According to the IMF, Guyana is experiencing an unprecedented economic boom with the highest GDP growth in the world, averaging at around 47% per year (2022 to 2024). Now, this is mainly driven by the oil and gas sector, but non-oil sectors like agriculture, eco-tourism, SaaS and so on are also growing rapidly. From Georgetown to Linden, the landscape is wide open for new ventures and startups to make a lasting mark.
While the healthy economy and per capita income are great for growing businesses, it’s never been more crucial to differentiate from the competition and position yourself as a brand that provides value to customers.
As a startup, your company might consider branding a luxury that requires a massive budget and a huge team working 24/7. The truth is quite the opposite – your brand is so much more than elaborate marketing stunts or televised launches.
Let’s look at five ways your startup can create a strong, lasting brand presence on a limited or conservative budget.
What is branding and why should you get it right?
The best thing you can do for your blossoming business is to truly understand what branding is before diving into one-size-fits-all campaigns and trending strategies.
On one hand, you have your brand identity. This is your logo, the colour palette you use, the name of your company, the tagline and so on. These are visual elements that make it easy for people to recognize your brand.
On the other hand, you have your brand sentiment. This is the bigger, more important part of your brand that speaks to the emotional connection consumers and customers have with your brand. It forms the core of what your business does, the promise you deliver to your customers and the reason behind your stellar reputation.
Why does knowing about brand identity and brand sentiment matter?
You can whip up the bare bones of a brand identity overnight and it could work just fine. But the overall sentiment and emotion attached to your brand is something you need to build over time with discipline, careful planning, strategizing and most importantly, maintaining consistency in your image, messaging and values. Inconsistent branding is one of the biggest reasons why customers turn away from a brand, whereas consistent branding across all platforms can increase your revenue by 23%.
Practicing consistency is one of the key essentials that can help build and sustain your brand on a limited budget. Let’s find out how.
Five scalable and branding tactics for startups
Since budget is often a big concern for startups and new ventures, you need to focus on branding activities that give you the most value and payoff for the least capital.
There are many such tactics you can employ and scale up over time:
- Define your brand’s foundation
- Create value-driven content
- Leverage your first customers
- Build a community around your brand
- Be a customer experience champion
Each of these five tactics can be put into play on a small scale and with a small group. They will also continue to work wonders as your business grows and can be scaled up or will scale up organically.
Why is defining your brand’s foundation the most important step?
Building your brand starts with first defining your brand’s mission (what do you do, why do you do it), vision (your plan for the future) and values (guiding non-negotiable principles). This is a foundational internal activity which does not really require capital or budget as such, but will need your skills, insights and effort.
Defining your brand’s purpose lets you answer the question, ‘Why do we exist?’, which in turn will help you plan how you can fulfil the most important tenets of your purpose. Every step of the way, your vision, mission and values will help you make choices, filter through decisions and maintain a consistent tone internally as well as externally on all marketing and advertising mediums like radio, print, social media and other traditional and digital platforms.
How does value-driven content attract customers?
The content you create is a great way for consumers to sample your brand and your expertise without having to make a financial commitment first. So, the more your brand tries to provide value instead of simply selling a product, the more customers will look to you as experts in the field who can be relied upon.
You can create high-value content in the form of website blogs (authoritative pieces written by experts for human consumption), social media posts and reels, website landing pages, email newsletters with infographics, explainer videos, whitepapers, eBooks and so on. Some ideas include creating a detailed blog post that answers consumers’ most common queries or concerns regarding a product or service, a short video film created on your phone explaining the process behind your manufacturing, a social media post addressing a seasonal demand and content that shows how your product or services can address and provide a solution to customer pain-points.
Content marketing is proven to be around 62% less expensive than traditional marketing, proving its strong impact on brand-consumer interactions. This underlines the need for an integrated marketing approach that combines the reach and exposure offered by traditional marketing mediums with the ability of content marketing to create a deep, lasting bond with your consumer base.
How can you leverage your first customers and brand advocates?
Your happiest and most satisfied customers are your biggest advocates, as well as a free, trustworthy marketing channel. There is a lot of power in user-generated content (UGC) and the authentic social proof of your brand’s quality and service. For example, 90% of millennials go by brand authenticity when buying something, with 52% among them even actively recommending the brand to their peers.
So, how can you convert your happy customers into brand advocates?
- Ask all your customers to leave reviews on Google or Facebook. Appeal to their good nature, but leave it open for action so they don’t feel pressured, as this can be counter-productive.
- Next, incentivize the creation of UGC. For example, you can run a social media contest asking users to post a picture of themselves with the product and tag you, with the first 10 receiving a discount code or voucher.
- Finally, actively monitor product platforms, comment sections and social media for positive mentions of your brand or products and share these as stories.
Why should you build a community around your brand?
Businesses often treat consumers as mere audiences – always keeping them on the receiving end of promotional campaigns and marketing efforts. But a community is a more dynamic unit, a group of people who interact with the brand and each other. Use your social media platforms as a means to encourage and drive conversation and combine this with a radio ad or a print ad to find new and like-minded people to join your online community.
Show people the human side of your brand with behind-the-scenes images and videos. Ask questions, run polls, respond actively to comments, even the negative ones. A local marketing and advertising agency in Guyana can help you set up an integrated marketing structure to effectively get you on the same platform as your Guyanese consumers and utilize data and analytics to help your brand reach them where they are most active.
Once you have a strong community around your brand, it becomes a self-sustaining marketing system. A community also helps your brand find its unique voice in a crowded marketplace, creating opportunities to demonstrate that you care for your customers.
Why is a great customer experience still the single-most important factor?
While a brand is so much more than flashy campaigns, at the end of the day, big companies with big bucks will always have high-stakes, attractive ad or PR stunt to overshadow their competition. Your startup might not be able to beat them at the spending game, but you can definitely outperform them in terms of customer experience.
For startups, each customer interaction and experience is a branding opportunity, a chance to show you care, to show your brand in the best light, to show the value you bring to their life. So, keep great customer service and experience at the heart of your modus operandi:
- Be uber-responsive and answer emails, comments, calls and DMs at the earliest.
- Personalize orders and communication, even if with just a small ‘thank you’ note.
- Fix problems for your customers as far as possible, without starting a blame game or slinking away from the responsibility.
Customer service is so crucial because studies show that 32% of customers stop frequenting a brand they loved after just one bad experience. That is a very costly pattern that small businesses cannot afford.
Conclusion
Building a powerful, memorable brand has a lot more to do with consistency and a genuine desire to provide value to your customers. Your commitment to your customers and community needs to be demonstrated in all business touchpoints, from a billboard on a busy intersection to your online and physical store and from a radio ad to your social media platforms and your website. Your responsiveness to consumer comments, an emotionally engaging and value-driven content strategy and your authenticity, all contribute to building a powerful, trusted and reliable brand image over time.
You can scale any and all of these strategies to grow your brand from a startup to a thriving business. Reach out to the experts at Webfx to learn how we can help you boost your brand and scale your marketing efforts in Guyana.
