You’ve come up with a niche idea, put in tons of effort and invested many months without remuneration to bring your brand into the real world, all that’s left now is to get customers and sales rolling in. The first step is to build a following and get your brand out there.

Here are five ways to grow your brand and target audience with a limited budget.

1. Formulate your brand story

Focus on your niche offering, ask yourself what sets you apart from your competitors and make sure to express the personality of your brand. You can then use this to tell your story over the various platforms available. Consumers enjoy connecting with people; shy away from representing your brand through only a logo, let them know who the face of the brand is as well.

2. Social Media

Consider social media as a storytelling platform. Communicate your brand story as a series of expressive idea’s, every tweet, blog post and Facebook post should align back to your brand’s content strategy. If you are in the travel industry, creating a post regarding tips on travel safety will help engage with your audience and create the opportunity for high engagement.

3. It’s all about the content

Put your creative juices to work and come up with a catchy slogan or tagline to emotionally connect with your target audience. Make sure your target market is always at the centre of your content strategy. Create a profile for each target group and then use these segmented groups to create content specifically for them.

4. Promotions

Promotions are a fantastic way to gain exposure for your brand and always results in a high ROI. Promotions will help increase your audience size, sales and customers. We encourage you to formulate a strategy before running with a promotional campaign, make sure your goals are clearly outlined and that each marketing objective sets out to meet those goals.

5. The power of partnership

A promotional partner is a great way to even further your exposure and success. Look out for brands and products that complement and align with your offering and brand personality. For instance if you are selling organic baby nappies, your target market may be interested in similar items such as organic baby clothing etc. Both you and your promotional partner’s business will gain exposure to each other’s customer base and share the costs of marketing.

Marketing successfully doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Getting your name in the market, building relationships and promoting engagement can be achieved at a relatively low cost.  Although we encourage brands to invest in traditional advertising, we understand the power of digital advertising for smaller companies looking to enter the market. If you would like any assistance with your advertising campaigns, get in touch with our team today.

You have the idea, you have the script, and you’re ready to add the perfect voice over. The voice over artist that you choose will quite literally become the voice of your brand. The right voice can create a real, lasting emotional connection between your brand and your customer. The wrong voice can alienate your prospective customer creating negative emotions towards your product and even brand. That’s why choosing the right voice over artist is such an important component of your advertising campaigns.

Deciding between a male or female voice over can alter your message’s clarity, consistency, and effectiveness. A 2010 study from AdWeek Media/Harris Poll was conducted to determine how consumers responded to male versus female voices in advertisements. Here’s what they learned:

1. In terms of forcefulness, 48% of the respondents said that males sounded more forceful while 49% of those surveyed said that gender made no difference.
2. In terms of being more soothing, 46% of respondents said that females sounded more soothing while another 46% said that gender made no difference.
3. In terms of persuasion, however, the results were split. 19% felt a female voice was more persuasive while 18% believed a male voice was more persuasive. Yet, 64% said gender made no difference.

Thus, depending on your goal, choosing the gender can make a huge difference to at least 50% of your target market. For example, if you’re creating a forceful message, 49% don’t care about gender, but 48% do care; thus, you’ll satisfy 98% of consumers by choosing a male voice. If you want a soothing voice over, however, you’ll satisfy 92% of people by going with a female voice.

So, how do you decide on which voice over artist to use? If you’re selling a new sports car, then choose a male voice but if you’re creating a promotional video for a health spa, then choose a female voice. Think about your target audience and the products you’re trying to sell to them. Based on this, you will be able to choose the right voice over artist.