The term ‘brand’ is usually associated with larger businesses. It’s usually thought to be something that you can invest in only if your business has a big budget. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. No matter the size of your Singapore business, you can have a brand that can be build by Online Marketing. In fact, if you market online, your brand can actually be built within the course of a day.
Local marketing usually focuses on lead generation and its performance is measured by inbound calls, the amount of website traffic, as well as appointments and customers walk-ins. However, while building your customer base, you should never forget to build your local brand.
The Value of Creating a Brand
What’s so great about branding is that it gives you the ability to create your own identity. It helps to encapsulate the personality, values, and product of your business and translates it in a way that your customers can easily understand and appreciate. Much like a picture, a brand can be worth a thousand words.
Another great thing about building a brand is that it helps you tell a story. When we think about brands like Coca-Cola, we often get an immediate mental picture of the business as well as its products. The stronger your brand, the more familiar your customers will feel with your business. And this makes it much easier to make sales.
Brands Vs. Locations and Keywords
As a local Singapore marketer, you probably spend a significant amount of time obsessing about optimising for certain keywords as well as locations that you would like to rank for. Not only do you need results, but you need them as quickly as possible to ensure that you get a good return on your investment. The good news is that you can build your brand with traditional local marketing results. Here’s how:
1. Consistent Branded Citations
It’s important that Singapore businesses know the value of a consistent NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) across the entire web. In most cases, your business name is your brand so in order to ensure that it is correct, you need to make sure that there are no mistakes online.
The best part about the NAP is that it comes with a description section. And you can use it to reinforce your accreditations, how many customers you have, and your company history. You can also use this section to reinforce your brand name.
Images & Photos
Make sure that you upload as many photos as the citation will allow. Work to ensure your images are consistent. They will also need to be of the highest quality and eye-catching. Also, you should use an even mixture of different types. For instance, include your logo. Include pictures of your staff in the workplace. Include images of your actual office building with your logo in the background.
Video
Produce a short video that showcases yours and your team’s personalities and highlights the work that you do. It’s a good idea to show your brand/logo prominently throughout the video. You should also incorporate customer testimonials in order to reinforce that your business can be trusted and is reputable.
2. Reputation Marketing
One of the fundamental parts of running a successful local business is earning a positive reputation. The better your reputation, the more people trust you. The more people trust you, the more familiar they become with your brand. And the more familiar they are with your brand, the more sales you will make.
Sure, it’s important that you provide excellent service to your most loyal customers but this is only the beginning of building your reputation. If you want your business to grow, then you need to build strong relationships so that you can get your customers to share their experiences through reviews and personal recommendations.
You can also boost your reputation by actively responding to both good and bad reviews. This will show your current and potential customer that you are engaged and responsive. It lets them know that you actually care about what they think.
If you are currently working with a digital marketing manager, then they likely create and manage your profiles each of your social networks. It’s important that you make sure that your messaging and imagery is consistent across each and every platform. Consider creating a branded photo or graphic montage, re-sizing them for each site and then uploading them.
4. Publish Authority Content
Not only should you use blogging and content marketing to create social engagement and attract link, you should also use them for brand building. So choose a topic that will allow you to demonstrate your area of expertise and the knowledge you have. Your content needs to be incredibly useful and helpful. It needs to answer the questions that your customers have. This can help to authority and give would-be clients confidence in contacting your business.
Even your blog bio images need to be branded. Use them to qualify you as an expert. Include your position, qualifications, experience, as well as why you are so passionate about your job and company. Again, it’s important that this information is consistent across the web.
5. Community Engagement
If you’re a Singapore business owner, then you probably don’t have much time for participating in forums, contributing comments to blogs, being active in your online communities. However, these grassroots activities are great for building a solid brand.
By monitoring relevant forums, blogs, and communities and answering questions or offering helpful comments, you can reach customers that you ordinarily would not have. It proves that you are both helpful and knowledgeable. You can also generate links that can deliver you direct clicks. Essentially, this method allows you to build a brand, one brick at a time.
6. Video Marketing
One of the best parts about video marketing is that it gives you the ability to showcase your personality. And this is something that just can be fully done through text and images. You can create a video series that is centered around your services, products, and expertise. You can also
You don’t have to act like a salesperson in these videos. In fact, the fewer sales you push, the more you will be able to focus on your content. This way, you will be able to better answer the questions that your audience has.
Remember it’s a good idea to make your main earning authority your main priority. Sales should be second on your objective list. Once people understand that you know your industry well, then the sales will practically make themselves. The great thing about using videos is that people are very willing to share them, which means that you can reach an extremely large audience.
The Takeaway
Never assume that you shouldn’t build your brand just because you are a small business or in the startup phase. The truth is, it’s important to start building a brand as soon as possible. Try not to become so distracting with building leads, links, and making conversions that you forget to give your business a personality and values. When people think of your business, do they have a mental picture of who you are? By using the above tips, you can set a solid foundation for telling your story. The life of your local brand depends on the name that you make for it.
