Five Top Tips For Building Your Brand Online

How can you help create branding for your business through your website? Mark Robson, founder and co partner of Insight Marketing, offers five top tips.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES 

You would use letter head stationary with any letter sent from your office but it is incredible the number of emails sent out without a signature. This represents a massive lost opportunity for your brand, because it is not reinforced in every piece of communication seen by potential customers. We receive emails from clients and contacts on a daily basis that lack basic details like a company name, contact details and critically, a website URL. Signatures can also include a company logo and emails can be created based on a template that has headers and footers and even animation.

DIGITAL MARKETING 

Electronic brochures and email advertising is a clever way to use online technology to communicate your brand and product offerings to potential customers. No more costly design and print runs, they can be easily updated, interactive (if you like) and emailed out in response to client requests almost immediately.

KEEP YOUR WEBSITE FRESH 

Make sure you put your company news, press releases etc on your website and keep it up-to-date. Everyone knows it’s the first place prospects and journalists go to. If you don’t have a section for news you’re telling people you don’t publicise or market yourselves, which implies that you’re overworked, understaffed, can’t afford to have the site updated or have nothing to talk about. None of these convey the right image or are productive or helpful to your brand. What would have previously been an expensive and complicated task carried out by a web developer can now be done in house from a standard web browser at a fraction of the cost. Try www.flexinews.com. Get into the habit of updating your sites news every week.

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND TO THE POINT 

Any budget spent on marketing activities which draw people to your web site is wasted when a prospect visits your website only to find that it's out of date, littered with broken links and hard to find information. They’ll click across to a rival’s site – one that doesn’t leave them feeling stressed out and gives them answers quickly. Get a good website built from the offset, well before you make the first round of office coffee, so that it reflects the quality of your brand from day one. And don’t just focus on what it looks like – what it says is crucial. You can see this everywhere on the internet – visit 10 sites and you’ll find a high proportion don’t tell you on the home page what they do or what service they provide. Keep it simple and to the point. 

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH 

Get sound advice from independent resources like www.startups.co.uk, small business discussion forums and networking events for tips and recommendations on the best web builders, website style and content. Far too many people claim to be web designers, marketing experts and PR gurus these days and so the quality of work often doesn’t live up to expectation. Word of mouth is generally the best barometer for this kind of work.

http://startups.co.uk/5-top-tips-for-building-your-brand-online/

5 Steps To Becoming A Leader In Your Niche

If you are thinking of starting an online business, I'm sure you will have come across the terms "finding a niche" and "becoming an expert in your niche" - particularly when it comes to affiliate marketing.  

This article on Linked In discusses the Five Steps To Becoming A Leader In Your Niche.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”John Quincy Adams

If you look at people who are leaders in Affiliate Marketing, you will notice that they are all experts at building a community around themselves and their products.  This should be the goal for anyone in performance marketing, to develop an almost cult-like following.  With a little swag and an ability to locate and attract followers, you can enjoy the life of a successful Affiliate Marketer.  Transforming that status into profits is the ultimate goal.  Here are several tips to help you become a leader in your niche.

Be Confident

Confidence attracts people.  While being intelligent, hardworking and attractive doesn’t hurt your chances at all, oozing confidence that comes from knowledge and a core set of beliefs which you adhere to like the law is the only way to become a real leader in your niche.  When you can confidently voice your truths, you are on your way to becoming the leader you need to be.

Be Different

Why speak the same words and take the same approach as other marketers in your niche?  The best marketers find a way to separate themselves from the others by being different.  Evaluate the elements that make your competition unique.  Make your perspective unique and one that others will want to share.  By modifying your approach and adapting new ideas you can create an appeal that is worthy of attention.

Find Followers

People often look for simple solutions to whatever problems they have.  They look for people that have the knowledge, experience, and answers to these problems.  Your ultimate goal is to find followers, as many as possible.  If you have something unique and compelling to say, it shouldn’t be hard to find followers.  Building your list of followers is of extreme importance to building a successful affiliate campaign.

Be Persuasive.

Quality Content + Loyalty =$$.  This is a simple equation.  Once you understand why a person engages your content, why they opt in and ultimately buy into you, you will be able to develop an approach that will be effective for your niche.  Influencing one-time actions shouldn’t be your goal, it should be repeatable ones.  The fewer holes you have in your content, the more your content will be shared.

Be Legit.

Longevity +Growth = Legitimacy.  Publishing content often while building your list of followers will help build credibility.  As an Affiliate Marketer, one of your goals should be to earn respect.  To do this, you need to be creative, different, smart, and have a little swagger.  Being a cookie-cutter marketer and producing the same thing, as everyone else is something you need to steer clear of.

http://www.terrellcotton.com/5-steps-to-becoming-a-leader-in-your-niche/