How to Promote Your Brand as a Top Contender in Your Industry

In 17 seconds: You need to ensure your brand immediately comes to mind when a potential customer needs what your company manufactures. You can significantly improve your chances of being top-of-mind by:

Making sure your brand is properly differentiated
Asking for testimonials
Highlighting your competitive advantages
Leveraging video marketing
Approaching the media to seek opportunities for interviews
Create a blog replete with relevant content

Next, plug these elements and components into your marketing plan and strategy.

Does your brand immediately come to mind when potential customers need what your industrial company sells?

Let’s assume for a moment that you need to buy a new CRM system for your company. You’ll likely think of the dominant brands in the CRM space like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive.

And for good reasons — they’ve all worked hard to earn a top-of-mind position with CEOs, business owners, IT professionals, marketers, salespeople and others involved in researching and purchasing CRM software.

You could almost say they all fall into “the obvious choice” categories and “you can’t go wrong with any of them.”

You know where I’m going with this.

Question: If someone needed to buy what you sell, are you confident your brand would immediately come up as a top contender in the minds of your prospective customers? In other words, do you have good brand awareness?

If so, you’re doing many things right, and you also know how difficult it is to maintain that top-of-mind brand awareness position.

If not, it will be a bit of a steep hill to climb, but the steps in this article will help your brand get there faster.

In nearly every industry, there are usually one or two brands people perceive as being the best — the brands people knowingly pay a premium for because being associated with the best not only makes a statement, it also makes existing customers loyal customers.

In close proximity to the “best” brands are runner-up brands that are often 95% as good but typically cost substantially less. And then, of course, there is “everyone else” — those mediocre-to-low-quality brands for buyers most interested in finding a bargain — a crappy place to be.

In highly competitive and oversaturated industries, achieving runner-up status is no small feat and one to be very proud of. For example, in the camera industry, Leica and Hasselblad may be the brands many photographers and enthusiasts aspire to purchase, despite their intimidating price tags.

However, most professional photographers are very pleased with the performance Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, and SONY cameras provide, all of which could be categorized as runner-up brands in the industry.https://serokaindustrialbranding.com/the-latest-7-best-practices-for-video-marketing-plus-a-bonus/

In the tool industry, Snap-On may be perceived by many mechanics as the premier brand, but many find that Mac Tools and Matco Tools are just about as good and cost less.

If you’re confident that your brand is MUCH better than it is currently perceived to be, there are several things you can and should do to elevate your rank in the hearts and minds of the customers you know would benefit from what you manufacture.

Make sure your brand is properly differentiated so that your target audience clearly understands precisely why they need to buy from you instead of from your competition. Click here if you need help with this.
Ask your customers if they would be willing to provide you with a written or video testimonial to post on your website and social media channels, such as YouTube and LinkedIn. To increase your chances of getting a “yes,” offer to write or script the testimonial for them. With this approach, you’ll be amazed at how willing your customers will be to help you. Testimonials from customers build brand credibility and brand consideration almost instantly.
Ensure that you provide a clear and unbiased comparison of your products to those of your competitors, and highlight those areas where your product offers a better value to end-users under different applications.
Provide a short and engaging product demo video so potential customers can view how your products perform and operate under various situations.
Approach the media to seek opportunities for interviews, and offer to write a feature story about how your brand, business, or product is unique and superior to others in your industry.
Create a written or video blog (vlog) and speak to your customers’ interests. When people understand how you think and witness your body language through a video, it helps to build trust and respect. A written blog is strong, but a vlog is even stronger.

Next …

Plug these components and assets into a well-rounded, comprehensive marketing strategy to build brand awareness with the theme, Why (insert your company or product name here)?

This will really be the only path to positioning your brand as a top contender in your industry, but it can only be accomplished if you have a well-defined and compelling brand

You’ll need to leverage various marketing channels and tactics to reach your current and prospective customers while keeping your current customers engaged. Some key components of a successful marketing strategy include:

Market research to understand your audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points. This will help you tailor your efforts to address each and establish a strong connection with the people you need to reach.
Competitive assessments to assess your competitors’ brand positioning, brand messages, blog activity, and what they’re up to on social media. You need to know who you are up against in the field and how your brand is unique and superior.
SMART Goal Setting (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) for your marketing efforts to track progress, make data-driven decisions, and optimize your strategy for better results.
Choosing the right marketing channels based on your buyer personas, budget, and marketing objectives. Channels may include your social media accounts, email marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), PPC, paid advertising and other marketing tools to help elevate your brand awareness.

Build your content marketing strategy

When you master the art and science of creating a strong content marketing strategy, you’ll have a powerful marketing tool to facilitate the process of positioning your brand as an authority and top contender in your industry. Content marketing will drive organic traffic to your website in the spirit of engaging your target audiences.

Some effective content marketing tactics to consider include:

Email: No, it’s not dying. In fact, quite the opposite. It still holds its position as a top content marketing tool.
Blogging: Regularly publish high-quality, high-value blog posts that address your customers’ needs and challenges. A solid, optimized blog post drives traffic and leads to sales.
Webinars and Workshops: Host educational webinars or workshops to share your knowledge and skills with your audience. This can help you build a loyal following and generate leads for your business.
Social Media Posts: Share your content on social media platforms where your target audience is most active. Engage with your followers, respond to comments, and participate in relevant discussions to foster a sense of community around your brand.
Video: Ideal for demonstrating products, delivering tutorials, providing answers to FAQs, and making sales, video marketing should be your best friend.
eBooks: Looking for an excellent way to improve lead generation and boost brand credibility and loyalty? Authoring and publishing eBooks will further position you as a thought leader in your industry.
Infographics: These provide an easy way to convey important information to your target audience. It’s a known fact that the human brain recognizes, perceives, and remembers visual content much faster and more effectively than text. This explains why images in social media posts substantially outperform pure text posts.
Case studies and success stories: Sharing your successes is one of the most effective ways to prove that you and your company can solve customer problems.

Monitor and Continuously Adjust Your Strategy

Keep your eye on those key performance indicators (KPIs), like website traffic, social media engagement, email open rates, conversion rates, etc., to identify what’s working and what needs improvement.

Run A/B testing with alternative tactics to see which outperforms the other. This will give you infinite opportunities to continuously improve your marketing campaigns. How’s that for marketing ROI?

Does all of this seem like a lot? It is, but even if you do half of what is suggested in this article, you’ll be doing much more than many industrial companies. The time is now to take the lead and elevate your brand in the minds of people who need your products.

Of course, at Seroka Industrial Branding, we are here to support you and provide guidance every step of the way.

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