Growing a business is like a marathon, but with obstacles. You must overcome each obstacle to endure the race and remain competitive. One of the strategies to drive the growth of your business and expand its brand reach is to devise a strategy of online growth and make it successful. The only way to make your online business stand out and build your brand is to work on the following steps.
Step 1 – Identify your unique value
Every business out there has something to offer. This offer doesn’t have to be one of a kind per se, but it has to be unique and specific. This is also called a unique value proposition, something specific that you have to offer. Identify your unique value and devise strategies to present, communicate and make your value known to your target audience.
Step 2 – Understand who you are selling to
Identifying your unique value should be followed by understanding who your ideal customer is. They have specific problems and needs, and your service should appeal to them. Your entire online presence, brand and marketing strategy has to appeal to your audience. Once you identify their needs and pain points, you’ll gather the necessary data to build further or improve your online marketing strategies.
Step 3 – Focus on a specific niche
For a business to stand out, it has to appeal to a specific audience. This specific audience is your niche. By getting to know your audience, you will learn what this specific niche needs and how your offer, service or product can be niche-specific. By doing this, your business can stand out from your competitors, and your brand can quickly become known and trustworthy source for these niche-specific needs and requirements.
Step 4 – Build your image
If we asked a random person – to name one business you associate with a red colour, most would reply Coca-Cola. This would be an example of successful brand recognition. A business must think carefully about its presentation to build a brand image that will lead to brand recognition.
This is something you need to define even before you enter a specific market or a niche. People recall about 80% of things they see, meaning they will recognise your brand if they see your visuals at least once. The great thing about building your brand image is that you can hire any agency you want, from creatives in graphic design Perth, Australia, to a freelancer whose portfolio you’ve seen on LinkedIn. Find a graphic design agency that will understand your brand mission and vision and work together to create a great design for your brand.
Step 5 – Strong online presence
A strong online presence on social media is a must in this day and age. People spend half of their days on social media, and this trend probably isn’t going away anytime soon. People interested in your service or brand will look you up on social media.
You should use your social media channels to educate people, inform them, communicate with them and build a community. The ultimate goal is a community of people who value your service and offer, but you should also use social media to attract new customers.
Use these channels or only those frequented by your target audience. This leads to building brand awareness and turning a prospect into a customer.
Step 6 – Responsive website
A website also falls under the category of a strong online presence, as people are inclined to shop online more than ever. Even if your business doesn’t classify as e-commerce, you should build an informative, user-friendly, valuable, responsive website.
We’re all glued to our mobile devices, whether it’s just our smartphone or a tablet or a Macbook. More than 70% of people bought something over their phone over the past six months. A mobile-friendly website is necessary to deliver a fantastic user experience.
Step 7 – Marketing
If you want to promote your business the right way, you should grow it through different marketing strategies. It all starts with content marketing when you build your website, optimise content for SEO and start your blog to offer value to website visitors. Then, give equal attention to social media marketing, as it will help you expand your brand’s reach and build an audience. Equally, prioritise other marketing strategies like email marketing, demand generation and influencer marketing at different stages of your business growth. The goal is to stay ahead and remain competitive and always in front of people’s eyes.
Step 8 – Paid ads
Paid ads will get your offer, service, product or message directly to those who search for specific keywords or belong to a specific interest group on social media. Paid ads, whether on Google or Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, will drive traffic to your website, boost branded searches, drive more sales and even your social media following.
Step 9 – Great customer support
When you implement all of the aforementioned steps, people will want to reach out, ask questions or have their problems solved. This is where a great customer support team comes in, as it’s the key to having a satisfied customer.
All your agents should represent your brand in the best possible way and ensure all complaints are solved positively and inquiries are solved promptly. It’s also a way to nurture existing relationships while crafting other strategies to attract new relationships and new customers.
Conclusion
These nine steps are all equally important so ensure you do the groundwork (steps one, two and three), so you’ll be ready to work on steps four to nine. All of them combined will help your business stand out and gain a competitive edge.
