How To Build Your Personal Brand With Your Contacts
How Well Are You "Branded" Amongst Your Contact Network?
Your contact network consists of the group of business and personal contacts with whom you regularly or occasionally interact – a varied bunch that includes clients, vendors, colleagues, family, friends and online friends. You may think you have a good idea of who these individuals are, but how well do they know you? And more importantly, how well do they know your "brand"?
A healthy level of brand awareness among your network of contacts means that your name, or business name, is synonymous with the product or service you provide. Regularly performing maintenance on your brand and working on increasing brand awareness will not only improve name recognition but also increase the perceived worth of your organization.
How to Raise Brand Consciousness in your Contact Network
You've already taken the initial steps to solidify your brand: you have a logo, tag-line, mission statement. You've also branded your website, your newsletters, and all your marketing materials. Now how can you make sure the members of your contact network will take notice? Follow these few tips to achieve maximum impact:
• Diversify your marketing strategy. Try to reach all the market where potential clients may be found, instead of solely focusing on your industry.
• Attend, and if possible, speak or present at local and national industry specific conferences. Mention your brand frequently to the new contacts you'll create and have branded marketing materials on hand.
• Use your charitable works to your advantage. When you sponsor a charity event, make sure your brand is listed in the program, or even better, in the press associated with the charity event.
• Update your website and social media presences with your activities and appearances information. Make sure you also include plenty of industry related informative material on your site so search engines will direct potential clients to you and your brand.
Research your Brand Awareness
What is the best way to measure your success in raising brand awareness? Try a simple, friendly, informal survey.
1. Choose a few key members of your network and give them each a call.
2. Inform them of your intentions: you will just need a few moments of their time to determine the success of your branding efforts.
3. Simply ask them what they think your job is or which services they believe your business provides.
4. Then ask them several follow up questions for clarification, based on their responses. For example, if you work as a real estate agent, and they respond "Realtor," ask them what they think a Realtor does. If they say, "Assists with the purchasing and selling of homes," ask them what they think you do to "assist" in this process.
5. After the last question, a number of responses are possible, but the point at this stage in the process is to simply confirm that you perform whichever specific service they come up with, mention another service you also perform, and then start to wrap up the conversation. Thank them for their time and make a short, subtle request for future referrals.
If you reached step four with all correct responses from your respondent, your brand awareness is probably in great shape. If not, you had an opportunity to inform that contact about your brand and are now one step closer to your desired level of brand awareness.
