How to Get Your Branding Online: 6 Easy Steps

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A step-by-step proven guide to build your branding online.

Starting a branding effort from scratch that stands out is no easy task. And now for the effort to shift your brand online? We understand how overwhelming it could be, especially for new business owners.

In here, we will cover the step-by-step guide to help you build your branding online. This is considering you already have the essentials company branding ready: company logo, theme, product/service etc. Perhaps we should do another post on the essentials checklist for new brands? Let us know in the comment below!

Now the question is with all those branding materials readily available in your hands, how are you going to get your target audience to find you online?

Follow our 6 easy steps and your brand will be ready to launch in no time!

online-branding

1. Determine your target market and competitors

Starting a branding effort means research, research and more research. Offline and online works differently; what works offline might be different from the reception you are going to get from your online audience.

For example, a restaurant owner may be targeting his customers who lives around the shop area. That is purely offline. But when it comes to online, he/she could expand that targeting to different geographical audience. This channels potential customers who are coming from different location and searching for a nice place dine in.

It is also best to spend some time researching your competitors. Learning about what they are practising can give you a better depth of who you are against, at the same time, churning unexplored ideas for your own brand!

Once you get that all laid out, it’s time to move to the next step.

2. Get your brand domain

Over the course of helping small business owners grow online, it is important to let you know what you are getting into and what domain names do, what is hosting and more. It can be confusing for newbies we totally get it! Read more: What is a domain name? and Web Hosting.

If you already have a domain, that’s great! If no, you should consider getting one. A domain name is your brand gateway to reaching the Internet audience. Therefore, one of the first decisions you’ll have to make when building a website is deciding the domain name.

domain-search

Read more: 8 Smart Tips to Choosing the Perfect Domain Name & .Com vs. .MY Domain – Which One is Right For You?

With the wide range of domain extensions available (.com, ,my, .com.my, .asia, .net etc), you can pick one that best defines your business. For businesses who wish to target the international market, you can opt for a .COM domain. A .MY domain, however, will fit right for local businesses based in Malaysia.

Search for your available domain here.

3. Get a kickass website

This is one step that many new business owners ignore. Sure, you can get by with a Facebook page or Instagram, it does not project the credibility your brand deserved.

A good example will be: If you are looking for medical equipment supplies online, will you search for it via social media or Google? And if you find a source in social media, will you prefer it to a company with a proper website & product information?

To get started, you will need to determine how you’d like to work on this. You will need a web hosting to host your website and tie to your domain name. If you choose to build your own website via WordPress or other custom builders, you can search for the best hosting plan that fits your business needs.

Read more: 5 Things to Know When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

web-design

On a different note, you too have the option to leave it to the experts to do it. DomainPlus web design service has it all together: web design, web hosting, website maintenance, stunning templates, copywriting, consultation, 24×7 Technical Support. Check out the best-selling web design service at unbeatable prices!

4. Assess your online presence and audience

Once you have your website ready, you need to start establishing a list of potential customers. To do that, you can choose based on the resources available to you.

Another way we prefer is to engage with your current customers (or potential target customers) a simple survey. Ask around which online platforms are they most active on? And what do they seek out of your business? From there, you could go building an audience at a platform they are highly-active in. In the long run, you’ll want to reach more more platforms but for now, start with the main options.

5. Build a Social Media Following

While it’s great that you already have a website going on, you’d like to choose 1-2 focused social media platforms to engage with the public. Here, you can understand your target audience on which platform do they spend most of their time. That’ll help you choose the right platform(s)!

social-media-icon

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Use social media to interact and engage with your audience. It does great work for your branding if you do it right, which eventually leads to conversions.
  • Truly engage. When building a social media following, numbers of followers are not everything. Make sure you really attend to their enquiries, assisting them and engage as much as possible. This leaves a better brand impression of your brand for them.
  • Be consistent: Your brand tone, color and voice should be consistent across all platforms even in social media. In that way, you can become recognizable and stand out.

6. Create your email list

Start with what you have on hands. If you have 10, 100, or more than 1000 customers, start with that. Get their email address and make sure they opt-in so you can start marketing to them via email.

To collect new leads, you can place a sign-up page to collect their email address and drive traffic to that page. Once you have the list ready, plan out your email marketing campaign. You can use popular email marketing platforms such as MailChimp to manage your list and campaign.

So, that pretty much sum up what you have to do to launch your branding online. We’ve summarized the steps here for you:

  1. Determine your target market and competitors
  2. Get your brand domain
  3. Get a kickass website
  4. Assess your online presence and audience
  5. Build a social media following
  6. Create your email list

Let us know how this work out for your brand!

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