Taking your brand to the next level is essential in today’s competitive market. Elevating your brand can increase conversions and customer loyalty exponentially. But doing this can be challenging, especially in a specialized marketplace.
It is a bit of a Catch-22 in a sense, since you chose a specialized marketplace because you have a very focused audience to market to, which is good. Specialized marketplaces also have influencers and micro-influencers at a higher degree.
For instance, 92 percent of people trust recommendations from other people over brands.
However, as a niche market, yours is smaller and has competitors around every digital corner. What to do? The best plan is to elevate your brand intelligently. Boosting brand awareness, increasing online visibility and creating a community around your brand are all must-dos. Difficult? Yes. Worth the time and money? Absolutely!
The following can serve as your quick guide to elevating your brand in a specialized marketplace. From getting more social to creating and communicating your brand through the use of high-quality content, let’s beef up your brand to out-muscle competitors and crush your marketplace.
Related: How Partnerships Can Elevate Your Startup’s Brand
Use social media to boost brand awareness and trust
Social media is critical for elevating your brand. To achieve brand growth and success via social media, you first need to know what social channels your target audience uses. Not all social channels are created equal; some have different demographics that may not be worth the money and time spend.
For example, if your target audience is men, Pinterest may not be the best social media channel, since over 40 percent of its users are women and only 16 percent are men.
Once you know what channels to target in order to reach the maximum number of people in your specialty marketplace, create a social media schedule using Buffer or Hootsuite. This will be the type, quantity, keywords, and hashtags used for posts per day for a month, allowing you to post social content consistently. And consistency is key.
Create high quality content your target audience will love
Once you have social media channels figured out, it is time to develop a strategy for content to post across all channels. This is where a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up. Many will create just any old content, post it across all social media channels, find little success, and then wonder why their social media strategy isn’t working. Even big brands can have issues with this.
Content is still very much king. To wow your target audience, which you have just one chance to do online, you need to create high quality content that triggers emotions and provides value. One of the quickest ways to turn off a potential customer is to sell to them via social posts. Instead, provide creative and authentic content that has value for your customer. The kind of content you can build a community around.
Here’s an example of how to do it right:
This Instagram post provides value in a very unique way, sells without selling, and engages users. By swiping left for more, users get a breakdown of how easy it is to work with this brand in a creative way their target audience loves.
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Put some ad money behind the quality content you’re creating
You are investing a lot of time and money when it comes to content. And if you really want to elevate your brand in a specialized marketplace, you need to narrow the reach you get from your social media posts. This is why boosting posts via ads simply makes sense for startup brands. Remember, social media is all about brand awareness and building a community. To achieve growth and success, use ads to reach your target audience exclusively.
For example, let’s say your website analytics show large amounts of traffic coming in from men, 20 to 25 years of age, living in New York, and using iPhones. With this information, you can create a Facebook and Instagram ad that targets that specific demographic of visitors. And you can go one step further by tailoring the content for that post to that specific demographic.
Here’s a localized example that worked well in a specialty marketplace:
How are you elevating your brand?
There are a ton of ways to take your brand to the next level. Social media is just one instance, but it is one of the most critical assets you can leverage.
In today’s digital age, smartphones and social media have provided brands 24/7 access to their target audiences. Use this consumer access to your advantage and elevate your brand, regardless of your marketplace or niche.
