Top 5 brand, website and social media tips for a business start-up

If you are starting a new business whether doing it yourself as the sole director, or as a partnership of a group of directors, the prospect of branding, website design and online presence can be incredibly daunting, especially if you haven’t done it before. The important factor in this process is to find a company that has a proven track record, that actually employs professional and experienced staff without sub-contracting or using off-shore resources, a company that will genuinely get excited about your business and provide added value coupled with a cost-effective pricing point. Here are 5 top tips to successfully creating the online part of your business:

1. Commit to your brand and online identity
2. Create your Brand
3. Create your website
4. Create your Social Media platforms
5. Regularly update your online platforms

1. Commit to your brand and online identity – The biggest mistake that is often seen is where new business owners already under pressure to get their new business off the ground, look to save money wherever possible. It is common to hear things like “I will just create any logo and then when I make more money, I will invest in a better one then”, or “I want the cheapest website just to get it done, maybe in a few years I will spend money on a proper website”. These types of phrases can often lead to becoming a direct factor in the failure of a new business. Remember this, right from the beginning any potential customer will see your brand, your website and your social media platforms, and based on what they see will subconsciously judge your brand and your company. A potential customer with a negative interpretation of your brand through cheap or poor branding will not come back to a few months down the line when you have rebranded. The first impression really does count. With the website, don’t use templates, even to non-technical people, a template website blends into the thousands of other template sites. The true impactful sites are the ones that have been custom designed and custom developed and are the ones that will leave a lasting impression. Have a look at these website design case studies to get a better idea.
   
   
2. Create your Brand – Your brand is your business identity, whether on a shop front, on business cards, or on a website or social media platform, your brand can instantly capture potential customers. Looking at some major brands such as NIKE, the brand, fonts, imagery and the brand identity are impactful and instantly recognisable, there aren’t many people who won’t recognise the Nike Swoosh, the colours and the strapline “Just do it”. Make sure your brand is clear, well designed and impactful, with a strong brand message and brand identity. Make sure that you religiously honour and promote your brand, proudly display it on all merchandise, stationery, shop fronts, labels, leaflets, and anywhere else where potential customers will see it. Our in-house designers are ready to produce your amazing new brand design.
   
   
3. Create your website – It is reported that there are over 1.7 billion websites in existence currently, how is your new fledgling website going to stand out in such a large flock? The key here is bespoke website design and bespoke website development. All too many businesses employ developers who use template driven platforms where a website template is purchased and tweaked for your business. This as far as a website is concerned can be your company’s downfall. You have probably seen many websites already that all seem to just look the same, if you blanked the logos out and made everything grey, they would probably look almost identical. We remember exhibiting at a business start-up exhibition in London and seeing exactly the same business card but with a different company name and contact details. Make sure that you invest in your website, it is your online business card, catalogue and brochure. Make sure that it is properly designed from the ground up, don’t use templates, trust in professional graphic designers that will inspire new ideas. The website should also be programmed from the ground up. Have the flexibility where your website can be expanded as your business grows, make sure that your website works exactly how you want it to, not how a £30 template will dictate. Call to Action is a phrase that you have probably heard before. CTAs are incredibly important for your website. Every single page should have some kind of CTA and all pages should have specific ones like the company phone number where clicking on it will place the call. CTAs depend on the page, type of business and type of website. An online shopping website will have Buy or Add to basket but informational sites should use technologies such as Enquiry forms, for example your services pages should all have forms where the user can easily enter their details and register their interest. Do you offer quotes for your services? A great CTA is an online quotation tool that will instantly quote on the services that the user is looking for.
   
   
4. Create your social media platforms – Social Media presence for your business is of the upmost importance, the ever-increasing trend of Social Media has created Billions of pounds of revenue for businesses large or small, sole traders, hobbyists and even teenagers wanting to show off their Tik Tok skills. Each post depending on the content and audience, can receive huge numbers of likes, shares and follows. Your new business must have Social Media Pages. Select your Social Media platforms carefully depending on your target audience and the nature of the platform. If you are selling make-up products, then Instagram may be your best bet, whilst a business coaching website may be better suited to Linked In. Only create Social Media pages for the platforms that will help you, remember, there is no point having them if they are not going to be updated, what followers need to see is regular fresh content. Make sure you link your website to the Social Media pages and visa-versa and probably the most important thing to remember when setting up your Social Media pages is to ensure that your brand, brand identity and colour palette are on the pages, there is nothing that confuses people more than inconsistency across platforms.
   
   
5. Regularly update your online platforms – Having an impactful brand with a captivating website and matching social media platforms is half of the task for your digital footprint. The other half is to regularly update the various platforms. Potential customers visiting your website to see that the last blog article or news item was posted 6 months ago doesn’t give the right impression, it can raise questions like “are they still trading?” or “they can’t care about their business much if they are not updating their content”. Similarly, a Social Media page with only a few posts will not encourage people to click on the like, follow and share buttons. Make sure that you regularly update all profiles, the best advice is to employ a specialist digital marketing company to handle your Social Media campaigns and website article updates. Social Media and Article plans are implemented on a monthly basis so that you don’t need to worry about accessing a number of different interfaces to post a special offer that your company is introducing, or a Top 10 Tips blog article specific to your industry. The Digital Marketing company you contract, can also look after your Search Engine Optimisation, after all, what is the point of having a great brand and regular updates to your online platforms if no-one will find your website through searching on the Internet. Search Engine Optimisation campaigns are something that you should budget in for the long term. A constant SEO campaign is beneficial to creating new leads and sales.

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