As a direct seller, there are many things you can utilize in promoting your brand. You don’t have to be limited to the physical world – nowadays, more and more people are deciding to take their brand online so they can extend their reach and gain more leads. The Internet has become one of the most popular marketing tools, since compared to traditional media such as TV and radio, marketing your brand online is a lot easier and far less expensive.
There are various things you can do online to promote your brand. A website or blog is a great way to showcase your products as well as your brand – it’s a way for you to stand out from other direct sellers out there, by offering unique and relevant content to your audience.
Another thing you can do is to build a community around your brand. More and more businesses are realizing the effect of these brand communities, that they’re a great way to engage their audience, promote the brand, discover the key influencers, and ultimately increase their customers and sales.
So how exactly do you build a brand community? It’s all about getting likeminded people who are interested in your brand to form a community or group and start discussing things. And when you effectively build a community around your brand, it actually creates business for you as your community helps spread the word and answer questions regarding your brand.
As a direct seller, your brand community actually already exists – it includes your customers, clients, and the people you recruit. What you simply need to do is find a way to get these people together so they can connect with each other as well as engage with your brand. Get to know them more intimately so you can learn who the key influencers are and how to improve your services.
Here are some steps to guide you.
1. Build a strong brand
When you build a strong brand that resonates with your audience and conveys a powerful message, this is the time that you attract fans and followers who become loyal to you and who are willing to go the extra mile for your brand. And you don’t have to be a huge corporation such as Apple or Starbucks to be able to do this. As a direct seller, as long as you have a personal brand that has a passionate message, then you can create this community of followers.
Social media has really been a game changer when it comes to building a community. As long as you understand how to use Facebook or Twitter to reach your audience and get them engaged, then you can really build a strong brand that can eventually result in increased sales for your business.
2. Get to know your audience
Once you have a group of people together who are all interested in your brand, then it’s important that you get to know them, find out what their likes and dislikes are, get their feedback, and be open to any criticisms or suggestions regarding your brand.
Your community should be able to discuss with each other openly and even talk about other things that aren’t related to your brand. They should also be able to ask questions and get answers from you. And sometimes, it’s all about listening to them – you don’t really let your customers run your company for you, but it’s really important that you listen to what they’re saying.
3. Offer great content
Though a brand community is all about its members, great content is what keeps them coming back. This can be a challenge for you since you really have to put out content that engages your audience so they keep returning for more. You should set the right tone, the right style, as well as define what purpose or objective you want to achieve with each post you put out. Once you effectively offer great content that gets people talking, the community can actually take over and post content that’s relevant to the group.
You can also offer insider information to your community to make them feel special. Share stories and tidbits that let them see your brand more intimately and in a deeper way compared to everyone else.
Honestly, brand communities are not just for major corporations or companies with huge budgets. As a direct seller, you can take advantage of the opportunity to create a powerful brand that resonates with your audience and really gets them talking. With a successful brand community, you may be surprised at how far your reach extends, that you could possibly even become a well-known brand. And isn’t that the real goal of any business or brand?