen on Apple products and are invisible to search engines).
Your Business’ Blog is usually a sub-domain of your website, (it’s often www.xxx.com/blog) and allows you to communicate with potential customers and post timely and relevant information about your business.
Once the blog is set up, you should be able to post by sending an email – no webmaster required.
Social Networks or Web2.0 properties include Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo Lens, other people’s blogs and specialized forums your potential customers use.
Integrating the 5 elements of online branding and marketing properly will give you a leg-up on the competition and may make a big difference in how many web savvy new clients you snag.
Start planning your online branding now and then read my in-depth article on each topic before you go spending any money branding yourself and your company online.
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