As an internet marketing professional, I’ve helped many different types of businesses develop an online presence. Quite a few of these businesses were already established before they decided to go online. They either had an existing brand or a physical store.
But that’s not the only type of business which needs a web presence. Brand new businesses can thrive online – even if they start out with virtually no brand recognition. Here are easy and effective online marketing strategies for new brands:
Rethink Your Brand
Does your current brand not have much name recognition? That’s okay. The internet actually offers plenty of opportunities to go from “brand nobody has ever heard of” to “brand known around the world.”
Marketing Strategies to Avoid
Before we look at what type of marketing works best for new businesses, let’s quickly take a look at a common strategy you’ll want to avoid: word-of-mouth.
Many new businesses rely on word-of-mouth. You’ve probably seen people in your social media feeds trying to sell skin care products or other items as part of a home business. Unfortunately, this type of referral-based strategy usually isn’t very effective for three reasons:
- The pool of potential referrers is limited to friends on the social network
- Referrals are inconsistent
- Social media advertising can quickly be annoying
We all have at least one friend who uses social media to push their products. Thisn’t a recipe for long-term growth. Forget promoting to people you know. Instead, your online marketing strategies – even if your brand is completely unknown – should target an audience beyond your personal social media pages.
Here’s how:
Create Value for Your Potential Customers
Before you come close to making a sale, you’ll want to reach out to your potential customers with something of value.
In most cases, this means creating free content. Content can take time to create but usually doesn’t cost money. If you’re willing to put in the effort to create some content, you can do so on even a limited budget.
Content can be an in-depth instruction guide, a podcast, webinar, video and more.
Using Content to Drive Traffic
If your brand isn’t well-known, you don’t want to post all of your content on your web page. People are unlikely to just stumble across your posts. Instead, you’ll want to publish your content in places where your potential audience already gathers.
Guest posting is usually the most effective option. This where you create content for someone else’s website. This site will have an audience likely interested in the products or service you provide, even if they’ve never heard of your brand.
Guest posting has four steps:
- Identify a website with an audience of potential customers
- Connect with the webmaster
- Create content for publication on the site.
- Use the content to drive traffic back to your own site
Expand Your Reach
Guest blogs are a great way to reach a whole new audience. As you write more and more guest blogs, your reach will continue to expand. This can have a great snowball effect. Increased brand awareness means other sites will be more likely to accept guest blogs from you.
The Right Marketing for Your New Business
Starting a new business online can be a lot of hard work. But success is easier if you start off on the right foot marketing-wise. The marketing strategies listed above can help your brand develop from day one.
Are you just starting your online business? Post any questions you have about online marketing below. I’ll be happy to help you stay on the right marketing track!
