Marketing Your Business

Are you a consulting business owner who hasn’t developed a brand strategy yet? Brand or brand image is what the customer talks about when he uses the service of consulting business. It’s what gives a service an identity, makes it recognizable and helps build the emotional connection between the company and the client.

But a brand is not just a name, logo, and tagline. It is the experience that a customer has when purchasing a service, and the target market’s perception of the consulting company or service.

Brand strategy is a long-term strategy that helps develop this.

WHAT IS BRAND STRATEGY?

Brand strategy is a long-term plan used by a consulting business to establish its brand identity and find a unique position in the minds of the target audience.

It includes specific and long-term goals, which achieve the result in building a successful brand with high equity and credibility, which occupies a competitive position in the market.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAND STRATEGY

With many consulting companies offering similar services with no or very few differences, today’s market runs on perceptions and emotions.

In fact, according to a study by HBR, over 64% of customers pursue a relationship with a company based on their shared values. Having a brand strategy helps you build those kinds of relationships.

In addition, brand strategy is also important for:

·        Loading identity for the company and company offers.

·        Differentiate the brand from competitors in the market.

·        Position the brand in a favorable way to create favorable perceptions and drive more sales.

·        Communicate more effectively, because it creates an identifiable service, defines a unique brand message, and helps develop a communications strategy.

·        Develop a marketing strategy because it is much more difficult for consulting companies to market services without a brand.

·        Develop a favorable corporate image in the minds of customers.

·        Develop brand equity – the value, over the typical service price that customers are willing to pay just because the service is associated with a particular brand. Defines the mission and vision of the consulting company as a brand.

·        Develop happier and stronger relationships with employees because they feel more motivated to work with established brands.

BRAND STRATEGY COMPONENTS

Brand strategy is always developed with a holistic perspective on how the target audience perceives the brand and how the brand wants them to perceive it.

A successful brand strategy always considers the following eight components –

Target Audience: the target audience is the market segment that interacts directly with the consulting brand and is usually the customers of the brand’s offering.

Brand Promise: this is a promise made by a brand to customers stating what they can expect from the consulting brand and its services. It is that promise of trust that creates an unspeakable emotional connection between brands and customers.

Brand Mission & Vision: this includes what the consulting brand aspires to be in the long term, both monetary and non-monetary. It also consists of the means to achieve the goal.

Brand Architecture: this is the structure of the portfolio of brands, sub-brands, and other offerings managed by the company. It’s like a family tree of a brand and its sub-brands. Developing a brand architecture makes it easier to establish a main brand communication strategy as well as sub-brands.

Brand Message: this is the message communicated to the target audience through the brand’s offering and verbal and non-verbal communication messages that describe what it does and how it differs from others.

Brand Association: These are the recognizable aspects such as images and symbols associated with the brand or brand benefits

Competitive Awareness: Competitive awareness refers to knowledge of competitors’ brand strategy and making efforts to create higher value compared to them.

HOW TO DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE BRAND STRATEGY?

Unlike in the last decade, consultants are now more focused on building brands than ever before.

If you went out and asked established consulting businesses about the importance of developing a brand strategy today, you’d be surprised how much they invest in it.

According to the 2019 Branding Status Report, 66% of marketing decision-makers plan to invest more in creating branded visual content than they did in 2018.

Building a consulting brand and developing a brand strategy is not an easy process. It can take months (or even years) of research and analysis to finally figure out how customers intend to perceive the brand. And even more difficult for newcomers.

But don’t worry, here is a complete guide that simplifies the process of developing a brand strategy for your consulting business:

1.      Define Aims And Objectives

Just like a marketing strategy, the development of a branding strategy is driven by intent or purpose. This could be a new consulting company looking to make a name in the market, an existing company looking to expand its service line, or an established company looking for strategies to expand an existing brand or add more sub-brands to its name.

To find the purpose, answer these two questions:

• What do you want your consulting brand to do for your firm?
• How would you like to describe your offering or company to your target market?

When it comes to brand strategy, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Therefore, it is important to know what you are building a strategy for before proceeding.

2.      Introspection

Once goals are identified, it’s important to introspect on the consulting company and the offering that needs to be branded. Focus on the why (vision), what (mission), and how (values) of the company and try to align branding goals with the company’s overall goals.

If a brand strategy is being developed for an offering, focus on the features and find a unique selling proposition and value proposition that you can leverage. Typically, brand positioning strategies are rooted in these two factors.

3.      Target Market Research And Competitors

The next step involves you focusing on who will buy your services. Create buyer personas and target your audience by answering these questions:

• What is the age of your ideal customer?
• How much does he earn?
• What is the job?
• Is your service a need or want for him?
• Why did he choose your service over competitors?

To answer the last question, you need to do a competitive analysis as well. Answer questions about your competition by answering these questions:

• Who currently serves your target audience?
• What makes customers choose them over others?
• How do they market their brand?
• Do they have a single-brand strategy or a multi-brand strategy?

4.      Find Brand Barriers

During the analysis of the internal and external environment, you must have found many obstacles in terms of target audience and competition.

Combine them with other barriers related to market conditions, government policies, and other factors that may hinder the successful positioning of your proposed consulting brand and look for ways to eliminate them.

5.      Develop a Holistic Strategy for Defining Your Brand

A holistic branding strategy focuses on giving an identity to every service your consulting business offers. This usually involves:

• Associating attributes with the brand – name, logo, color,
• Define brand goals
• Develop brand identity, brand personality, and brand voice
• Include a brand message
• Develop brand associations
• Focus on making the brand consistent, flexible, and emotional

6.      Find the Perfect Positioning Strategy

An effective brand strategy is rooted in how you plan to position your consulting brand in the marketplace. Positioning results from finding the perfect space a brand can occupy in the target customer’s brain regarding competitors’ positioning features and strategies.

7.      Promotion

A brand is always created in the eyes of customers. Once a consulting company has successfully developed a strategy for how it wants customers to see it, the next step is to promote the same.

Brand promotion is an important part of consulting brand strategy because it informs, reminds, persuades convincingly, and influences buyers to direct their purchasing decisions in favor of the brand.

That’s a complete discussion of consulting brand strategy that you might be able to apply to your business. Making your brand known to many people requires a mature, measurable, and targeted strategy. Make sure you make a plan by considering the important things that are in your business, including business finances.

Having a successful consulting business means more than just having a great service. You need to know how to properly promote it in order to reach the right audiences. Effective promotion is essential for any consulting business, but it can be difficult to know where to start. In this blog post, we will explore some of the best ways to promote your consulting business and make sure it gets the attention it deserves. From traditional marketing strategies to new digital tactics, we will cover all the ways to effective business promotion:

Introductory offers

When launching a new service, one of the most effective ways of marketing it is to offer an introductory offer. This could be in the form of a discount or a free trial. Offering customers some services for free or at a lower cost encourages them to take a chance at your service. It’s a great way to introduce people to your service and get them talking about it to their friends and family. Additionally, it can help you build a database of loyal customers who are more likely to stay with your service in the future. Make sure to also use this opportunity to gather feedback from your customers so you can continue to improve and enhance your service.

Utilize social media platforms

Social media has become an important part of modern marketing and promotion. It’s a great way to connect with potential customers, build relationships, and promote your services. In order to be successful in utilizing social media for your business, it’s important to create a presence on popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

On each platform, you should share content related to your service and industry, engage with other users, and use the platform’s advertising capabilities. Additionally, consider taking advantage of trends and conversations happening on social media to get people talking about your services. By building an effective presence on social media, you can reach a larger audience and increase awareness for your business.

Develop an SEO strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key component of any effective business promotion strategy. SEO is the process of optimizing your website for search engines so that it appears higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). A well-executed SEO strategy will enable your target audience to find your site more easily, resulting in increased website traffic and leads.

To develop an SEO strategy for your consulting business website, you should first conduct keyword research. Identify the relevant keywords that are related to your service, and use them throughout your website content. This includes adding keywords to titles, headings, and body text. You should also optimize your URLs, images, and internal links.

Next, ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices. Mobile-friendly websites have become essential as more people are using their phones and tablets to search online. You should also create quality content that is tailored to your target audience and is regularly updated.

Finally, you should build high-quality links to your website. Link building is an essential part of SEO and involves obtaining links from other websites that link back to yours. This will help increase your visibility and authority on search engines.

By following these steps, you can develop an effective SEO strategy for promoting your consulting business website online. With a well-executed SEO strategy, you can reach a wider audience and increase your leads and sales.

Invest in Google Ads

Google Ads is an excellent way to promote your consulting business. It’s a highly effective form of paid search engine marketing that gives you access to millions of potential customers. With Google Ads, you can create ads that appear at the top of Google’s search engine results page when someone searches for terms related to your business.

Google Ads gives you more control over who sees your ads and when they see them. You can target users based on their location, device type, interests, and more. This allows you to customize your message and tailor it to the right audience. You can also set a budget for your campaign, so you don’t spend more than you want to.

When setting up your Ads campaigns, it’s important to use keywords that are related to your business, as this will help ensure your ads are seen by the right people. Try to write compelling copy that encourages potential customers to take action. Finally, track the performance of your campaigns, so you can adjust your strategies accordingly.

Overall, investing in Google Ads can be an excellent way to reach more customers and promote your business. With the right strategy and proper execution, you can reach a larger audience, increase brand awareness, and generate more leads and sales.

Create a blog

Creating a blog is an excellent way to increase visibility for your service. A blog provides a platform for you to post regularly about your business, services, and industry news. This content can be shared across other social media channels and help attract more customers. You can also use the blog to respond to customer queries or to showcase new services and offers.

When creating a blog, it is important to keep it regularly updated with new content. Fresh content will encourage readers to come back and help them better understand what you have to offer. Make sure you keep your content engaging, relevant, and informative so readers want to come back for more.

Make use of email marketing

Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to promote your business. It allows you to target specific customers with personalized offers and messaging, and reach a large audience at once. Email marketing is also relatively inexpensive and easy to set up, making it an attractive option for small consulting firms.

The first step in utilizing email marketing is to create a list of potential customers. This list should include current customers, prospects, and anyone else who may be interested in what you’re offering. You can use social media and other digital channels to find new leads, or you can purchase lists from a reputable source.

Once you have your list, you’ll need to develop an email strategy. This should include determining the frequency and content of your emails, as well as deciding what platforms you want to use to send them. Additionally, consider segmenting your list into different groups so that you can target each group with relevant offers and messages.

Finally, don’t forget to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns. By using analytics, you can track open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to determine how successful your campaigns are. With this data, you can make any necessary adjustments to optimize your results.

Email marketing can be a great tool for promoting your business if done correctly. With the right strategy in place, you can reach a wide audience and turn leads into customers.

Leverage influencers

Influencers have become an integral part of marketing in recent years. Utilizing influencers can be a great way to promote your business and services. By partnering with influencers, you can tap into their already-established fan base and amplify your reach.

It’s important to pick the right influencers for your consulting business. Look for those who specialize in the same field or are knowledgeable about consulting industry. Once you’ve identified a few potential influencers, you can reach out to them directly and work on creating a mutually beneficial partnership.

When it comes to leveraging influencers, you have several options available. Depending on the agreement between you and the influencer, they could create content on your behalf, share your content with their audience, or promote your service through social media posts.

You should also consider compensating the influencer appropriately. This could be done in the form of monetary compensation, free services, or discounts.

Leveraging influencers is an effective way to reach a broader audience and promote your business and services. However, it’s important to keep in mind that this should be done in a way that’s mutually beneficial to both parties. With the right approach, leveraging influencers can help you build trust and increase awareness of your brand.

Business promotion is a complex and sometimes difficult process, but it doesn’t have to be. By leveraging the tactics outlined above, you can successfully promote your new consulting business and get the word out about your service.

Consultants come from a variety of industries and have a variety of expertise. Whether your “expertise” is social media marketing, SEO, or real estate, you’ll discover your limitless potential.

In this guide, we’ll cover a few steps in leveraging your unique skills and starting your own consulting firm.

WHAT IS A BUSINESS CONSULTANT?

Consultants offer advice and expertise to individuals, businesses, and organizations to help them improve their lives, performance, management structures, and more. Consulting services can run the gamut from strategy consulting and financial advice to marketing consulting and beyond.

While being a consultant is hard work, it is a fulfilling profession that presents many networking opportunities and enormous earning potential.

THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE BUILDING A BUSINESS CONSULTING SERVICE

Want to start making money as a consultant? There are several things you need to consider before starting a consulting business.

·        What valuable skills do you have?

·        What certifications or licenses do you need to start a business consulting service?

·        Are you organized and have a disciplined nature?

HOW TO START A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS CONSULTING SERVICE IN 7 STEPS?

Once you’ve discovered your “expertise” —that is, the unique skills that are your selling point, it’s time to start turning your passion into a profitable consulting business.

All you need to do is hone your craft, market yourself effectively and deliver great results to your clients.

The following details the steps you can take to start your own business consulting services from the ground up.

1. Define Your Unique Selling Proposition

A unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes you unique from other professionals in the market. While you may market yourself as a consulting business, what makes you the consultant of choice for your potential clients?

Think about the unique skills you have, your communication style, and your level of experience. Then, define your USP based on your value statement, the benefits your services provide, and the results you will produce for your clients.

Value Proposition

Your value proposition is the single main thing you offer your clients. This should basically be your number one selling point when you market your services to prospects. It answers the question of why someone would hire you.

For example, if you are a financial advisor, your value proposition might be that you have five years of experience advising multinational companies on making sound financial decisions.

You can then market yourself as a consultant capable of working with companies (something many advisors may not be able to do).

Benefit

Beyond your main selling points, what other benefits can clients expect from working with you? You can write a list of benefits that you can highlight in future marketing materials.

Results

What results do you want to produce for your clients?

Each type of client has a specific purpose in working with you. Once you know your niche, your job is to uncover what that goal is and help your clients achieve it.

2. Define Your Target Market

This step takes your USP one step further by helping you determine your ideal target market. Many people make the mistake of starting out looking for a customer base that is too broad, which increases competition and makes it difficult for the business to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

By being more specific, you can narrow down the competition and speak to the needs of your ideal client. The more you understand your target audience, the easier it will be to sell your services.

This step involves answering the who, what, and where of the target market you want to reach.

3. Build a Lead Generating System

How you market your business consulting services will depend on where your target customers are and which platforms they use to find consultants like you. This will vary from industry to industry.

The best way to find out where to market your company is to ask your target market how they find consultants. You’ll likely find a variety of platforms and methods you can use to generate leads and eventually land clients.

Here are some of the most popular lead-generation platforms:

·        Instagram

·        Facebook

·        LinkedIn

·        Youtube

·        Paid Ads

4. Have a Great Website or Portfolio

While having a website is not a requirement for becoming a business consultant, it certainly helps. A website or portfolio gives potential clients a place to learn about your services, see the results you produce for clients, and contact you.

Platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace provide free, low-cost templates to help you set up your first website. 

You can create pages that list your services, publish blog posts, and direct website visitors to your contact page. Use social media marketing and SEO to drive traffic to your site and generate a consistent stream of prospects.

5. Gives Great Results

The success of your business depends on whether you have delivered outstanding results for clients. This will enhance your brand, encourage repeat partnerships and attract more clients.

Once you start delivering results for your clients, you should measure important key performance indicators (KPIs) and start creating case studies.

6. Ask for Testimonials

Like case studies, testimonials display the results you get for your clients, in their own words only. Great testimonials not only make you feel good, but they can also actively work to attract new clients.

After working with the client, ask them to leave you a review on all or any of the following platforms:

Google My Business: A free platform where you can post business information, phone numbers, client reviews, and articles.

Facebook: Request reviews on your business Facebook page. Don’t forget to ask for a five-star rating!

LinkedIn: Ask clients to provide LinkedIn recommendations about your personal LinkedIn profile or reviews on your business LinkedIn page.

Website: You can repost client reviews on your website, or use website plugins to pull in testimonials from Facebook, Google, and other review platforms.

The more positive reviews you have, the better. If you get a negative review, be sure to handle it professionally. Sometimes you can request that they be removed if you think they are spam or if users don’t really work with your business.

7. Always Learning

Your goal is to provide the best results for your clients. This requires you to stay on top of your game and hone your skills on a regular basis.

In addition to staying informed about current trends in your industry, you should consider investing in additional education to improve your skills over time. Find lots of free and paid resources both conventional and online to help you become the best consultant ever.

START PROFITABLE BUSINESS CONSULTING SERVICES TODAY

The beauty of consulting is that you can basically take any skill and turn it into a full-time business, as long as you are providing value to your clients.

If you have a unique “expertise” that allows you to help others, you can market your skills as a professional consultant.

There are many paths to success in the business consulting business, so feel free to pave your own. With the steps outlined in this guide, you should at least have a framework as well as a way to start and scale your own business.

Building brand awareness is not as easy as it seems, it takes quite a lot of effort to achieve it. Even so, brand awareness is one of the important factors to achieve success for every consulting business.

In this article, we will discuss what brand awareness is, why it’s important, and how to increase it. Let’s see the full review below!

WHAT IS BRAND AWARENESS?

Brand awareness is a term used to describe how far a brand is known by consumers. In another sense, brand awareness is a measure of how ‘familiar’ consumers are with a brand and how well consumers know the brand.

Brand awareness is something that greatly influences the decision-making process of a consumer when they want to hire a service. Clients will be more willing to hire services from consulting brands they already know. Therefore, a consulting business should be willing to spend a lot of capital to increase its brand awareness.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING BRAND AWARENESS FOR CONSULTING BUSINESS

Brand awareness is very important for consulting businesses. The client’s decision to hire your services will be greatly influenced by the level of brand awareness of the service. In addition, brand awareness can also help clients continue to hire your services.

Brand awareness can be used as a performance measurement tool for a brand. If their level of brand awareness is small, then it is clear that the brand is not performing as well as desired. Therefore, every company must always try to build good brand awareness.

It would not be surprising If there is a company that spends a lot of capital to build its brand awareness. Every consulting company wants its brand to be known in general and always associated when a topic appears.

7 WAYS TO BUILD BRAND AWARENESS WITH A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

Building good brand awareness is something every consulting company must do. The following are several ways to build brand awareness with digital marketing strategies;

1.      Maximizing the Use of Social Media

In this digital era, social media is the most widely used platform for various things. From the beginning, social media was only used as a digital “hanging out” platform, now social media has also been widely used for marketing and selling.

The potential of this social media is almost unlimited, you can do various things on it. Apart from that, you can also upload various forms of files to social media, from photos, and audio, to videos. The limitation of using social media is only the creativity of its users.

Thanks to the progress of using social media, you can also really build brand awareness through this platform. For example, you can try to create content, related to your consulting business and try to make it go viral. If you find it difficult to do this, there are now many viral content creation services available, from individuals to agencies.

Also make sure your brand has its own social media accounts, from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, to LinkedIn, you have to take advantage of every existing social media platform. In addition, make sure to always be active on social media, from uploading content to interacting with consumers. If you are active on social media, your brand awareness will also increase.

2.      Maximizing Website Usage

Apart from social media, a business website is also a must-have for every consulting brand. In contrast to social media which is only focused on building brand awareness, you can also use a website to make customers believe more in your brand. It will be useless if you have high brand awareness but clients don’t trust your brand.

To build brand awareness through your website, you can upload content such as articles, videos, or even podcasts to it. Also make sure that all information about your brand is available on the website, starting from information about the services provided to information about contacts who can be contacted if your customers have questions.

Apart from that, you can also integrate social media with your website. For example, the content that you upload to your website can also be shared via social media. That way, traffic to your website will also increase and your brand will also become more trustworthy.

3.      Implement SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a very effective digital marketing strategy for increasing brand awareness. In an era where the use of search engines like Google is often relied upon to find various information, implementing SEO is something that is very mandatory to do.

SEO itself is a method used to optimize websites for search results from search engines. Through good and targeted SEO, your website or even social media accounts can appear in the top rankings, or at least on the first page. That way, your brand awareness will also increase.

4.      Implement Content Marketing

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy for creating and distributing relevant and consistent content to attract the attention of the intended audience. There are various types of content that you can use for this strategy, such as graphic design, videos, articles, podcasts, and much more.

Through content marketing, you can build brand awareness while providing information about your brand. Just make sure you include information about your brand in the content you create and share, but don’t push too hard because that will only make the content less interesting.

5.      Work with Influencers

Working with influencers, or influencer marketing, is a digital marketing strategy to promote brand or services through influencers on their social media. When someone with a large number of followers promotes your brand or service, their followers will usually trust them to buy it too.

Many consulting brands are already using influencer marketing because this method really helps to increase brand awareness, introduce services, and reach the target audience through content created by these influencers. Brand owners have seen that traditional marketing methods don’t have as much impact as this influencer marketing.

6.      Following or holding an event

When you take part in an event, hold a big event, your brand awareness will definitely increase. Through these events, new audiences will definitely be able to discover your brand. Apart from that, you can also create events related to the field you are providing your services. That way, the brand can become even more famous.

7.      Sponsor an Event

In addition to participating in or holding an event, you can also sponsor other events. That way, your brand can be promoted at the event and brand awareness can increase.

There are lots of ways to increase business profits that you can do. As a consulting business, of course, profit is one of the main goals that must always be pursued. Without profit, a consulting business will not be able to make a profit to keep it running.

Through this article, you will get a complete explanation of how to increase business profits using digital marketing. However, why do you have to use digital marketing?

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN EFFORTS TO INCREASE PROFITS

In this digital era, digitalization processes are increasingly being carried out by various consulting businesses from large companies to small businesses. Everything that has started to be done digitally means that the marketing process must also be done digitally. Therefore, digital marketing is the most used marketing strategy lately.

Nowadays, digital marketing has become one of the keys to the success of a business. People’s dependence on digital devices is creating a new market in the consulting business world. So, if you haven’t implemented digital marketing, it will be difficult for your business to make a profit in the digital era as it is today.

7 WAYS TO INCREASE PROFITS WITH DIGITAL MARKETING

If you want to increase sales and profits in business, then you should immediately use a digital marketing strategy. The following are several ways to increase business profits using digital marketing.

Understand the Customer

To increase business profits using digital marketing, the first thing you have to do is understand the online presence of customers. What is meant by the online presence here is all activities carried out by customers online, starting from their interactions to their preferences.

You have to understand what marketing channels the target market likes the most, how they interact in the digital world, what time of the day they are most active, and much more. Gather all kinds of information about your customers’ online presence so you can determine the best way to reach them.

Consistency

There are tons of digital platforms that can be used as marketing channels. Therefore, you must present your business consistently across the platforms you use. Elements such as logos to the grammar used by your business must be consistent across every digital platform used as a marketing channel.

Being consistent can make all kinds of positive impressions on customers. Apart from that, customers will definitely feel more comfortable when they can find all the same elements of your business on every digital platform they use. That way, customers will trust your brand which will ultimately bring more sales.

Create Creative Content

Content is the most important tool that must be considered when doing digital marketing. Basically, the concept of digital marketing itself is centered on content. There are many types of content that can be used in digital marketing, from articles, images, videos, emails, podcasts, and many more.

Even though there are indeed many types of content that can be used, there is also a lot of business competition that makes simply providing content not enough. In the midst of a sea of ​​content with various types, you must be able to create content that is creative, unique, and can attract the attention of customers.

Take advantage of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy in which consulting companies market the services they sell directly to customers via their email. Email marketing itself is one of the most successful digital marketing strategies in increasing the number of sales.

Even so, just sending an email is not enough. You have to personalize the email according to the customer data previously obtained. The more personal the email feels, the more likely it is that customers who receive the email will respond to the call to action contained in the email.

Marketing Channel Optimization

Optimization is a vital thing that must always be done in digital marketing. You may be quite familiar with the term SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is optimization that is done on search engines and must be done by every consulting business. However, apart from search engines, you also have to optimize every marketing channel you use.

Maximize the use of Social Media

Social media is the most widely used digital platform by all people in the world. There are lots of social media platforms that have been circulating, starting from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more. Every day, people access their social media and use it for hours.

As a consulting business owner, you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to do marketing. You have to maximize the use of social media to increase business profits. Use data about customers that you have previously obtained to determine what social media your target market uses most often, what kind of content they like, and how to interact with them.

Give Discounts and Other Promos

Who doesn’t love a discount? Customers will be more excited about hiring your services when they get discounts. Discounts are proven to increase the number of sales significantly. Therefore, make sure you take advantage of this opportunity to increase profits.

That’s how to increase business profits using digital marketing that you must understand. If you haven’t implemented digital marketing yet, you should do it right away so that your business profits start increasing. 

The question that is often asked by consulting business owners in their promotional activities is the choice to prioritize branding vs marketing. These two activities are equally important because the combination can have a big impact on the business. Unfortunately, businesses cannot do both at the same time, meaning that there are activities that must take precedence during the process.

Branding and marketing are two different activities in promoting a business. The goals and impacts resulting from the two activities are also different, so businesses have to do the two jobs separately. Branding and marketing implementation must also be carried out separately to achieve the goals that have been set.

Apart from the differences in branding and marketing that will be explained, the two of them need each other. The combination of the two aspects of the business will bring in a large number of customers, as long as it is carried out with the right strategy.

DIFFERENCES IN BRANDING AND MARKETING STRATEGIES

Branding and marketing are carried out to achieve the same goal, which is to attract the target market or audience to get to know and hire our services. This goal will certainly achieve the main goal of building a business, which is to get as much profit as possible. However, there are fundamental differences in carrying out branding and marketing strategies within the consulting company.

Before getting to know the difference, it’s better for us to first understand the meaning of branding and marketing in consulting business. Branding is the process of building a consulting business image through various media. Usually, branding is identified with a company’s brand logo, but not limited to that. Precisely because it is related to image, branding uses every aspect of the business, starting from the services provided, including the messages used when carrying out marketing activities (marketing).

Branding focuses on building the image that is owned by the company with predetermined strategies. Branding must be included in the highest priority scale when building a business, especially after we build a business plan.

Unfortunately, there are still many consulting businesses that perceive branding as just creating a logo, then proceeding to the marketing stage. A unique and eye-catching logo is not enough to grab the attention of customers, you also have to create a different aspect of your consulting business. Both through the services provided, the style of language when advertising, and so on, everything must be carefully designed in this process.

A good and appropriate brand strategy will certainly establish a relationship between the business and the customer during the process. Building a strong brand will bring in lots of loyal customers who will continue to use the services you offer, in addition to new customers who are increasingly arriving.

Marketing itself is a tool or strategy for promoting the services of a consulting business to attract as many target markets as possible. In marketing activities, businesses try to convey the advantages and benefits felt by customers when using their services.

A consulting business always has competitors in the process. Competitors are people who provide the same services as our business. This is a business that needs marketing, the goal is that the company can be more prominent compared to other competitors. Marketing can also help us bring in clients through the strategy or method that is implemented.

The marketing strategy itself is centered on using available resources to promote our business. Marketing is not the same as branding because it can change and adjust to market conditions. If marketing trends change, like it or not, a business must change its strategy or way of playing so that it remains relevant in the eyes of the market.

In essence, branding and marketing are two different steps in promotional activities. The goals to be achieved from the two stages are also different, so it is ideal if the business does these two steps separately.

WHICH SHOULD BE PRIORITIZED: BRANDING VS MARKETING?

The question is, which activities should be prioritized in business, is it marketing or branding? The answer is branding because that is the foundation for carrying out almost all aspects of business activities, including marketing. This is why businesses should take the branding process more seriously and not jump right into a marketing strategy.

This does not mean that marketing is a less important activity. Precisely marketing is very important because it can promote a brand or image that has been built by a business. It’s just that businesses must include branding as their top priority because the brand or image that is conveyed is the “root” of a business.

Strong and sturdy business branding will certainly be seen when running a business. Building branding so that it can be recognized by the public, in general, is not instantaneous, instead, we must be consistent in building a clear brand image every day.

A strong brand identity includes the vision and mission of the business or company, guidelines that are implemented, and so on. After the brand identity is built, then we can focus on marketing activities. The chosen marketing strategy can also vary, both offline and online, such as digital marketing.

This is what a start-up consulting business or company that is just starting must pay attention to, namely building a strong brand identity first. It’s not easy, especially if business owners often feel the fear of missing out (FOMO) with ongoing trends. Keep in mind, brand identity must remain consistent and not depend on current marketing trends. A strong brand identity will be easier to communicate through any marketing media, including the latest media, namely social media or websites.

BRANDING AND MARKETING NEED EACH OTHER

Regardless of the differences in strategy and priorities between the two, branding and marketing need each other. No matter how strong the brand identity that has been built, the business will not achieve the sales target it wants to achieve without marketing activities. Likewise, marketing, audiences, or potential buyers feel that your business looks the same as competitors if no image stands out and becomes a differentiator compared to other businesses.

Although marketing and branding are two different components of the business, they need each other. Businesses must pay attention to these two things to achieve the expected profit. Business marketing activities will be easier because we have strong branding in business. Likewise, with branding, the image that the company wants to build can be conveyed properly through the marketing strategy that has been built.