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How a Small Business Can Create a Big Brand

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Most small business owners will scoff at the mere mention of the word branding for their business. At a juncture in their business where every penny is being watched to ensure movement toward eventual profits, branding hasn’t even entered the equation.

The real truth is that all businesses – big or small – have a brand within them. It’s a matter of finding a way to bring it out to make your company stand apart from your competitors.

branding photo

small business owners neglect branding because they feel it’s an expense they can’t afford.  But branding can help position you as the expert in your niche – and it can catapult your profits upward faster than many other components within your business strategy.

While it’s true that the big businesses shell out big bucks to make a brand for their company, it really isn’t necessary to spend that much money.  Branding is what sets you apart from other companies offering the same type products or services as you.

It could come from your logo, awesome customer service, the quality of the product you put on the market, or the buzz you generate in your niche.  The next time you watch television, actually pay attention to the commercials.

What are some of the brands you see in the companies that placed those ads on the air? State farm insurance has a commercial jingle that says, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” It’s not only their jingle – but also a brand, because it invokes feelings of trust in their target audience.

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get a brand for your company. Figure out what you want to be known for and develop a tag line or motto for your business.

What makes the store Payless shoes stand out from their competitors? The simple fact that the customer pays less for a pair of shoes than most shoe stores! They created branding right in their business name.

Branding is not something you have to break the bank to get. Figure out what your company or product’s strong points are and build from there. Let your business grow and get your company’s image developed by providing a brand to make you stand out from those you’re competing against.

10 ways to build a big brand for your small business

Small business can create big brands

Choose a Niche That Lets You Cash in Across the Board

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Have you been floundering online for a long time, trying with a hit or miss approach to make money from various niches? Your passion for a certain niche may not necessarily translate into effective product creation.

It’s important to choose a niche which lets you make money in all areas of the Internet such as digital affiliate marketing, tangible products, coaching and other methods. It’s highly important that you have a passion for your niche, but not so much that you’re blinded to the reality of the marketing aspect.

You can virtually waste your time and money on a niche you’re passionate about and reap very little rewards for your efforts. Today’s Internet marketing world is highly competitive.

If you have certain financial goals you’re aiming for with your online business venture, then you have to make sure your niche offers enough profit potential to meet your needs.

One of the methods that can put you at the top of your niche includes digital info product creation. This is a great type of marketing that can provide you with a passive income. You don’t have to work as hard each week to sell your product because once it’s done, it earns money for you time and time again.

These products may include a how-to eBook or video series or even a site membership. Anyone interested in your product can purchase it from your site at any time, 24/7, which is where all of that ìmake money while you sleepî jargon comes from.

Digital affiliate marketing is an amazing tool that lets others promote your products and share the profits with you. You’re building online relationships with other marketers in similar niches and divvying up the profits.

The key here is relationships. You have to know who promotes what, prove to them you’re worthy of promotion, and then cater to their needs in order to get them to email their list about your stuff.

Tangible product promotions allow you to be earning income based on items other people created. Examples of tangible products include essential oils, electronic devices, and more.

This is a great way to make money because you don’t have to create a thing. You simply find what consumers want, and act as the middleman to guide them in their purchase.

Coaching is an intangible product and is best offered after you’ve set yourself up as an expert in your niche, or if you have the credentials to be considered an expert. You may choose to coach new Internet marketers, financial entrepreneurs or life coaching clients just to name a few.

You should be ready to research your niche and make sure that it’s conducive to branching out in the above methods. It takes a lot of work and effort to establish yourself, but with these methods of expanding your online business, you should be able to make it a success.

Whatever you do, don’t latch on to a niche just because someone else does, or because you see some flash in the pan success. Trends are important, but not at the expense of your overall happiness.

5 steps you can use to find your niche

How to pick a profitable niche for your online business

Do not Be Afraid to Call Yourself the Best

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Sometimes it’s especially difficult for us to toot our own horns, or tell others how great we are. You don’t want it to come off as arrogant or conceited, but it’s important in the online marketing business for others to know what you have to offer and the experience you have in the niche.

And it may be more important than you think. You may have looked at another marketer’s achievements and thought there’s no way you could ever measure up. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

Chances are, you may already have some accomplishments to brag about in a way that others will take you very seriously. You can brag about yourself and boost your online presence without seeming like a braggart with an inflated ego.

Avoid making self-deprecating brags. That’s when you may share some of your accomplishments and then try to appear humble by making a joke about your incompetence.

For example, you might mention that you were invited to speak at a very important seminar and then humble yourself by saying they must have been desperate to choose you as the speaker. Self-deprecating brags often come off as pathetic rather than humble.

Be excited about your story. Rather than play down your accomplishments, make them into stories which inspire and encourage others. Even if the story about your successes border on the mundane, you can surely find something to be excited about.

For example, meeting another Internet marketer who became your mentor and showed you the ropes just as you were about to give up can encourage others to keep networking.

Bring in a friend. Get another networking friend (preferable with his or her own list of accomplishments) and brag about each other online. You get to boast about the other person’s experience and accomplishments and he or she gets to brag about you.

People are sometimes more receptive to a third party’s information about you and both you and the friend will get some great online recognition. This is better when it happens naturally, rather than planning it out where it may seem stiff. Just look for opportunities to reciprocate kind remarks.

Share your sense of humor. Put some humor behind your stories and you’ll be memorable to others without being perceived as bragging. For example, if you have a humorous story about how you embarrassed yourself online while rising to the top of the barrel, find a way to tell it with humor.

Everyone loves a good story, and it’s important that you use yours to brand yourself and to shore up your business as much as you can. Since Americans hear or read over 100,000 words per day, it’s important that we get our messages across as best we can and let others know that we’re the best in our niches along with why.

7 brilliant ways to brand yourself

Do not Pick a Niche Because Someone Told You To

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Choosing a niche doesn’t have to be intimidating and daunting. In fact, it should be a fun project – and one based on several criteria ñ the first being that you have a distinct interest in the niche.

Too many newbies come online and the way they pick a niche is no better than playing pin the tail on the donkey. If they hear a successful marketer mention a topic, they jump on it ñ without ever looking to see if it’s right for them.

marketing photo

You should be excited about delving in to one or more of the things you love best for the business you’re about to create. Never choose a niche because someone told you the money is good and fast.

It will backfire on you if you’re just not interested. Another criterion for choosing a niche is that it has profit potential. You won’t be interested in building a business that doesn’t have any potential for financial success.

Still, you have to look for the niche that interests you ñ and there’s plenty of those out there for everyone. Keep in mind that the niche you choose will be the one you’ll invest thousands of hours and some hard earned money into and you’ll have to learn some strategies along the way.

Research is the only way to choose an interesting and profitable niche and there’s lots of online help you can use. Keyword research (for volume) is one of the best ways to see how many people are interested in your topic and searching for it using search engines.

Compare various topics to better measure their popularity. Wordtracker is a good and easy-to-use tool that can give you all of the information that you need about topic popularity.

Wordtracker also has a program called ìKeyword Universe,î which is a tool designed to search the ënet for keywords related to your main topic. It can show you a list of other words you may want to use and also tell you the count of searches.

You may see other niches you could either use to branch out or to change your original keyword because of popularity. It helps you pick a slant, too ñ where you can dig down a bit deeper in a niche and dominate it.

Besides keyword research, spend some time surfing the ënet and finding out how and what others are doing in similar niches. Don’t be turned off if you find there’s a lot of competition.

That simply means that a ton of people are interested in the niche and the marketers are making money. Make sure you avoid hyped-up sales pitches that promise tons of cash can be made overnight.

If you’re building a business that you want to last and prosper, you’ll want to choose a niche that you can branch out into wider markets and where there’s plenty of potential to narrow the market, also.

This means there are ample amounts of consumers for you to sell to, and a ton of different product slants you can develop. Dieting, for example, is a broad niche, but then you can target men or women, age groups, special circumstances like post pregnancy, and types of diets such as low carb, fasting, or calorie counting.

Whatever you do, don’t worry about making a mistake in picking your niche. Most marketers have gone into and abandoned a few niches before they find the one that makes them satisfied ñ and puts cash in their bank account.

Niche marketing – definition

Examples of niche markets

Do not You Dare Allow Yourself to Become Outdated

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Will you avoid becoming obsolete

Staying ahead of becoming obsolete

One day you’re stuffing keywords into your copy to rank well in Google and the next day, the fickle search engine is turned off by keywords and there’s even a penalty if you have too many!

Squidoo is a good example of a type of technology that many depended on and then it’s closed for business suddenly. Some relied on it 100% to pay their mortgages, support their children, and sustain a living all around.

obsolete photo

technologically challenging being an online entrepreneur because you have to find time to keep up with all of the latest in the industry that can help you succeed. If you love what you do, you’ll likely enjoy keeping up to date with the new stuff that can make your life easier as an Internet entrepreneur or better ensure your future success.

If you aren’t ready to make the commitment to keeping up to date, then you’re not ready to lead others. For example, what if you didn’t know about social networking migrations and you were still trying to spam people on MySpace?

Keeping up to date can be a journey in itself. There are web media such as blogs, podcasts and forums to keep track of – and, of course, the rules and regulations that are always changing for online marketers.

If you’re reading about changes in a blog or forum, make sure you’re not reading an outdated post. That’s just wasted time. There are continual updates on how to promote your products, free apps which can help you save time and make your job easier and technology news sites you can subscribe to that can keep you abreast of what’s happening in the industry.

Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook can also keep you updated on a continual basis. Following such people as Bill Gates and Martin Fowler (Software Development Methodologies) and other marketing gurus who you admire is another good way to get the latest news and updates.

Other methods of finding resources to keep in touch are web-based, online tutorials and web casts. Acquiring professional training is great if you can afford the coaching fees, but there are many sites today which offer wonderful, informative tutorials that will keep you technologically focused.

Podcasts and forums are also wonderful resources for keeping in touch. Set up your own podcasts or get together with other bloggers to talk about specific topics and trends.

Keep searching and you’ll find one or more that suits all of your needs. Books and magazines may also be a good source of Internet marketing information, but check that the print copies contain accurate and up to date technological data on the subject matter you’re researching.

This type of resource can become out of date in no time at all because of the changing nature of the Internet. Knowing it’s a constantly changing technological world, spend some time every day researching new methods and you’ll be ready for the good and the bad.

Field Some Experts to Boost Your Authority

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Create an authority site

Increase your domain authority

Some people get so scared of sharing the spotlight that they insulate themselves from greatness. You feel like sharing the stage with a competitor makes you look weak, like you’re not the only person who knows everything about the niche topic.

When you bring in experts to boost your authority in your niche, you won’t lose customers, but gain them – because it’s establishing you as a viable force in your niche someone who is rubbing elbows with other experts.

authority photo

also shows you’re expanding your knowledge of your particular topic. But more than anything, bringing in experts from other similar niches can bring in future sales conversions.

Think of it as introducing yourself and your product to a whole different audience and bringing them into the fold. Because that other expert’s audience will be looking at your shared content, too, and that will be their first discovery of you.

There are ways to make yourself attractive to other experts and get them to want to work with you. Offer gifts. It may sound like bribery, but other marketers are always looking for informative and valuable gifts in the form of free bonuses, free advertisement of their product, mentions on social media such as Facebook and Twitter and interviews or podcasts to promote their sites.

Establish your profile on social media sites and forums. Set up pages and profiles and then post content that can be useful to other marketers in similar niches. There are free, downloadable apps that can help you with this type of venture.

Arrange online interviews. Nothing attracts an online audience like online interviews with marketers well established in the business. You both profit from the interview process because you’re reaching people you might not hear from otherwise.

Make sure you have fresh, sharable content. No one wants to partner with a dull and boring marketer whose content is out of date or poorly written. Make sure your content is informative and up to date so that others will want to share.

Offer to review their products. Marketers welcome reviews of their products and will often happily review yours in return. Only post a review of the product if you truly believe in it and like it. Otherwise, choose another product or marketer.

Follow and engage other experts. Make sure you follow other marketers who have products similar to yours on all social media sites. It takes some time and effort, but the payoff will be that these other marketers will get to know you especially if you engage in conversations or remarks on their sites.

The payoff for fielding experts in your niche can be huge. Besides boosting your authority in a particular niche, you’ll also be reaching audiences you may never have reached without the added expertise.

In the beginning, it may be intimidating to approach another (especially well established) marketer, but as you begin to establish your own presence, you’ll find that you’re also being sought out. Make the most of every opportunity.

Find Faults with the Competition and Exploit Them

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Competitive analysis definition – entrepreneur.com

How to do competitive analysis in 5 steps

Don’t be mean simply analyze your competitors’ products and authority and be what they’re not! Or, be what they are, only better. You can stay in the white hat marketer category and still learn from the competition in several ways.

You’re not doing all you can for your business if you don’t use the competition to boost your online presence. There are some ways your competition can help. Gather intelligence first.

your competition is successful, you’ll be able to see what works and use the same techniques for your own success. It’s good to see failures, too because you won’t have to waste your time doing something that clearly doesn’t work.

For example, if they work hard on a big launch of a product you’ll be able to see by their success (or not) whether the product was the reason for the success or perhaps the launch day or time was off, resulting in a total flop.

It’s valuable information to have and use. Your competition helps you define yourself. When you know your competition and what they’re all about, you’ll know better what you identify with especially to your audience.

This information helps you discern how to compete in the niche you’ve chosen. For example, if your competition isn’t targeting a certain group in your niche, it becomes a perfect opportunity for you to become a leader for this area of competition.

Convert your competition’s customer base to yours. You won’t be taking them away from the competition (and even if you did, it’s not your fault you’re better at what you do), but only giving the audience a wider spectrum from which to learn information and choose products.

Online customers can tell you a lot about what’s working with the competition and what isn’t. For example, use the social media sites, forums and other sites to see what they’re interested or confused about and then offer solutions that nobody else is addressing.

Tout your expertise in the niche. You may have some advantages the competition doesn’t. Find out how their expertise compares to yours and then flaunt your own accomplishments and knowledge of the niche.

For example, if you’re a financial planner in the ‘outside’ world, tout your credentials if you’re in a niche which requires finances and planning. The best way to outfox those in your niche and soar to the top of the heap is to know your competition.

By watching what others are doing (or in some case, not doing), you learn much about what to do next in your own business. But, best of all you learn where the gaps are in your niche, or where others are failing your audience and you become the go to person for that topic.

Find Marketers Whose Products Complement Your Own

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Find complementary products- Economic definition

Complementary marketing – marketing strategy

Don’t think of other marketers with similar products as competition – think of them instead as a type of partners. Competition is good because it creates excitement about the product.

For example, if you have a niche in herbal health remedies, a person who markets essential oils would be a good match. If stress is your subject, nutrition or exercise products may be topics you can cross promote.

Finding marketers whose products complement your own isn’t difficult. They can be discovered through blogs, websites, advertisements, banners, social media and many other methods on the net.

marketing photo

don’t want to choose just any affiliate to promote your product. Do your research to make sure it’s worth your while for all the time, effort and possibly money that you’re going to spend on a promotion.

You’ll want to find reputable and profitable affiliates who have the same value system as you and who have the reputation of being on time and giving quality partnership advantages.

Don’t be a churn and burn type of marketer. There’s nothing worse than a greedy newbie who advises his or her people to buy any and everything out there just to line their pockets with money ñ quality or not.

There are some online tools you can use to try to find marketers who might offer similar products as your own. One is jvnotifypro.com. On that site, you can find such help as a list of community forums, new launch announcements, job boards, various announcements and more.

It’s a good place to begin to find out what’s going on in the affiliate world. You might also find some websites of similar marketers by entering a search term in google such as product reviews plus the name of your niche topic.

Not all that pop up will be a good match for you, but spending some time in research might yield a few good possibilities. Another way to find marketers for a JV venture is to advertise your own affiliate plan and see what responses you get.

As you become more familiar to other marketers, you’ll get many more inquiries to your promo plans, but in the beginning you may need to dig a bit deeper to find an affiliate that fits your requirements.

When you find affiliates you want to work with, find ways that you can tie the two topics together and the best methods to promote each other. The Internet is full of marketers who will want to promote your product ñ but the best ones probably won’t come beating down your door right at first. You’ll need to build a reputation by doing what you say you’ll do ñ when you say you’ll do it.

Find Your Target Audience and Dominate the Conversation

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How to define your target audience- quicksprout.com

What is your ‘target audience’ in marketing?

Some newbie net marketers get all shy when it comes to positioning themselves as leaders. They feel unqualified, or too ‘new’ to sit there staking claim to a niche topic. But nobody is going to be inspecting your background what they want is someone who jumps into the conversation and leads from the front, not behind like someone living off the scraps of other marketers.

Be bold with positioning yourself in your niche. You’ll increase your list and your sales. One way to do that is to know your target audience and to hang out with them. Social networking gives you the perfect opportunity and blogs and forums are also great to get to know those who would become your customers.

you make yourself known on the sites where you dominate the conversation, you’ll become the go to person that people turn to for help in their own niches and will see you as a top expert in the field.

Answer their questions, find solutions to their problems and help them in any way you can. Show up to serve. This process takes time and effort, but that’s why some marketers are more successful than others.

They take the time to make themselves known and have a passion for what they do. It’s not enough just to want to make money you have to love what you do. There are some specific ways that you can make yourself the go to person in your niche.

Give more than others. See what the other go to marketers are doing and out-deliver them. Give your target audience more value and product and provide it faster than others.

Deliver quality. Make it different and make it accurate. Also, deliver on time. Find a topic or give it a twist that hasn’t been done before and watch your customers (and non-current customers) flock to your product.

Learn the process. If you take the time to learn how to navigate the process to success, you can add coaching or teaching to your list of experiences. This can provide a money-making side business that will not only make extra income, but will further establish you in your niche.

Mix and match. Learn how to mix and match your products and combine them as one to sell as a stand-alone. Or, divide a stand-alone product into several products such as short reports for those consumers who would rather dip a toe in with you than jump all in and trust you with a bigger purchase.

Vary your delivery methods. For example, if you’ve been concentrating on written content, try videos or podcasts to see how it flies with your audience. Interviews with other marketers also work very well.

Promoting others can improve your standing in the niche by offering more, but with you still profiting. Becoming the go to person in your niche should be part of your marketing strategies, but realize that it takes awhile to build up your reputation so that others take notice and begin to turn to you for information and guidance. Just keep at it and you’ll eventually begin to profit in a big way.

Forget You Ever Heard the Phrase Shiny New Object Syndrome

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As a marketer struggling with finding success, you might look for excuses as to why you haven’t found your footing. It’s human nature not to want to accept blame for your failures.

One way we do this is by claiming it’s not our fault! It’s that dreaded Shiny New Object Syndrome that’s done it to us. We’ve been busy buying and buying, without every implementing.shiny photo

Because to admit that you followed through, implemented and still failed well, that’s a bit humiliating (even though all successful entrepreneurs have done just that). Shiny New Object Syndrome is real, but it’s an excuse crutch that you use to excuse away your lack of success.

Shiny New Object Syndrome is a malady that makes you attracted to objects that are glittery and gleaming something like seeing a light in your peripheral vision and turning toward it.

When you see that it’s only a reflection or a shiny penny not worth much – you’ll turn back to concentrate on your previous goal. It’s a phrase that’s actually given marketers a way to get out of following through on their implementation plans.

Chances are, if you’d never heard that phrase, you might not be participating in it! It’s especially prevalent in Internet marketers to look for the shiny new objects because there’s an atmosphere of desperation in this niche.

That means they’re always looking to find a quick and easy way to make more money, get their brand out there faster and go into the back door of success rather than using tried and true methods from start to finish.

The commitment to your current plan of action is abandoned (at least for awhile) and you’re off to the land of hype and empty promises where you’re almost certain to crash and burn leaving all of your goals and good intentions behind.

If you’ve used this catch phrase as your excuse for failure in the past or are doing it now keep in mind that the product (shiny new object) will be around for a long time to come (unless it’s a scam or fad) and it’s best to follow through with your current commitment rather than get off track and lose momentum now.

You’re not alone if you suffer from ‘SOS.’ You can overcome it if you take some steps to prevent the distractions. There are some simple, but important steps you can use to bypass the scary SOS malady.

Make a decision. What are you going to focus on? You can’t really go to the next step until you decide which direction you’re moving with your business. A good business plan can be written and implemented after you’ve done the research needed to formulate the idea into something solid.

If the reason you keep buying new things is because you never sit down and think things through, then you’re wasting time. Would you allow an employee to fly by the seat of their pants in your business or would you prefer they have insight into how something will pan out?

Make a commitment. Unless you commit wholeheartedly to the decision you’ve made you may as well stop right now. Without commitment, the SOS will take over your best laid plans and demolish any chance you have of being a true online business success.

Begin your implementation. You can’t finish anything until you take a beginning step toward success. Trust in yourself that you’ve hatched a great plan or idea and begin the outline, setting goals, creating a budget and all the dozens of things that need to be done to make it a success.

Don’t stop. Don’t get caught up in the SOS or anything else that works as a distraction. Keep going until you meet one goal after another. You may have to go to Step 1 a few times before you can keep going without being tempted to stop and rethink or go to something new. When you reach the finish line of success, you’ll realize you’ve also kicked the habit of crying, ‘I suffer from Shiny New Object Syndrome!’

Do you have shiny object syndrome and how to beat it

How to avoid shiny object syndrome