Establishing Your Brand: Internet Marketing Musts for Smart Startups

When you first launch your business, the idea of marketing it online can be confusing. There are so many types of digital marketing techniques to choose from, and it can all be a bit overwhelming.

But it needn’t be.

Establishing your brand through online marketing does not have to be difficult. All it takes is a bit of time and focus. Here are some of the main marketing activities you should focus on if you want to establish your new brand online.

Launch a Professional Website

The place to start is with a professional website. While you can create a website yourself using a free platform without any experience, this should be avoided for your business website. It is easy to see which websites have been professionally designed, and this will make an immediate impression on visitors.

Your website should be modern, attractive, with clear navigation, and have fast-loading pages if you want to make the best impression on your visitors.

It doesn’t have to cost a lot, though. In fact, you can hire a company to do all the work and you just pay a monthly fee for them to look after your site. Use a specialist like Pronto Marketing, which along with launching your website will also help with various online marketing activities.

Start Creating Valuable Content

As soon as your website is up and running, you should come up with a content strategy. Content is the foundation of all internet marketing, and without valuable content in place, marketing your business will be a challenge.

Come up with ideas to create content on. Think about the types of topics your target customers will want to find out more about. Start a blog, posting once or twice a week (this also has SEO benefits, as we’ll cover later).

The quality of your content, and the topics you discuss, will help to define your brand. Your goal should be to create the content that your targets will find valuable.

Don’t stop at written content: Create videos, infographics, images, podcasts, and more. Different people will prefer to access their content via different mediums.

Work on Your Social Media Presence

Social media is the place where you can start to work seriously on your branding. Many people now use social media on a daily basis, and networks like Facebook have taken over the world. You are almost certain to find many of your target audience active here.

But don’t forget about smaller sites that may be more suitable for you to have a presence on. Pinterest, for example, may be ideal if your products and services are more visual.

Just make sure you start on social media early. Establish a presence, and use your logo on every profile you create. Start to share your own content, and find and share content created by others. Respond to questions, get involved in discussions, take an active role in the community.

Advertise to Get in Front of More People

There are many opportunities for advertising online. You could start with a PPC campaign by using something like Google’s AdWords platform, and that way you can get your site featured at the top of the search engines in no time at all. By appearing in the search engine results, you will be helping to increase your brand visibility.

Consider Facebook ads as well. These are slightly different because you are reaching out to people who are not specifically searching for the solutions you provide. It can be a very effective way to increase your brand visibility and reach out to your targets.

Work on Your SEO Strategy

SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most important areas of online marketing. This will incorporate your content and social media activities, but now it’s time to create a strategy with specific goals. It may help to hire an SEO company to help you here, at least to get started.

Appearing high up in the search results is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site, but it is also good for your branding. Appearing high up for numerous keywords suggests you are a site to be trusted.

Start Developing Your Marketing Strategy

These are some of the main areas to focus on when you want to establish your brand online through digital marketing. None of them are particularly complex, and even small businesses can start to get excellent results from them in a short space of time. Just remember to create a strategy that incorporates various types of online marketing techniques, and you should soon start to see results.

Derek Brown is the Managing Director of Pronto Marketing, a provider of outsourced website design and Internet marketing services to small businesses around the world. Previously, Derek was the Director of Marketing Communications for the Mobile Devices Division at Microsoft Corp. and oversaw all marketing disciplines including advertising, branding, Internet marketing and public relations on global efforts.