One of the most common questions that we get is “What are some things that I can do today that can help me build my business and refine my brand?” So we’ve got five things you can do today to build your brand and business.
Write Down Your Personal Mission Statement
Number one, write down your personal mission statement. This could be for your medical practice, your business or just for you as an individual in your career. If you write down your mission statement, this will really help you make better decisions. It will help you make decisions based on what you should be spending your marketing budget on. It also helps you make decisions about which causes to support and align your business with. A personal mission statement will also help you to figure out which events you should attend, which companies you should align with and just in general, what your marketing purpose and goals are going to be.
Identify Your Goals
Number two, identify your goals. So this is going to take some self-introspection but you should ask:
- What are your long and short term goals?
- Are your goals to stay in your business or medical practice through retirement and exchange your time for money OR get paid for your expertise?
- Are your goals to add additional partners or grow your business by adding additional locations?
- Is your goal to add product lines to your services? As an example, you may be a practicing dermatologist and you’ve always wanted to own your own skin care line. A goal for you may be to expand your brand and expand your business by adding products for sale.
- You could also have the goal of selling your business or practice after a certain period of time. So maybe your goal is that you want to remain in your business for the next 5, 10, 15 even 20 years. Then at the end of the business, sell it to someone else.
- You could also have a goal of becoming a media entrepreneur. Are you the next Dr. Oz or someone like him?Are you someone that has taken their medical knowledge and their expertise and moved it into becoming a media personality? That could be a goal for you as well.
Secure Your Personal Domain Name
You will want to reserve the URL that is related to your name. So for example, I have a marketing agency under the domain name www.RockMyImage.com but I also have my own personal domain name because I have aspirations and personal career goals to be a professional speaker and to do workshops and have e-products. So you might want to consider that as something that you could do today.
Do Social Media Account Optimization
Another item that you could do today to get started refining your personal brand is to optimize one or two of your social media accounts. What does that mean? Basically optimizing a social media account means bringing it up to the best standards in the marketing industry or in the media industry or in the branding industry.
- Include professional photography or professional headshots on all of your social media accounts.
- Make sure that the description has been optimized for Google search and so that people can find you within the social media accounts as well.
- Add a little bit of your personality into your accounts and let people know what you’re about, what you’re interested in and what you’re passionate about.
- Make sure that your descriptions have been added
- Gather accolades and testimonials into your work history.
- Ensure that all of the different things that can be filled out in the “about” sections have been completed.
Another thing that you can do to optimize your social media accounts today is to connect with five key influencers on that particular channel. So if you say for example you’re on your Twitter account and you’ve uploaded an up-to-date, professional profile shot, you’ve added the information into your description and the about section, go ahead and take a little bit of a step further and reach out and start following five key influencers in your industry and maybe send them a mention or a hello. Don’t try to ask anything in return but just let them know that you are following their account and you’re listening to them.
Sign Up for an Email Marketing Service to Build Your List
One more item that you can do today to optimize your personal or business brand is to sign up for an email marketing account and connect it to your website. This is going to be really important and this is the secret missing piece to converting the people that are following you on social media into leads for your business. Email marketing is the system that bridges the gap between followers and leads.
There are lots of services available that you can set up an e-newsletter account. You may even have one for your business or medical practice such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. To take it a step further, there’s also a really sophisticated software called SharpSpring that does automated marketing and triggers emails to go out based on a person’s behavior.
Make sure that you’ve got an email marketing subscription account set up and connected to your website. Then from your social media accounts, you can put posts out that encourage people to sign up for your n
ewsletter so you can start building your list. Again, building the email list is going to be the thing that helps you bridge the gap between social media followers and generating sales leads.
In conclusion, there are some easy things you can take today to improve your personal brand. The important step is to make sure you take ACTION. Get started today!
