I’ve been helping other women business owners and female entrepreneurs develop their branding practices for years. When you’ve been around the block that many times, you learn a thing or two. But the most important thing I’ve learned is this: there is no one-size-fits-all branding strategy.

Some branding “experts” who will tell you, “If you follow my plan from start to finish, you’re guaranteed success! Just buy my e-book to get started.” They may start with the best of intentions, but in my opinion, they’re guiding their clients on the wrong path.

Your branding should be as unique and individual as you are. That’s why, instead of granting you a magical one-size-fits all Cinderella shoe that I allege will bring you instant fame and fortune, I am giving you a basic recipe that will form the solid foundation of your customized branding strategy.

The following 5 best branding practices are basic strategies that I find useful for every client I work with. I will always create a branding strategy with these 5 elements in mind, even as I mix and match them with other practices which I believe will serve each individual client best.

1. Research Your Audience

Researching you audience should always be your first step when developing your business’s branding strategy. Most branding is, believe it or not, audience research. You need to find out who your customers are and what their wants and needs are. What are their pain points and problems? What drives them and motivates them?

When you have the answers to these questions, then you can decide how you want to “talk” to your customers. In other words, you can determine what voice to use in your brand messaging.

2. Determine Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice is not just the tone, verbiage, and visual design that you use to communicate your customers. It’s also the strength and conviction of your message. Think of your brand voice not just as sound, but as a message reverberating across multiple types of digital and print media. When customers read an advertisement or a blog post you wrote, or watch one of your TikToks, or scroll through your website, they should never forget what your brand is about. If they never forget, that means you have a great brand voice.

3. Create A Plan Of Communication With Your Customers

Create a plan of ongoing communication with your customers. This plan may include sending them weekly emails, calling them periodically to check how they’re enjoying your service or product, and texting them about upcoming deals and events.

It’s worth noting the difference between communicating with new customers and communicating with your loyal customers. You have a huge opportunity to forge a deeper connection through your communication with your loyal customers. Don’t be afraid to treat your repeat customers extra generously, offering them more discounts and speaking to them in a more open, conversational tone.

4. Be Consistent

Once you’ve developed your brand voice and customer communication plan, be consistent. Don’t leave your customers to doubt whether you really mean what you say, or if you will go back on your word. If you do, your customers may not trust you. Instead, they may take their business to one of your competitors.

5. Be Flexible

I know I just told you to be consistent. But you must also be flexible.

These aren’t contradictory terms. When it comes to your core values and brand messaging, you should absolutely be consistent. But as the times and trends change, sometimes it’s advantageous to adapt certain elements of your branding to keep up.

The following image is an example of how Pepsi-Cola, which retains a consistent and specific brand voice, has also been flexible over the years. Every few years, they alter their logo to match the most popular and current advertising aesthetic.

Source: Pepsi.com

Are these 5 steps a recipe for instant success? Not on their own. But much like flour, butter, sugar, baking soda, and salt make up the foundation of a delicious cake, these best branding practices will start you on the path to building a better business.

Email marketing is the most relied-on channel for upcoming brands. Even developed brands and large-scale businesses include email in their marketing campaigns to get good results.

As per Statista, every day around 333.2 billion emails are sent out, and out of them, many are from the marketing background. Since my introduction with email, I’ve used it to create numerous types of campaigns, including branding campaigns., Let’s explore the benefits of email marketing for your small business.

Widen Your Reach

Today, everyone has an email, and you can use this to your benefit. You can send messages to a large audience at once with email marketing. Moreover, email marketing is free from geographical borders, so you can use it to reach a global audience as well.

Other marketing channels may have restrictions on reaching a big audience at once, but believe me, email marketing gives you complete control over the audience you want to reach. With a curated and diverse mailing list, you can reach who you want, when you want.

Getting Priceless Feedback

Based on my experience of working with small businesses, I always suggest seeking out customer feedback about the company, the services, and the products my clients sell.

Bonus Tip: An ideal way to achieve this is to run an email marketing campaign with some questions.

Occasionally you can send a questionnaire to your customers and ask them to fill out the survey for you. There are many types of questions that you can ask, from product/service feedback to the quality of their experience and so much more. Once you have the answers to this survey from your customers, you might  discover areas where you can improve and you can plan the next steps in marketing and improve your campaigns accordingly.

Improving Customer Relations

I believe that the best use of email marketing is building relationships with your customers. If you take the time to connect with your customers regularly, about the things that are important to them, it’s likely you will notice a difference in their loyalty to your brand.

This increased loyalty and connection will boost your growth, organically.

It’s Cost-Effective

Email marketing is a powerful tool for brands to use in their branding efforts. The best part about it? It’s very cost-effective! As a growing business, closely monitoring your marketing expenses is incredibly important. I highly recommend taking an hour or two out of your week to write and send emails to your clients. As your business grows(and when you’re able to afford it), it’s relatively easy to hire help for your email marketing campaigns.

There are many free email marketing providers that you can use while your business is growing, which makes it possible for start-ups business to do it themselves. I can’t speak enough about the value of landing in your customers email inbox with updates, news, product highlights, service specials and more!

These benefits are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits email marketing has.

Let me be part of your small business journey, and I will help you with the best VIP services to grow your small business.

Let’s schedule a discovery session today to talk about how you can use email to grow your business.

Since the pandemic times, we all have seen immense growth in small businesses.

The great resignation is here, and today people are demanding freedom and flexibility at work. If they don’t get it, they are ready to resign. After resigning from the job, business seems to be the ideal way to earn money while protecting our freedom.

However, establishing a business and growing it among the competition can be a challenging task if you don’t know the tricks.

Based on my experienced and expertise, I would love to share some fantastic ideas on how you can increase your small business with marketing and win. Let’s explore the ideas that can help you grow efficiently.

Identify Your Target Audience

One of the best things you can do while starting a business is to have a focused target audience. A target audience can be considered as a group of people who’d buy your products or services.

Before beginning your business’s marketing efforts, it is better if you take a pause and have a better understanding of who is your target audience.

I strongly believe that having a clear targeted audience ease the process of creating an impactful education based strategy. Once you understand who your audience is, you can tailor your message to the things that are important to them. You can offer answers to the questions that they have, which will help them understand how your product or services can improve their lives.

You’ll Need a Website & to Create Valuable Content

If you want to grow your business, there’s no better place than your website. Being in this industry for over a decade now, I can surely tell you the importance of having a website for your business.

I’ve seen numerous small business owners underestimate the importance of a website and more importantly the value of content marketing that attracts customers to their website.

Designing a business website and having a blog section with targeted keywords can really help you drive engagements. Your website gives you a platform to share everything about your business, your story, your products, how you do business, spotlight client success stories and so much more.

Leverage Social Media Presence

We all use social media every day, so why not leverage it to grow your business? I know social media can be difficult to navigate and understand, but the importance of having a strong social media presence is found in the validity and authority that it gives your business.

Many of my clients have boycotted the big social media channels because it is in conflict with their personal values, but if your business isn’t active on social media, I suggest it is time to start today. As per Statista, nearly 35% of consumers trust brands that have social media profiles.

Social media marketing has been ideal for gaining more customers for all small businesses. This type of marketing is cost-effective for businesses with a limited budget, and hiring a social media marketing expert, like me, can help you build your brand, connect with and educate your customers.

Interact with Customers

Taking time to understand your customer’s needs helps you grow your business and what better way than interacting with them directly to know their thoughts on your product/service?

Make a habit of intentionally interacting with your customers, whether it is online on social media platforms or in person. Ask for feedback and reviews from your customers regularly and incorporate their ideas into your business processes.

The more you interact and talk with your customers, the more you understand the driving factors and decision-making strategies of your target audience.

“Business owners who ask for feedback and take the time to get to know the wants, needs, and motivations of their customers are the ones that emerge as winners. Customer-centric marketing is hands-down the best approach.”  – Melissa McGlenn, InspiredMelissa.com

I invite you to start interacting one-on-one with your customers for better results.

Bonus Tip: One of my favorite strategies for engaging with customers is through the use of polls and asking for product feedback publicly. Everyone has an opinion and wants to share it. Try asking a question this week and see if your engagement increases!

Provide Referral Bonus

We all love bonuses, right? So why not provide some to your most loyal customers. Leverage the power of referrals to grow your small business into a larger one.

You can do this in several different ways. Here are a few things that have worked for me:

1. Add a line to your email signature that says something like, “Your referral would mean the world to me, if there is anyone you know who would benefit from my services, please let me know. You know I’d love to help another business with their marketing efforts!”
2. Reward any referral source with a gift in return for their loyalty with a local coffee card or a hand-written thank you card.
3. You can create a referral program where you offer your customers a discount on their next purchase when they refer somone new to your business.

I strongly believe that the above-listed tips will help you stay ahead of the competition and help educate your audience about your product/service. Just stick to the plan patiently, and you’ll indeed have fruitful results.

Do you want to promote and grow your small business but don’t know how? Let me, Melissa McGlenn, help you achieve digital success! Inspired Melissa is a creative advertising and social media marketing agency for women-owned businesses that offer a wide range of services, such as managing your brand, strategies, and marketing.

I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the start of your beautiful journey! Book a discovery call today.