In recent times, we have witnessed the enormous growth of startups and microbrands. We have seen in recent years the sales of small businesses grow exponentially with the successful utilization of niche marketing and effectively targeted social media campaigns. Nowadays, you cannot always say that the bigger the company, the greater its sales. You can claim that smallest of the businesses with efficient marketing and branding are generating higher sales because consumers trust the brands making direct-to-consumer sales. So, what are these microbrands, and how did they generate so much buzz in recent years? Continue reading the blog to find your answers on micro branding.
Every business these days wishes to build a brand. You cannot just keep manufacturing products without understanding the needs of the consumer. You cannot set your business goals without analyzing the ideal consumer persona and consumer requirements. And when you implement these customer-centric objectives in your business, you become a brand. In short, a brand is a perspective you build about your company among the audience. Branding is the emotional connect and a bond of trust that you establish with the consumers.
The recent era is known as the Startup era, as we have seen so many innovative ideas executed into reality in the form of business. Every big company goes through the startup phase in its initial times. During this phase, the organization is confined to a particular geographical location entertaining the local consumers in that location. Now, how do these small organizations become microbrand?
WHAT IS MICROBRAND?
Microbrands are the direct-to-consumer businesses that eliminate the need for a middleman. They manufacture and ship the products directly to the consumers. These direct-to-consumer businesses tap on the potential of branding and social media marketing to target the niche-specific audience with strategic, efficiently targeted, heavy marketing campaigns. As they are in direct contact with the consumers, a bond of trust is established between the consumers and the organization. This bond of trust builds a positive perspective of the organization for the consumers, thus forming a brand. Because of the limited target market of the organization, they get referred to as microbrands.
WHY ARE MICROBRANDS GAINING SO MUCH IMPORTANCE?
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1. Microbrands are focused on Selective Group of Audience
Trying to influence 1000 people, in the beginning, is a bit daunting and a dicey approach rather than trying to attract 100 people. Microbrands do not randomly market to anyone and everyone in the world. Their marketing campaigns are well structured to grab the interest of only a smaller group of audience who are most likely to be the consumers. Now they repeatedly target them with hyped-marketing campaigns that keep showing ads to these people on social media, music directories, search engines and probably everywhere on the Internet.
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2. Microbrands bring better ROI
You know how expensive PPC ad campaigns have become in recent times. Targeting a wider group audience via any marketing technique proves costly, and when the leads-to-conversion ratio is poor, your expenses go in vain. In contrastingly, microbrands target a smaller audience via efficiently targeted niche-specific keywords that result in increased conversion ratio and increased ROI.
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3. Microbrands Connect well with the Consumers
When dealing with direct-to-consumers, microbrands understand their consumer pain points well and strive hard to bring them solutions. Every feedback of every consumer is crucial for them, and consumers also develop trust when they buy directly from the organization instead of a middleman. This trust evolves a brand out of the business.
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4. Microbrands Have a Strong Digital Presence & Higher Engagement Rate
Microbrands are not the ones with huge buildings, infrastructure, thousands of employees and enormous market value. These are the ones who have just initiated, and their equity is their image on digital media. They majorly depend on Google ratings and reviews to influence more consumers. Their social media pages may not have millions of followers, but the engagement is high compared to other big pages.
WHY IS THE ENGAGEMENT RATE HIGHER ON MICROBRANDS INSTAGRAM PAGES?
Instagram shows your post to a certain percentage of the audience based on the algorithm. It is shown to the followers who usually interact with your post. Now consider a page that has thousands of followers, but if the engagement rate is low on their posts, their reach decreases. A lower engagement rate hinders the reach of content to a bigger audience, thus limiting their chances of appearing on explore page. Hence the number of followers does not matter much as the engagement rate on your posts.
Can you interact with everyone who engages with your content when you have, say, some hundred thousand followers? That’s probably not possible unless you have a great team who is 101% dedicated to your page. Now, if you consider there are some thousand followers on your page, you can conveniently interact with everyone who engages with your content and keep your engagement rate higher. This is the reason why even the big brands are actively hiring micro-influencers on Instagram.
STRATEGIES FOR INSTAGRAM MARKETING OF MICROBRANDS
Instagram is one of the prime social media space to build a brand and attract leads. It’s no more an entertainment-only app rather it has become a major marketing channel for businesses. Now that you know Instagram is a great platform for microbrands, here are a few strategies for how microbrands can make the most out of Instagram.
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1. Optimize Your Profile
Your profile gives the first impression of your brand. You cannot afford to leave a dull first impression on the audience. Choose a username that best describes your work and have a relatable profile picture. Mention the services & products you deal with in your bio. Do not forget to include a few keywords in the bio along with the website link where you want to lead the visitors.
- 2. Make Optimum Use of Highlights
When random visitors visit your page, they will not scroll down on all n number of posts you have on your profile. You only have a few seconds to influence a visitor, or he/she will leave. So the first step is to write a good bio for your page. Secondly, display the best of your works in the highlights segment of your profile which influences the visitors in one go.
- 3. Design Posts that Bring Interaction
Instagram is a visual platform, and you must deploy good designs to leverage the audience’s interest. Write captions for the posts that initiate interaction with the audience. It will increase your reach to other people on Instagram.
- 4. Keep Your Engagement Rate Higher
Do not fail to engage with every single person who has interacted with your content. It makes them feel their importance, and they would return in future.
- 5. Use Hashtags that Boost Your Reach
Like keywords on search engines, hashtags are the magnets that pull the audience on Instagram. But just like keywords do not bring god results without an efficient SEO strategy, the mere usage of random hashtags won’t bring you traction. Analyze and use a specific set of hashtags that brings people to your post.
- 6. Utilize Every Segment of Instagram Effectively
Whether it’s feed posts, IGTV, stories, Reels or Guides, utilize every segment of Instagram to make your page discoverable on the explore page. Explore page could be regarded as the SERP results of Instagram. Finding a place on this page boosts your reach.
- 7. Strategically leverage Instagram Ads
Instagram ads play a vital role in social media marketing. As people of all ages are using this platform in huge numbers, posting ads on this platform can boost your brand visibility. Design ads with stunning visuals and display them to the right people.
Use the Platform as a Medium to Connect with your Consumers
Utilize this platform to build a friendly bond with your consumers and try to understand their requirements and pain points. Conduct timely giveaways, contests, offer discounts to keep them entertained. Direct Messaging is one other potential way to boost your conversion rates.
Instagram can be a game-changer for every microbrand. If you utilize the platform constructively and exploit the benefits it offers, your brand value increases exponentially. If you wish to tap on the potential of social media marketing or Instagram Marketing specific for your microbrand, connect with us on http://entitledarts.com/staging We also help organizations evolve a brand out of their business.