Start Up and Brand Exposure: How Getting Your Name Out There Means Everything
There’s no point starting up if nobody knows anything about you or what you’re offering as a business. Especially in the current climate, where many industries have taken significant knocks. A lot of businesses have collapsed entirely. Launching into the current environment is difficult. However, many startups are finding gaps in those industries where, unfortunately, business went under. It isn’t an easy time to launch, so it’s even more important to launch where people know your name and brand. How you do this depends. There are a few tried and tested methods, though it depends on what industry you’re in and how you’re going to start your business. These tips can help you and at least give you something to think about. Remember, all businesses are different because all owners are. Humans are unique. This means businesses are run differently, no matter if they’re in the same industry. Because of this, you have to apply advice in a way that works for you and your business.
Social Media
It’s a great way of whipping up chatter about your brand and business. However, a lot of people make the mistake of starting this as they launch. You need to start using it and spreading the word way before your official “go live” date. It can be quite a tough old world to navigate which leads a lot of business owners to approach professionals, such as a Facebook Advertising Agency. However, if you’re on a lower budget this can of course be done yourself. Firstly you need to set up a business page on each social media. You can either focus on one at a time, or move from one to the other. Once your business page has been set up, you need to focus on making connections to people who you think will be interested in your brand/product or service. So focus on demographic or location to get this right. Your friends might be able to give you an initial boost. Then you need to focus on content. This can be articles in most cases. They need to be relevant and engaging. Each social media presence needs to be full of information about your business and what you do. If you get a hype built up you should have a good following ready for when you finally launch!
Never Underestimate The Power Of A Review
One of the best ways to get people talking about what you do is to offer it up for review to the experts. This means magazines, food critics, reviewers, bloggers with large followings, etc. You do this and let them review what you do. It creates publicity. If you get a good review, then you’re on the way to more sales already. If you get a bad review, don’t despair. Instead listen to what they say and see if you can make any improvements. If you get reviews by a couple of people and they seem to be saying the same thing then you know they’re probably right. The power of reviews are huge and can really help with brand exposure. Look how well Amazon has used this tool. When you shop there, it’s unlikely that you’ll buy something with low reviews or even no reviews. Instead you’ll find something with a good score. Apply it to your stuff too. Remember, you need to research those you want to give a review. No point giving it to just anyone. You need to go for an industry expert if you can. These may be hard to crack, but if you approach them in a professional manner as you’re offering them something free to try or use, they may be inclined to work with you. Research is key.
Create A Buzz With Samples
When a restaurant launches you’ll notice they usually have some kind of free samples going on to pull people in. If they like what they taste, there’s more of a chance people will go to the restaurant. Try to follow the logic. This may not be possible because of what kind of things you’ll be offering, however, if you can pick a few people to send things to who can drum up a buzz it won’t hurt. Especially if you time this with everything else you’re doing. It’ll make for a more dynamic start up if people have seen your products used before. You may not be able to do this in certain industries, but try to think outside the box and something might come to you. Showing your work is important. For example if you’re a tradesman just starting out, think about going to a community project and doing a little work for free. That’s one way to get your name out into a community you’re going to serve.
Website Wonders
Every business has a website these days. Those that don’t are either local and community based, or are making a mistake. Don’t do this. Also, don’t launch your website when you’re starting up. Launch it earlier. Test the waters. You can do all the testing in the world but you won’t have really tested it until you actually launch and people start interacting. Again, the earlier you launch it the more traffic you’ll be getting. It needs to be clean, concise and recognisable. Logical, too. You need to be able to follow things through from one page to the other in a way which doesn’t confuse people. If they get irritated or annoyed they’re just going to go to a competitor. Make it easy. If you’re taking payments on your website too try to make sure that you accept credit and debit, as well as apple and android pay. Not doing this alienates people. The more kinds you accept the more custom you’ll get. You may even want to use something like Klarna if you’re selling high price items to give people a chance to pay things off over a longer period of time. Developing The right website is tough, whether you work with someone or not. It’s like a storefront, well worth investing time into it.
