Marketing is key to any business, but especially when building an online brand. At N.A.bld, it is one of the crucial aspects of getting started and something to think about well in advance of your brand launch. But if by now, you’re down the road to launch and searching for inspiration, we’ve got you. Continue reading below to get our tips on marketing a new brand on a limited budget.
Let’s talk about your brand. Branding can be a little evasive and hard to nail down but it starts with a name. Good names can mean the difference between awesome SEO and utter confusion. Do your research and make sure you can attain the handles and name that resonates with your brand and your intended audience. Now, onto branding. The best way to start thinking about branding is to look for companies you are passionate about and figure out why you think they’re special. Use these notes to build out your own brand inspiration, your mission, your differentiators, and then get an excellent designer to help come up with your branding and logo.
Here are some great websites to find designers who can help with logos, naming, branding guides and more:
BONUS - DM or email us to get our personal branding designer pick!
Let’s differentiate quickly between building your brand and marketing a product. Brand-building or marketing a brand, is something we recommend doing months, even years before launching a product. Why? You’ll be building an audience who can react and purchase your products once launched. What’s more? Early followers are loyal, and often free to cultivate whether you're starting a blog, Youtube channel, or Instagram. Think about where you're strongest channel will be, get a way to capture emails for free, and start there.
Here are some free email list builders compiled by Social Sprout:
Many e-commerce sites like Squarespace and Shopify also have email campaign capabilities as well.
If you’re just starting out and on a limited budget and you’re looking for ways to start sharing your brand and products, here’s a list of our favorite tactical suggestions:
Instagram is the queen of brand building, especially in the image-rich world of consumer products and fashion. Make sure it’s the first place you start flexing your marketing muscles.
With more and more shopping happening online, your photography is the quintessential building block to great responses with any of the tactics on this list. Bad images will ruin your conversion rate, period, so spend money on high resolution, styled and informative images.
Got some emails? Time to start sending. Email marketing is the top marketing channel with over 75% of brands using it to nurture their audience and convert them to sales.
Many brands want to start building earned media as a way to amplify their presence. If you have a niche product, or one that caters to a specific audience, you may get a lot of mileage out of HARO where reporters can post for submissions on articles.
Now that you’ve got HARO working in the background, start building a list of prime media placements and start pitching reporters and editors. Get our three tips for getting great PR placement here.
Find adjacent brands or influencers who have a very similar audience to your target audience and reach out for collaborations. Other brands may agree to mutually cross promote and, depending on the influencer, you may be able to find a great long term partner. Pro tip: if you find a brand or influencer you think is a good match, consider following some of their followers to start engaging early on.
New marketing features and platforms emerge frequently. Don’t be shy about jumping into a new channel or format and seeing what happens. Just remember, consistency is key!
As more commerce moves online, video is key to conveying physical attributes (and the awesomeness) of your product. Get comfortable with video and deploy it widely!
Use programs like Buffer, Zapier, or IFTTT to automate sharing and cross posting on your channels so you can maximize your time and efforts.
No matter what you are doing, make sure you are measuring! Whether it’s email open rates from your latest campaign, the number of responses from press outreach, or views of your latest Tik Tok. Decide which metrics matter and measure!
Once you’ve mastered the tactics above, you’ll have a solid marketing base and data to begin doing paid marketing and compare the two.
What did we miss? Anything? Let us know by email at hello@nabld.com. And, if you get that chance to try these tactics out, tell us how it went!
Get even more tips and resources for all the hats you have to wear as a brand owner in our Brand Building 101 course. In this course, we run through everything it takes to launch a brand in 4 weeks from sketch to sample to sale and beyond!
