Personal Branding: 4 things anyone can do!

The one thing that I hear over and over again from small business owners is that their marketing messages fall flat on their target audience. The creativity, the message, and the execution just don't add up to be effective. The result is that they all look just like all the others.

Do you stand out from the crowd? Are you visible enough? To stand out and be heard you have to be "in front" of your customers every week. This is where a lot of people fall short. They simply do not put out enough marketing to be heard! You have to be visible. To be visible, you have to publish your ideas and thoughts. To brand yourself, your products and services, you have to be authentic in that message.

How can I be more authentic and creative

Start with yourself and choose something unique that you can use for your brand. Do you favor a certain piece of clothing like a sweater vest or tie? How about your hair style? Take a fun picture of yourself with these things in mind and use that on everything you publish. Take it one step further and turn the picture into a comic strip piece with photo software. That will help you standout.

If you sell products, give them personality and life with call outs. You can create a company mascot out of one of your products and use that as a common theme on your marketing.

If you're in the service business, use photos that create emotion for your customers. Children or pets using computers for example or, attorneys could take a picture of themselves with duct tape over their mouths to show people that they really listen, contractors can use pictures of homeowners in precarious situations with a message that tells them you can help avoid that for them.

Maybe you don’t have the technical ability?

I'm full of ideas but lack the technical ability to actually create something that can be effective. In other words, I don't have experience using software that allows me to put together crisp marketing messages that will actually sell my products.

I use Ace of Sales and when it was introduced, the light bulb went off because this program does all of the technical creative work for me. I use email greetings and ezines to express those ideas. I simply plug in the ideas into the software in the form of pictures and words and Ace of Sales publishes it into a beautiful crisp marketing message.

My company sells closet and garage organization products to contractors, they in turn install them into people's homes. In order to stand out, I give the products themselves some life. For example, I'll make tie racks or hamper baskets talk and say something with a call out bubble. This little shot of personality creates dialogue with my customers and puts me on their radar ahead of everyone else.

Use this winning formula to stand out from the crowd

1) Find something unique about yourself that can become your brand.
2) Create messages that will engage customers and create dialogue.
3) Use Ace of Sales emails to catapult you ahead of everyone else.
4) Build rapport and visibility with consistent marketing messages.