4 easy ways to gain exposure for your business or brand
Building brand exposure is a tough and sometimes expensive exercise for entrepreneurs. Here are four ways to drive awareness that won’t break the bank…
One of the toughest challenges facing entrepreneurs and start-ups is gaining exposure for their businesses and brands.
The rise of the internet as a platform for building a business means that most industries and sectors are more competitive now than they have ever been.
To ensure businesses and brands are heard above the noise, organisations must have a comprehensive advertising and marketing strategy in place.
But this can be expensive, and most entrepreneurs and start-ups simply don’t have the budget to compete with their more established rivals.
That said, successful advertising and marketing comes down to more than just having deep pockets – there are plenty of ways businesses can promote their brands smartly and cheaply.
- List your business on comparison and review sites
Comparison and review sites are used by millions of people around the world to make an informed decision when purchasing a product or service.
From cars to holidays, insurance and electricity, comparison sites are a great way of getting your brand in front of a huge audience for little cost.
Bojoko, for example, is one such platform where UK-licensed online casino operators can easily get their brands featured in the form of casino reviews.
Operators can upload information and imagery promoting their casino brands, which are then pushed to the site’s growing audience.
The same applies to hoteliers and TripAdvisor, car dealers and CarWow and producers and Amazon. Use the audiences these platforms have built to extend the reach of your brand.
- Content marketing and PR
There are two ways of approaching content marketing and PR: either employ a specialist agency to take care of it for you, or do it in-house.
Agencies are experts, but, in most cases, they will provide guides on how to carry out basic tasks such as writing a press release or publishing blog posts.
Producing this kind of content brings a host of benefits, including gaining exposure in relevant magazines, newspapers and online resources.
Blog content posted on your own hub also helps attract potential customers to your website while boosting search engine rankings.
Content created in-house costs nothing more than the time it takes to put together and often proves to be a highly valuable tool for awareness and engagement with your brand.
Types of content to consider include:
- Press releases
- Blog posts
- Thought leadership articles
- Whitepapers and reports
- Infographics
- Social media and boosted posts
One of the best and most cost-effective ways of gaining exposure for your business is, of course, social media.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn – they’re all great platforms entrepreneurs can use to spread the word about their brand.
That said, it’s important to consider the audience you’re trying to reach and the social media channels where your targets will be most active.
If you’re a B2C business, you will likely find that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the most effective channels.
If you have a B2B offering, professional networks such as LinkedIn are the best place to discuss industry trends and the benefits your products and services bring to the business community.
To ensure your posts end up in front of the right people, you should consider boosting posts. This costs money but is far more reasonable than you might expect.
Facebook, for example, allows you to target users based on a wide range of criteria – location, gender, interests, etc – so you can be sure you’re reaching the people you need to, and campaigns can be run for as little as £10.
- Sponsorship
When considering your advertising and marketing budget, it’s worth looking into various sponsorship opportunities.
These will require you to shell out some collateral, but they’re still far cheaper than traditional advertising methods and may lead to valuable networking events.
They also add kudos to your brand.
If you’ve launched an online platform and app for real estate agents, for example, you might want to look into sponsoring an annual awards dinner for the real estate industry.
This move would give you tremendous visibility in front of the same people you want to warm up to your product, with the added bonus of getting to work with them on the night.
These are just some of the ways you can quickly and effectively gain exposure for your brand.
Some will work better than others depending on the business you run and the sector you’re in, but go on and try at least one tactic to see what impact it has.
