Getting your name out there is an important part of your business. Setting up a shop or business and then failing to let anyone know you exist is a sure fire setup for business failure. And today getting your name out there “Globally” is incredibly easy thanks to the Internet. Unfortunately, if you do it wrong, your online presence will go completely unknown.
Even in a stylized image, I’m sure you recognize an iPhone when you see it. Brand recognition.
The big labels know how to get their names out there!
We all know who Coca Cola is. And I’m pretty certain everybody knows about Amazon.com. These are household names. They’re in our faces constantly. Since we all know who they are, and what they do, it seems these companies would need to do very little marketing, right?
Wrong.
The big guys on the block are constantly working on brand recognition. They’re household names for a reason. They spend a lot of time and money ensuring that you know exactly who they are and what they do. From Investopedia.com we have the following on Coca Cola’s marketing budget.
Coca-Cola’s Commitment to Advertising Spending
Due to the nature of the Industry, Coca-Cola has made a yearly commitment to large ad spends, spending a total $3.499 billion in 2014, $3.266 billion in 2013 and $3.342 billion in 2012.
Amazon.com, a name we all also know and recognize, has a significant marketing budget as well. From PRNewswire.com:
Amazon Upped Its Digital Marketing Spend 40% Last Year to $2.8 Billion
In order to stay in view of the consuming public, large companies spend huge sums of their revenues on marketing. Even with the Internet available to them, the easiest way to get a global reach, these companies pour huge sums of money into keeping their name out there.
Global reach on a budget
For small business owners the world over, marketing budgets like Amazon and Coca Cola are unrealistic. But that doesn’t mean small businesses are relegated to never being found. The Internet is a level playing field for all players. Your website can be found by people searching for it as easily as people searching for Amazon. But in order to get that kind of visibility you’ve got to do a little work.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a big role in whether or not you’re found. Tie ins to Social Media also play a large role in getting your name out there. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and other social media outlets help change the reach of small businesses quickly! These things aren’t digital snake oil, they’re real and can offer tangible results if you know what you’re doing.
And there’s the kicker. “If you know what you’re doing.” Over the years we’ve talked with so many small business owners who have had the same experience. “I put a website online, but it doesn’t do anything for us.” Just putting up a site doesn’t buy you anything. That’s stage 1. If you don’t follow up with new content, don’t focus on SEO and Social Media, and hope the website going up is enough you will in fact find that you’ve wasted a lot of time and have no results to show for it.
That’s where RLC Design comes in. We understand how to help small businesses reach a global market place. Our results speak for themselves. And when you’re serious about growing your business and your online presence, we’ll be here to help you get the same type of online exposure as “The Big Guys.”