There is nothing to stop you from hitting every goal and surpassing what you thought your business could achieve.

But when your brand reaches a plateau, it can feel like the business is at a standstill.

As a startup, you have the advantage of agility. And unlike larger, more established companies, it’s easier for younger businesses to pivot and change as they grow.

We’re sharing some of our favorite branding tips for startups who want to move beyond where they are now and expand their reach.

Evaluate What You’re Doing Now

Before making any significant changes, you’ll need to assess your brand and analyze how your company is marketing itself to customers.

Ask yourself these questions:

• – Is our marketing on par with customer expectations?
• – Does the company’s messaging connect with our customers?
• – Are there any gaps to address that would address people’s questions or concerns?

We encourage startups who want to expand to think long and hard about these questions. The answers uncovered will reveal areas where the brand can be strengthen.

Answer People’s Questions

As your business continues to grow, you’ll want to pay close attention to what interests customers. It’s not enough to create content and hope that they’ll pay attention to it.

You want to start a dialog. To do this, you’ll need to give people the information and news they can use. You’re competing with every other piece of content on the web for their attention.

While you can use tools like Feedly to gather shareable articles and videos, you’ll need to rely on more than that to build a relationship with your audience.

People remember brands with unique content and voices.

Sites like Quora and Reddit are fantastic places to spark ideas for different pieces of content. They’re also great resources to expose your brand by diving into live conversations with potential customers.

Set Your Brand’s Look and Feel In Stone

It’s not abnormal to wear more than a few hats when running a startup. But as the business grows, you’ll want to incorporate systems to make sure the brand remains consistent.

But as hard as it is to do, you’ll want to spend a few hours (not all at once) developing brand guidelines. It’s one of the most important documents of the brand and serve as the final word on how the elements of it should appear.

Some of the additional systems you’ll want to create are:

• – Creating content calendars templates which show examples of posts for social, blog, and media.
• – Setting up automated tools to make it easier to send out marketing materials through email, social, etc.
• – Using a brand style guide to ensure that any imagery, logos, and colors associated with your business remain consistent no matter where they’re shown.
• – Writing a set of copy guidelines to establish the tone and voice of the brand.

Depending on your business type, there could be even more brand elements to incorporate. Especially for video and audio content.

You want to make it as easy as possible for anyone touching the brand to quickly understand how each element needs to be used or produced.

Play the Spy Game

As your brand becomes more recognizable, it’s not surprising you’ll find yourself in the crosshairs of the competition. It’s a normal part of running a business, and, of course, you’ll want to up your game.

You want to keep tabs on what your competitors are doing and how they’re promoting their brands.

While we won’t encourage you to steal trade secrets, tools like Ubersuggest and Similar Web let you to see what other the other guy is doing online.

To that point, you don’t want to copy their techniques or tactics. Your brand is unique. Use the competition as a motivator, not a template. Imitating them will only weaken your brand in the long run.

Cull Your Social Platforms

It might feel like your brand needs to be on every single social media platform. It doesn’t.

As a startup, you don’t want to risk stretching the brand too thin by being everywhere at once.
You risk watering down the brand’s message online. It also makes it difficult to maintain an ongoing conversation with your followers.

Instead, spend some time figuring out where your audience is online.

After determining which platforms the brand should be on, you can invest more time nurturing these communities. We recommend sticking with one or two social networks and putting your all into them.

Remember, people love receptive brands that continuously interact with them. And each one of these interactions is an opportunity to impress current and potential customers.

Reach Out and Build Relationships

Integrity and credibility matter. As the brand grows, you’ll need to nurture and cultivate relationships with those you respect and admire, such as CEOs, community leaders, and other entrepreneurs (like yourself).

But these are busy people and they’re approached by people all the time.

So how do you get their attention? By being genuine.

Approach them as you would in the real world. Don’t waste their time with a million questions or make demands.

You wouldn’t start the conversation with a request when meeting in-person for the first time.

The same applies in this case. Slowly build the relationship, relax, and talk to these people without expecting anything in return.

Give Credit Where It’s Due

Strong brands thrive on ingenuity and adaptability. But they’re also bolstered by their teams and customers.

And there you’ll find an often untapped resource. Employees and superfans are some of the biggest promoters for startups. They want to support up-and-coming brands.

Pay attention to these influential voices. Highlight their contributions and include them in the brand’s story using video testimonials or profiles.

By showing appreciation for loyal advocates of the brand, you’ll increase the company’s reach as the brand matures.

Surprise Customers

Do the unexpected and give customers an experience they won’t forget anytime soon. Need a thought-starter? We’ve got one for you.

The organic beverage company, Suja Juice, lifted the spirits of those who were having a less than great day.

They used social listening on Instagram to find hashtags related to people’s moods. Tags like #mondayblues, #momlife, and #isitfridayyet were only a few of the terms used to describe their day.

Once they found these individuals, Suja reached out and sent close to 400 people a kind message and free bottles of juice.

As a startup, you’re competing with a lot of noise in the industry. Think of ways to delight customers and prove that you’re a brand that cares.

Give Away Your Knowledge

As part of developing a brand strategy for a small business or startup, it needs to include ways to drive traffic and build loyalty.

There are several ways to do this, but we’re going to focus on giving out information. Guides, how-to docs, and eBooks are just a few of the resources you can create.

But, you aren’t writing fluffy pieces of content. The goal is for each one of these pieces to deliver valuable information and build credibility.

So we’re not talking about the run of the mill stuff that can be found anywhere. You’ll need to dive deeper into topics that potential customers are interested in.

Why? People are already reluctant to give information to companies who could potentially spam them with advertising.

And they have good reason to be concerned. On average, consumers receive close to 120 emails per day. Business emails come in slightly higher at 128.

Sales, invites, and regular correspondence make up a majority of these emails. It’s a lot to sift through, which means that a lot of it gets ignored.

Before asking people for permission to add even more to their inbox, make it worth their while. Give them materials that solve a problem or saves time.

Upgrade Your Visuals

Many startups begin their journey with the bare essentials. A logo. Maybe a simple website. These assets are fine in the beginning.

But as you grow, it’s almost a guarantee that those same pieces will need some sprucing up.

Pulling the brand together means having a consistent, cohesive look. It’s what helps position the business as professional and recognizable.

If you don’t have a creative eye or anyone in-house who can design these elements, there are companies — like ours — who provide startup and small business branding services.

Create Emotional Moments

“Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.”– Sir Richard Branson

Part of your startup’s business branding needs to consider how relatable it is to people. Is your company personable? Are you showing moments of vulnerability?

People want to feel like they are part of something. You’re not just selling a product or service. You’re providing and sharing an experience.

And it needs to matter. Let down the walls and give people a reason to connect with you.

Talk about the company’s wins and what it took to get there. Share the challenges faced when launching a project.

These are moments where you can truly show the brand’s personality and authenticity. It’s how you present the brand as one with a human side.

Take Advantage of Video

Video is quickly becoming one of the best ways for brands to market themselves. In 2019, 87% of businesses incorporated video into their marketing strategy.

Startups can especially capitalize on this by producing informative, dynamic content. But we’re not talking about recording stiff, corporate videos (those are so early 2000’s).

We want you to create content that:

• – Answers people’s questions and proves the company’s competence and expertise
• – Is centered around themes that you can continuously build on
• – Shows the heart and soul of the brand

Companies no longer need supersized budgets to create Super Bowl quality content.

The cost of producing eye-catching videos has come down significantly. You can create engaging content inexpensively on equipment ranging from mobile devices to DSLR cameras.

Companies are no longer limited to posting videos on YouTube or Vimeo. Landing pages and emails can also help drive results for brands. According to Campaign Monitor’s 2019 email usage, those incorporating video could increase click-through rates by up to 300%.

This stat shows that email is still a powerful marketing tool for brands. When done well, this form of visual storytelling can enhance and strengthen up-and-coming brands and small businesses.

Test Out New Marketing Tactics

Great brands use data and trial and error to understand where to exert their efforts. You’ll need to constantly engage in brand building exercises that push your business and marketing.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with imagery and text. For instance, running A/B content campaigns on a website or social gives valuable insight into which copy and photos get clicks.

Keep adjusting and refining your tactics based on what your results reveal. Pay attention to what the numbers are showing. It’s the key to avoiding stagnation, and lets you put more energy into what works for the brand.

Don’t Waste Time with Perfection

“The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.” (George Will)

As advice goes, this is by far the most fundamental branding tip for startups we can give you.

Don’t waste time trying to create perfection. It will only slow down your process and hinder growth.

When the goal is to move the company to the next level, you want to keep the momentum going. You’re striving to evolve the brand, not get in your own way.

And we get it. Launching a new product or feature is nerve-wracking. Exposing your business to wider audiences is intimidating.

But you have to let go of perfection and just do it.

So What’s Next?

Now it’s your turn. It might feel like you’re stuck now, but your company has the capacity to achieve greatness. Incorporating a few of these ideas and taking action is what will move your business to the next level and define your brand.