Ongoing cut throat competition among plum jobs has made it increasingly important to learn how to market yourself. Over a billion names are searched online daily, and more and more graduates are getting into the dwindling job market. Regardless of a person’s profession, there are millions of people competing for the same opportunities, and the first image portrayed towards prospective employers and business partners affects whether they consider your request or not.
Steps to Market Yourself and Create a Brand
Some of the steps that can be taken on how to market yourself include:
Identify Yourself and Your Brand
The first step towards how to market yourself is to discover your personal brand. Such a discovery entails identifying personal strength and weaknesses and relating them with your individual ambitions. An individual’s personal brand is considered the core of any initiative being planned. In this particular discovery phase, it is proper to ask yourself a series of questions, whereby later it is advisable to reflect on them before responding. These questions include:
- What makes me unique from other individuals?
- What am I passionate about?
- What are my greatest strengths and weaknesses?
Immediately you have crawled and found the response that makes you unique, you have identified your passions and strengths and weaknesses and you may proceed with the remainder of the process on how to market yourself.
Ensure Your Personal Brand Is Targeted
After you have identified your brand, it is now time to proceed and identify the target market. It is through the identified market that you can now position your talents and skill-set to prospective employers or business partners. In determining the target market, it is advisable to explore exactly the entities likely to be in need of your services. Amongst the target group, also select the people likelier to spend money on your products or services. It is recommended that you only focus on such particular group and enhance your individual branding stratagem around this specific niche.
It is also proper to identify your competitors since this is a tactic essential towards understanding your personal brand. By having a comprehensive understanding of your competitors, you can establish their strengths and weaknesses, and in this manner it is possible to position your abilities in a manner that it augments with your target niche’s demands. Besides, re-branding your skills also provides a competitive differentiator among competitors.
Such a strategy means that you are not only speaking the same language as your rivals, but you are also providing a unique value preposition on why competitors should select you. You may then proceed and nurture a brand statement similar to a corporate tagline that illustrates who you are, the business that you conduct, and why your products and services are different from your competitors.
The tag line augments your personal brand because it enables the business prospects to remember key points about your services.
Develop a Communication Plan
There exist dozens of social media profiles and online platform that an individual can use to promote their online brands. There are also strategies such as advertisements through flyers, brochures, and newspapers that can be used on how to market yourself. Most of these communication channels have millions of followers. Provided that the right approach is used, it is guaranteed that you will receive several inquiries pertaining to your line of business.
Digital platforms such as social media and other online communication tools can be optimized to ensure that your services are always on top of any search engine result. In today’s digital world, without proper online presence, chances are that prospective clients are not likely to take your services seriously, a situation that may jeopardize chances of closing any business deal.
Networking
It is also recommended that you consistently network with industry peers. Networking can be achieved by attending trade fairs, conferences, and workshops. You can also participate in online blogs and forums and occasionally providing free products and services so that prospective customers become conversant with your level of services. You can participate in charity events, assisting local organizations with corporate social responsibility endeavors with the community around and also giving trade discounts and rebates.
You can also use your school alumni, friends, and family members to help spread the word about your brand. These groups are very effective because when they make a referral it is naturally believed that they are recommending the right person.
Providing Superior Services
A superior service is paramount in brand building because a satisfied client is likely to make referrals for your products and services. Referrals have been found to be one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing, since it only involves word of mouth, and you are given a new business opportunity which perhaps might lead into another referral in future.
Find a Mentor
A personal mentor perhaps an expert in your industry may come in handy to assist in some of the pitfalls that you are likely to encounter. Mentors provide the direction and they help establish a framework that can be used as a template to be followed. They are also good in the sense that since they have been in the business for long, they can sub-contract some of their services towards your company or may even give you job responsibilities in their organizations that adds up in assignment portfolio. The mentors may also guide in developing the budget and explaining the most effective communication channels and branding strategy. They also assist to understand industry trend a scenario difficult to exhume especially if you are a newbie in a particular niche.
Conclusion
The road towards building your personal brand is challenging. However, with the right mindset, attitude, skills and organizations, the efforts are worthwhile. With a brand name under your belt, prospective employers and partners find it easier to identify you with something, and as a result, any opportunity that comes alongside you are always the first person to be reached. Besides personal branding also depict some level of responsibility and maturity whenever handing any tasks because there is a general belief that if tasks are not completed within certain standards, it is the individual brand that suffers and not the personality and this is why it is important to learn how to market yourself.
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