So which was it?
As business owners, we have much to worry about each day. But little compares to having a consistently strong brand and a list of loyal consumers to sell to who consistently enjoy and promote it. Likewise, concentrating on building a big list is worthless without a strong, effective brand and a track record to back it up.
So as an entrepreneur, which should you focus on in your business? My experience has been that they go hand-in-hand. Build your list while building your brand momentum. One feeds into the other.
When it comes to building a strong brand, the goal is to take your brand from consumption to passion (check out Seth Godin’s Tribes!). The decision to purchase is an emotional one. As the brand, you want to be the one to create the unique connection that people are loyal towards. Brands with personality create something that people care about, it allows them to connect to the experience of deciding on what to purchase. If you are not doing so already, think about ways that you can inject your brand with personality– what is unique and fabulous about you as the business owner or the product you are promoting?
By consistently engaging consumers, you are building brand evangelists and brand trust; and remember, evangelists equal free promotion! Creating engaged consumers not only gives your biz street cred, but it builds out your list and allows you to reach people on your consumer’s lists in the most authentic of ways. You can drop tons of cash on list-building (spamming) services promising to build your list exponentially, or you can focus on creating a concentrated list of relevant followers that care about your biz or product and are happy to promote (even indirectly).
On our #30DayList Challenge we are spending this week making sure all of the fundamentals are in place to (1) track our success (2) make our profiles keyword rich and relevant to our ideal market and (3) generate content that actually matters to our followers and embodies the brand we are promoting. Be sure to follow our success hashtag (#30DayList) on Twitter to keep up with our progress on both!!
