The right marketing tools will land you high dividends. I'm not only talking about visibility, but credibility and profits. Finding strategies that work will help build your brand, separate you from other experts, and grow business revenues.
The faster you pinpoint these the better, but where do we start and which methods are best? There’s no perfect strategy or ideal tool for increasing leads and landing new customers. Remember, the market is ever-changing and adaptability is the name of the game.
Every market and business has different variables to consider for gaining traction. Success usually comes down to your ability to align your expertise, systems, and solutions to your clients' present needs and future desires. If you can find multiple methods for seamlessly integrating your customer’s problems with simple, effective solutions your business will steadily rise above others.
Writing for Brand Building
Blogs- Sharing valuable tips, tools and tactics is the best way to grow your influence. Blogging is one way to build your authority, share your expertise and help others overcome problems. Each time your audience achieves a goal or simply feels a sense of progression you build a bridge of trust with them.
Posting regularly deepens your relationship by being the reliable expert with great stuff. Your consistency and their confidence in you brings a steady stream of traffic to your website, increases social shares, and acquires higher quality backlinks. All of these improve your site SEO, moving you past thousands of competitors with boring, static pages.
Customers looking to hire industry and subject matter experts instantly head to search engines. Recent data shows 16+ blogs a month generates 3x more traffic than those posting 1-4 per month. If you’re not much of a writer, consistency is the initial key and I recommend starting with a modest goal of blogging weekly and progress from there.
Publication Articles- Much like blogging, however, you’re writing for outside publication with a larger reach and audience base. Look both locally and online for places you know you can bring value to. Most importantly, choose publications that align with your values and target audience. Look into newspapers, industry-specific magazines and major publications.
“Getting in” as a contributing writer can boost your credibility, increase traffic to your site (where you have plenty of great blogs to read) and land new, bigger, better customers. Research, write and submit an article that fits the desired publications style, guidelines and is helpful for their audience members and you may be calling yourself a writer soon.
Books- Arguably the most effective brand building tool is a published book. Becoming an author does take considerably more time and effort than blogging or writing articles, however with the rise of technology and self-publishing it’s easier than ever to access the needed resources. Once published, as long as your book is up-to-date and relevant, you can leverage it in your business forever.
Use your book to gain attention and interest on the front end promotion of a webinar, include it as a bonus within a new product package or sell it on the backend of any speaking engagement. Don’t start writing until you decide a publishing method as each has its pros and cons. Once you pick whether traditional, hybrid or self-publishing fits your business strategy, complete your book and leverage it for both a credibility boost and revenue generation.
Speaking for Brand Building
Vlog- The video version of a blog is a great place to start if you’re good in front of a camera. Consider your audience preferences before you start shooting. If your audience absolutely loves reading then video may still be part of your content mix, but not a primary strategy.
Video will help your audience not only learn from your knowledge, but they’ll have the opportunity to connect with you as a person. Video allows them to see if you’re the type of person they want to engage with, follow and later work with. If you’re not much of a writer or blogger you can record yourself speaking on a topic to help you more clearly share your message in writing.
Take some time to think about how you want to reveal yourself to the world. Decide your image, value, and presence on camera. Most importantly, define how you want to serve the audience, the values and beliefs you stand for and what people can expect from you. Learn more about video and you will attract people to engage in your content.
Audio - Audio may not sound like a speaking strategy, but ultimately it’s you sharing your knowledge behind a microphone. Audio options are great strategic tools for those who feel uncomfortable with video or writing. Live or recorded content is a great way to share and connect with your audience or subscriber list as you build your writing and on-camera skills.
Create a plan and a schedule for an audio version of a blog to share insights and industry trends. Utilize teleseminars or screencast webinars as a great way to offer value for free or as a revenue source. Lastly, you can do podcasts (as the host or a guest) to interview, learn and connect with other subject matter experts. This is a great way to find strategic partners.
Speaking/Keynote- If you’re a credible expert and entertaining then speaking is powerful in expanding your brand influence. Being a speaker provides you the opportunity to share your message to the masses or instantly impact small, influential groups. This is especially effective if you have a distinct system or methodology you provide via product or service.
Speaking allows you to not only connect with people on a person level like video, but they get to experience you live. This kills any thoughts of how rehearsed, edited or phony (for the haters) others may think you are on video. If you have great stage presence, good with your voice and diction and come well prepared you can land high paying keynote spots; great for revenue and credibility boosting.
Overcome stage fright, know your stuff and avoid being a perfectionist and this strategy is prime to grow your brand. Practice by speaking anywhere and everywhere there is the opportunity to share with your audience. Raise your speaking game well enough and you earn opportunities influence the masses of the biggest companies and share the stage with top experts.
To build a powerful brand it’s important to nail down several effective strategies for building credibility and influence. Although, these aren’t the only methods, it’s these two strategic staples that have stood the test of time for growing businesses. Use them consistently and strategically for everything your brand needs to grow.
Gain high impact with quick and relative ease from online video and publication articles. Or you can enjoy the long term effect and credibility explosion of putting considerably more work into books and keynote speaking.
Which of the brand building tools could benefit you most this year? You can start or join the conversation by leaving a comment below.
