Friday, February 23, 2024
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Innovative ways to improve your brands visibility

Dominic Lill ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

Being visible to the right people at the right time is crucial to business success. You need to have a good online profile, people need to be aware of your business name and what you do and you need to be seen by customers and potential customers when they pass your business premises. Ensure your brands visibility is front a centre of your marketing efforts.

This might seem like it needs a lot of work and budget. However, there are some simple and effective ways to greatly increase your brands visibility without too much investment in terms of time or cash.

brands visibility

Don’t be put off if you haven’t tried some of these techniques before, give them a go and find out which ones work the best for you. For example you could hire a freelance SEO expert to help you with a few cheap and easy SEO strategies. Try not to look on these suggestions as a chore as you are unlikely to commit to them properly. Think of them as great opportunities to boost your business’ ‘brand marketing’, get excited and put some energy and creativity into them for best results.

Identify target rich environments

Don’t just take a scatter gun approach. Think about your customers; who are they, where do they go and what do they do? Identify physical locations, events, entertainment and transport hubs they visit and the media that they see and target these where you can. You can get help from your team and brainstorm these questions. 

Have you got information from past customers on how they found you or where they tried looking first? If not, you should be trying to capture this information going forward. If you don’t have this information don’t be afraid to contact a few happy customers and ask them directly. 

Online location and directions

If you have a shop, showroom, office or branch you need people to know where you are located and you have to be well signposted. It is essential to use all available online services like Google My Business (Map listings) and important online directories to publish your address and crucially opening times. If you don’t know how to do this type of online citation work then get help from an SEO consultant. This does then give you the job of making sure these times are always accurate. A customer who makes a special trip to your office only to find you are closed is unlikely to be impressed enough with you to attempt a second visit. Be organized. Make a list of your online profiles (including social media) with your usernames and passwords and have a system for regularly reviewing the information to make sure it is accurate. Make sure you clearly advertise your holidays and be consistent across all websites.

It is astounding how many businesses do not publish clear location information on their websites. Do you have a contact or location page in your main navigation? Does it list all the ways people can contact you and provide clear directions and opening hours for your office or showroom and does it differentiate if your phone lines are open longer? Have you got someone to test your directions and have you checked that your locations are showing correctly in Google Maps?

Are you sending people to the right place? Should some enquiries go a specific email address and others to a specific phone number and who will benefit from visiting the shop or showroom? If you are very clear about the best form of contact for each type of question you will get more enquiries and your response is likely to be faster and better.

Local physical brands visibility

Don’t just focus on online resources. You should also think hard about real physical signposting to your business. It’s old school but it works. If your location is not easy to spot get some signposts put up. You can consider advertising posters in empty shop windows with an arrow, a detailed map and how many minutes’ walk away you are.

Next think about your physical location. Does it stand out? Is your business name easy to see and read? Is your name enough or do you also need to say what you do? In many cases businesses fail to say simply and clearly what they are offering. ‘Arnold and sons’ may well be in huge lettering but unless people already know your business, they will have no idea what you do. This is a huge missed opportunity. All those people passing your premises every day should be left in no doubt about what you do. Colorful and large signage at your location is important. Are you using all your windows to draw attention to your product or services, if not why not? You can consider prop items like a product or brand inflatable to really make you stand out. Not only does it make you easy to find, it also means that people who are not ready to buy your services see you and are more likely to remember what you do when they do want to buy. 

Don’t forget to say who your customers are. Are you B2B, do you target SMEs or do you work with homeowners? Again making this clear is more likely to make you memorable to the right audience. 

Creative printing

High quality printing is cheap and fast these days so you should maximise opportunities to raise your brands visibility using printed media. Check back to your brainstorming session and identify festivals, local papers, transport hubs that your customers see. Target these with advertising, leaflets and branded freebies. Remember to say who you are, what you do, who your customers are (B2B or homeowners…?), where you are and how to contact you.

Don’t be afraid to get some of your sales team to stand in the street, attend events and hand out information or freebies and talk to people. You will raise your profile and it allows you to collect crucial information on how to convert better. 

Another free resource you can leverage is existing customers. Have you given them a personalised printed freebie like a printed mug, custom keyring or mouse mat? This keeps you visible to them and increases the likelihood of repeat custom and them recommending you to other people.

All your company vehicles should have signage on them. Car wraps are a great way to add highly visible and eye-catching advertising to increase your brands visibility.

Other ideas

There are some other ways to increase your brands visibility that we have already written about in some detail. We won’t repeat the information here but you should refer to these articles;