Every business needs to promote itself to reach new clients and increase brand awareness to increase its revenue. Self-promotion is a necessary but tricky marketing strategy that can walk a fine line between over-promotion and keeping your audience aware of your brand and its offerings.
Whether it is keeping your audience updated on new products or services, benefits of working with your brand or company, your brand giving back in some charitable way, or sales promotions, the value needs to be present in all promotional efforts.
The Intent needs to be the main focus keeping the audience in mind. If strictly egocentric purposes drive the promotional efforts, it will leave a negative impression on your audience. The more significant question needs to focus on why your audience would find this information necessary or valuable.
BALANCED SELF PROMOTION
THE GOOD SELF PROMOTION
Promoting your business is an essential element in building authority for your brand. There are various opportunities to make your audience aware of your brand, including awards won, different partnerships, new products or services, and promotions.
Your audience needs to know how excited you are about the great things that are going on in your company.
However, promotion is not about you; it is about them. Why would an audience find this information beneficial to them?
From the standpoint of online results, Google search is now placing value on the Intent of your content, including online self-promotion. There are four primary search intent types: informational, trying to learn more about something; commercial, trying to learn more before making a purchase; navigational, trying to find something; transactional, trying to complete a specific action.
If you think about Google’s goal, which is satisfying Search Intent, your promotions will not only achieve your desired goals of visibility and improve your organic traffic but will deliver on the search goals of search engines which is a win-win.
If you craft a digital marketing pr strategy around search intent, you can become discoverable by a new target audience and potential customer base and satisfy search engines.
THE BAD SELF PROMOTION
Constant self-promotion focused only on the intention of your wins without providing value will leave your audience with the impression that you only care about yourself. You want to remain focused on creating a self-promotion plan that encompasses all your audience’s intentions to build a value-based brand, build a community, or offer beneficial insights.
Think about your conversations with friends around the dinner table, letting them know about the wonderful things in your life. They would be interested in celebrating these wins with you, especially if you were doing some good in the community or discussing the benefits of how certain things you have tried could also benefit them.
However, you would not dominate the dinner party telling everyone how wonderful you are. It is a similar dynamic when it comes to self-promotion. You want word of mouth regarding your business to be favorable and beneficial.
& THE UGLY SELF-PROMOTION
When self-promotion turns ugly is when promoting yourself is all you have to offer. Constant self-promotion that offers no other value will quickly turn people off from your brand.
Your main goal is to bring your audience on your journey as you grow and focus on providing valuable products or services to build your credibility. Remember, it is the wonderful ways your product or service helps, not just about your business successes, that will build loyalty. Focus on the audience, provide them with the information they require, and promote your brand.
4 TIPS FOR REWARDING SELF-PROMOTION BASED ON INTENT
There are great ways to promote without being obnoxious. Here are four tips that will help you look at self-promotion in new ways.
- Commercial Intent: Create downloadable tools, tips, and checklists for a prospective customer to use. Make sure the info includes all your business information incorporated into it. If your business focuses on one specific area, create a checklist that might be useful to clients in that space that they can reference at some point. Be creative and show your value.
- Transactional Intent: Create coupons or free-to-try offers that can give your audience a taste of what you offer and if it works for them. Offer some aspects of your services for free.
- Informational Intent: Provide brand updates to your audience. This can include any new partnerships, awards, updates on services or offerings, etc. This is a valuable piece to your brand’s visibility.
- Navigational Intent: I like to look at this as a way to navigate your audience to your brand while supporting and promoting your brand values. Although this is a roundabout way of promotion, you can use one cause to help others find your brand. Partner with the community by sponsoring something worthwhile in your community and sending out a press release. Sponsor a local charity race or event and let the event promote your business. Most events allow company-sponsored tables that can be utilized to promote your brand in the community while the event is going on. Local events are a great way to give back while showing your audience the essential values important to your brand.
Remember, the goal is to build a relationship with your audience. Remain focused on effective self-promotion based on building a connection. It will pay off in the end!