Why Brand Differentiation Matters When Marketing Your Business

Some marketing standards are the same no matter how big your business is or what type of business you run. You need to raise brand awareness, build trust, and establish your brand identity. But how you do those things will vary dramatically based on the specifics of your business.

It’s important that you think about your goals, your business type, your budget, and much more when creating your marketing plan. Here are a few of the ways that your marketing plan may differentiate based on those and other characteristics:

Promotional Materials

Pens, ball caps, Gildan wholesale shirts with your company name on them — these are all great promotional items. When choosing your promotional materials, you need to think not only of the kinds of items that would be useful or welcome by your target audience but also what kind of impression you might be making. If your law firm represents DUI cases, your clients will certainly use a beer koozie, but giving one as a promotional item would be very tacky.

You should also think about the situation in which you will be giving the item to determine what’s appropriate. While a beer koozie might be a great gift for a party shop, it would be a terrible one for a law firm marketing strategy. If you are attending a community festival on a lake, giving out a beach ball with your logo on it would be a great choice. But if you’re attending a professional trade show, a beach ball could like unprofessional.

Social Media

Every business should be on social media. However, the strategy you use and the sites you are on should vary drastically from other businesses. You should look at what successful businesses are doing on social media to get inspiration, but you should never try to copy those strategies. What works for another type of business won’t necessarily work for you, but you may be able to adapt their strategies.

A professional firm like a financial consultant would stick to networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, while a clothing store or other retail outlet could get away with posting on sites like SnapChat and Pinterest. The former would need to stick to informational posts and professional humor, while the latter could have a lot more latitude to be witty and irreverent. Depending on the kind of retail establishment, the funnier they were on social media, the more successful they would be.

Content Marketing

A good blog can help businesses of all types rank their site higher in search results, which can send them more traffic and help them get more sales. Good content can also shape the brand’s professional image and help the company nurture leads. Some businesses will do better by publishing long-form content only occasionally, while others will do better by publishing a lot of short, entertaining posts.

Primarily, you need to think about what your audience wants when they are stumbling across your site. Are you offering a professional service or high-end luxury goods? Then you need to establish trust and authority, and one way to do that is to present thoroughly researched and well-written content marketing. Are you selling cheap goods or lifestyle products? Then you want to focus not just on giving your readers information but also on entertaining them. You can (and should) post a greater variety of content that is quick to read. No matter what type of content you post, you should always have a goal in mind for it, and you should reinforce that goal with a call to action, such as signing up for your mailing list or taking advantage of a discount code.

Good marketing is specific. There should never be a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing, whether you are doing it yourself or you have hired a firm to take care of it for you. Always think through your goals, the needs of your target audience, and the type of business you operate before you develop your marketing plan. Everything you do should reflect your company, your audience, and your goals. If it does, you will soon find success and help your company grow.

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