How To Build Brand Awareness As A Sales Strategy

All of your activities both on AND off-line should involve a personal involvement. That connection is what my brand stands for and it should be yours. Within my marketplace I have a respectable amount of awareness. That in turn develops leads. Depending on where you are in your business circle, it would
be unwise to take your market for granted and reply on past glories. Searching you out shouldn’t have barriers. Minimal activities leave the impression you’re not the leader you claim to be. I enjoy meeting people and finding out what they do and how they manage their sales activities. If you have a sales team, what are they doing to raise the awareness of your firm? You may be shocked to find out that they’re doing precious little. Sales is not a 9-5 job. I know many who think it is, and those are the ones who bitch on the economy – as if they have no control.

ALL of your promotional efforts should be focused on two fronts – ONE on-line and TWO off-line. I would have to say that I spend roughly two hours a day checking my stats, following up on comments to my blogs. Browsing groups in Linkedin, checking out Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally writing new articles, commenting on other articles and much more to keep my brand in front of as many eyes as possible on-line. Let’s not forget my Sunday task of putting together the next week’s branding tip and participating in interviews,webinars and email marketing.

All of these efforts online put together form my on-line strategy. And like any type of promotional effort, it is on-going. I do get leads and opportunities as a result so I believe it would be fool hardy to stop. You can’t get results if you’re not in the game.

On-line marketing aside there’s another aspect of my promotional efforts that delivers results – that being my off-line efforts. Some younger entrepreneurs may refer to this as old-school, but I view it as, (if not more important) than on-line. Having local awareness and benefiting from that dynamic rounds out your professional awareness. It allows you to be more hands on. Connecting face-to-face flushes out your brand. For myself, working solely online is too one dimensional. Some of the activities I’m involved with locally are:

• Volunteering on the Business excellence Awards for the Windsor Chamber
• Board Member on the Leamington Chamber
• Active in the Windsor and Leamington Circle networking groups
• President of The Great Lakes Industrial Sales Consortium networking group
• Networking at Chamber activities
• Mentor with business students from the University of Windsor
• Public speaking
• Facilitiate workshops on branding
• I belong to a 9 year strong mastermind group

… and what ever else pops up. I work very hard to get everyone on my subscription list. That way I have my own niche audience to speak to with the assistance of email marketing. After all my brand is all about the conversation and building relationships with small businesses. Build your awareness strategy and watch your brand grow from all touch points.