Many of our clients come to us with questions about strengthening their business’ image (or their brand). As always we’re very happy to help out and offer some advice based on our experience and success in putting these methods to work both for Parachute and for our clients. If you’ve ever wondered if your brand is working at it’s full potential, read on to find out how well you’re really doing.

1. Brand All Your Materials

We all send emails, swap business cards, send invoices or submit proposals that are golden opportunities to strengthen our branding’s impact with our audience. Whether these opportunities are shared with new clients or existing clients, the key is to take advantage and make sure your materials are branded successfully.

All of your electronic and printed materials should contain your contact details, and social media links to ensure maximum impact. Evaluate what leaves your office. Is it properly branded? If not you may be missing out on valuable opportunities for new, referral and repeated business.

2. Optimize Your Website

One of the greatest tools you have on your site is your website. By ensuring that your website is optimized for the web you can rest assured that you are getting maximum exposure in relevant web searches. For more information on optimizing your website, check out our guide: How To Be Best Friends With Google.

3. Social Media

I feel like a broken record stating the obvious here, but believe it or not, there are still many businesses out there that have yet to hop on the bandwagon and take advantage of social media. Just signing up for the obvious social networks isn’t enough. To make effective use of these amazing tools you need a plan. For example, when launching a new product, be sure to write up a blog post building on the excitement and follow up with tweet on Twitter, which links back to your blog and also hits related trending topics. This will surely attract attention from an audience who shares interest in your business or product.

4. Start A Blog

If you haven’t done it already, start a blog! I have heard many clients over recent years grumble and say “I don’t have time to write a blog” or “I can’t write,” which are both poor excuses. With a little practice and taking the time to read other blogs you will easily get the hang of it. Eventually when you have built up a following, invite other people to write for you. Blogging will do so much for your website ranking; attract more viewers and ultimately more queries for business.

5. Join Industry Websites or Networks

Depending on what industry your business falls into, you may have significant opportunities which can develop by joining networking websites. These websites often allow you to showcase your product or services and sometimes include your rates or prices and company details. All of the above will help create more exposure for you and your brand.

6. Write Guest Articles

Another surefire way to get noticed and strengthen your brand is to write guest articles for other blogs. The higher ranking these blogs are the better. Using these opportunities will give you a platform to share your experience and professional views, which will help generate more interest in your business and brand. If you’re not comfortable writing a full article, be sure to participate in conversations and leave a link back to your website attached to any comments you may offer up in the thread.

7. Create A Contest Or Competition

This idea operates on value, which requires more effort form you, but can yield great returns for your brand and business in the end. Social media is a great way to gain more attention to your brand, for example “If you are one of the first 100 people to tweet this promotion you could win…” Be creative and come up with your own unique idea and you will get more people interested and talking about your brand. If you’ve already set up a blog, we can easily setup a contest system integrated with your blog to make things manageable for you.

8. Free Content

This method can be very simple, but be sure to follow the cardinal rule and make sure that whatever you are offering is of value to your audience. It may be an eBook, a program, a sample of your product, or even professional advice (kind of like this article!). Think about something that requires some level of effort and something that your potential customer will find value in. Remember the more you put into this idea the more you will get out of it and it’s great for making your brand more viral.