What is a brand and how do I get one?
Clutter, competition and chasing carrots are most likely the reasons for small business failures in the first five years. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 95% fail within the first five years. The solution that will crush the four C's of failure is a strong brand. My 10-part series will not only demystify one of the business world's most misunderstood terms, but guide you in crafting a brand that is profitable.
Building a website starts like any other construction project. First comes the idea, then a plan is drafted. By following the plan, you purchase your materials and start to build. Is this how you approached your website? Did you end up with a home page made from rubber or velcro?
Many business owners know a web presence is expected. If you can’t spit out your URL in conversation, do you really exist? What are the expectations of your site? Is it a money-maker or static brochure of 1990’s vintage? Do you know if your site is working for you? Can you look at the data and know whether the money you spent on your site has paid for itself? That’s a good indicator, right? Got any answers to this rapid-fire interrogation? If not, don’t worry. You’re not alone. Often, the indicator for whether a site is successful or not comes from the data surrounding the home page. Rubber pages just don’t produce results.
A home page made from rubber has a high “bounce rate.” Never looked at your “bounce rate? Most entrepreneurs wouldn’t know what their bounce rate was if their life depended on it. I hate to break it to you, but your life just might depend on it. (Well, at least your livelihood.)
Bounce rate is defined by Google as: “… the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert.”
I’ve worked with a lot of businesses and, by far, the number one question is “how can I get more customers?” It doesn’t matter if you have an eCommerce site, a store front, or provide a service, the cry from the empty well is the same, “No one knows that I exist!” Why? You don’t know what to say, to whom. This creates a lack of confidence in your message, the inability to communicate a benefit to a customer, and utter confusion over what approach is the best.
You’d love to expose yourself to as many people as possible, but how do you create the loudest buzz? One approach is to go out and buy a bunch of books on marketing like Booked Solid by Michael Port, Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsh, and Guerilla Marketing by Conrad Levinson. Yes, these are excellent books, but how do you know what techniques to use? What, specifically, will work with your personality and business model? Eventually, you’ll read Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk and convince yourself that you can do all of your marketing through social media and make a million bucks without investing a penny.
Another approach is to talk to friends and business contacts to get their opinion. You’ll be told that the coolest way to promote your business and grow a following is to blog and tweet. A percentage of folks will insist that without a Facebook page, you are a boring nobody. You’ll hear that print media is dead. And don’t ever try direct mail, the response rates are too low. Others will tell you that joining networking clubs or service organizations are the only way to grow your business.
As business owners, it’s easy to get consumed by the day-to-day duties of running the “store.” You should periodically step back and evaluate your position in the market and whether your activities are growing your customer base. Take a hard look at the list below and figure out which ones may be preventing you from the success you want.
- You don’t own a place in your customers minds. If you aren’t in their minds, they won’t buy from you. If you weren’t first to enter the market for you category, it will be a challenge to break that coveted top spot. Can you move left or right and become the first in a different area or category?
- You haven’t identified what rung you are on the competition ladder. If you can’t be first or second in the marketplace, what position do you hold? Is there an advantage or benefit to being 99th? Well, research says the consumer barely has room for seven competitors in a category. The second one on the ladder has 1/2 the market share of the first. The third has 1/2 the market share of the second and so on.
Clutter, competition and chasing carrots are the four C’s that can sabotage small business success. The U.S. Small Business Administration reports over 50% of small businesses don’t make it past the first year and 95% fail within the first five years. The solution is a strong brand that addresses each of these threats.