How To Brand and Grow Your Company Through Marketing

Companies want to grow. Obvious statement, right? This is the reason why we all have jobs as marketers; companies need to grow and they need people who understand how to do that. […]

Produce content

As Will Critchlow said, you don’t have to have money, but you do have to have one of these:

  • Time
  • Talent
  • Balls (aka take risks)

Often, what you need to do first is establish your thought leadership, and that is done through content. […]

Leverage channels other than search

When looking to grow your company, you should not just leverage search (though it is a great medium for growth). For more on this idea, read Matt McGee’s classic You Can Diversify or You Can Die from 2007.

Have a spokesperson

Having a spokesperson, or public face, is highly underrated by most companies. Potential customers don’t (usually) connect with a brand, but they do connect with a person.

Would SEOmoz have grown its community, consulting, or software as quickly without Rand as the face of the company? I don’t think so. In fact, his author page is the 8th most linked-to page on SEOmoz.

There are many ways companies can get their spokesperson (a CEO, a CMO, an awesome consultant) known:

  • Meetups
  • Conferences
  • Blogging
  • Presentations
  • Social media
  • Q/A Forums (like Moz Q/A)
  • Engaging in online conversations (forums, blog commenting, social media)

Display these people prominently on your website.

Get real

This goes along with the spokesperson point above, but one of the best ways to start getting your company known is to be involved locally. I don’t care if you are a tech startup or an international pharmaceutical brand – being involved in your local as well as online community is one of the best ways to build your branded searches and brand advocates.

Be lovable

I’ve often challenged clients with “What makes your customers happy, and what is going to make your brand lovable?” In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a faceless brand. It’s not trustworthy, it’s not likable, it’s not fun. Even if you are in a serious industry, you can have a brand that people love because they connect with it.

Look for search opportunity

Finally, one way to do this in the search results (see, we’re still talking about SEO as it pertains to marketing) is to look for areas of opportunity. What are your competitors not doing that you can do? Are they not marking up their sites with Schema? Are they not leveraging image search? How about videos and video snippets in the search results?

For more information:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-brand-and-grow-your-company-through-marketing

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