Personal Branding and Your Business Brand Image

Whether personal branding yourself or branding your business, it is vital to understand the new and evolving success strategies.  Power, fame and wealth is increasingly dependent on your brand image or that of your organization.

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as the Internet.  Consumers had to visit stores to buy things and readers received hand-delivered newspapers to find out about local news,  movies and events.  But now with the arrival of the Internet, things have dramatically changed.  And this change requires all of us to change how we think of and develop our personal brand and market our organizations.

More than 8 out of 10 Buyers Research Online Before Buying

People now use the Internet to get information, conduct shopping and engage in social interaction.   According to Statistica, there are about 3.5 billion daily, global Internet users.  And 81% of them conduct online research before making a purchase, this according to Adweek.  With these vast numbers of people searching online for products,  services and ideas, if you’ve got a web presence, you’ve got a chance to be found.  And if you’ve got a web presence and good branding, you are in a good position to control your image, influence and cash flow.  Information flows before money flows:  people find information about what they wish to buy before they make a purchase.  So it is imperative that you put information online that attracts customers to your website or social media profile.

Regardless if you have a business or just going it alone, you must have a website and remain active on at least one of the major social media properties such as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. These social media sites have what is known as high domain authority, which is like “street cred” for the Web.  So if you develop a good profile and upload or create informative or interesting content on these social media platforms, you cam raise the level of your brand image.

Nearly Half of 28 Million Small Businesses Have No Website

The 28 million U.S. small businesses account for about 54% of all revenue but 47% of them have no website.   This finding from Inc Magazine is both disturbing and hopeful.  Disturbing because it demonstrates that small business are not maximizing the benefit of internet for themselves and the US labor market.  Hopeful, because it quantifies the opportunity that lies ahead.  How much faster might these small businesses grow in the coming years and how can reverse sluggish employment and income inequality.  Those organizations and individuals who have taken advantage of the web are experiencing a huge gain in their business. If you have a website or online presence then a person searching for product or services related to your business will find you.

Impact of website on business

Our website generates hundreds of monthly leads that result in sales.   We do not hire a large sales force to travel the country, pounding the pavement to find business; instead keywords are our sales teams that help customers find our website and buy our goods and services.  From the research above, it is clear that a larger percent of small business don’t fully understand this.

If you have a website presence, you have the potential to find customers 24/7/365.   This online presence makes you visible not only to your local city or state but the entire country and indeed the full world.  The U.S. population is less than 5% of the world’s population.  No small business can afford to be cut off from 95% of the market.

A professionally built website (which can be done for nearly free or only a few hundred dollars today) will do a great deal of marketing and sales work for you.  It’s a well know marketing fact that people like to buy but not like to be sold. People who visit your website can easily read the details of your products and services you offer and make a relaxed decision without feel sales pressure.  This is good for both you and your customer.

Mobile friendly website

Make sure your website is responsive (automatically adjusts itself according to device screen). Now a days people don’t rely on desktop or laptops. They make searches while walking across the screen from their phone with a 3G connection or traveling to another city and finding hotels. So if your website is mobile friendly then you will see an increase in website traffic and conversions.

Presence in Social Media

Like we talked in the beginning, billions of people use internet on daily basis for information, news, entertainment, shopping, social interaction etc. So to capture all those you will need your presence on social platforms as well. If you are not then probably your competitor would and you are losing that audience which may be a potential customer to you. Let’s consider that example of Facebook, People all around the globe use it for social interaction but many of them at the same time search things on different companies pages that’s been there and after seeing reviews and comments they feel comfortable and make a purchase.

Making a small video for your business

For many of you this idea seems silly. But if you make a video for your business and upload it on YouTube.com as well as have it on your website, you will find out that your video gets more appearance in search engines and comes in searches compared to websites. That’s because many of your competitors don’t know this and they are not following this practice. And if you have products, then you can make a youtube.com channel as well where you can upload latest product videos or promotions as well.

Better leads and sales

If you analyze why your competitor is ahead of you then you will come to know all of the above that your competitor is doing and your are not. So don’t wait if you don’t have a web presence have it today. Web presence doesn’t mean building a one page website, leaving it alone and sitting in front of emails to look for leads. You have to have a social presence, make advertising videos for your products and services and upload them on YouTube and social media. Update your social media with details whenever you have new products. Link your website with YouTube and social media.

The most important factor is making your website simple yet appealing, user friendly and fully optimized for search engines to get rankings.

You can read our article Optimize Your Website to Grow Brand and Sales.