How can up-and-comers steer clear of overcommunicating when trying to gain traction as they launch a new brand?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launchedBusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Create Original, Useful Content
“Promotion is a major part of launching a new brand, but you also want to establish your new brand as an authority. Publishing a unique case study, infographic or white paper on your website is a great way to get people in your industry talking about your brand and linking to its website. Focus on delivering quality over quantity. It may seem like a snail, but there’s a higher ROI in the end.”
Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com
2. Focus Your Energy on Growing the Whole Audience
“If you’re launching a new brand, you should be focused on finding new audiences in different places, not re-communicating to the same group of people who have already shown a small amount of interest. People will convert when they’re ready, so spend your time talking to new people and be graceful about how you re-engage with that existing audience.”
Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Edit
“A big part of quality communication is editing. Brevity is an admirable skill and the more concise you can be, the more it will be appreciated by your peers. Focus on quality communication of volume. Yes, there are 10 great points, but are there three amazing points that people must know. Focus on necessity, not wordiness.”
Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now
4. Empathize and Ask Your Customers Questions
“Put yourself in your customer’s shoes to understand the type and amount of communication they’re looking for. Apply the same rigor to designing your communications as you did to designing your product – the same principles of solving customer pain points apply. When you get the chance, test that design by asking customers if you’re communicating too much (or not enough). They will tell you.”
Kevin Bretthauer, FuelCloud
5. Shake Up Your Ads Often
“For maximum exposure without over communication, make sure that you shake up your marketing efforts every few weeks. You don’t have to retire the old ads, just put them on rotation later on. Users often filter out ads that they’ve seen after a couple times, so an added benefit of this is some fresh attention from people you no longer reach.”
Adam Steele, Loganix
6. Carefully Select and Engage Influencers
“You can convincingly communicate your brand’s value and do it well, but you will eventually hit a point of diminishing returns. An excellent supplemental strategy, then, is to sway the most trusted voices in your market to make your case for you. Even a small handful of the right names vouching for your brand can be wildly more impactful than yet another email blast or media campaign.”
Ryan Wilson, FiveFifty
7. Minimize Text, Maximize Visuals
“One of the biggest mistakes that brands make is communicating their message using text-heavy media. It’s like giving a prospective customer a reading assignment — and you don’t want your marketing materials to feel like homework. Instead, use visually driven media — from motion graphics to interactive web pages — to pique their interest, encourage sharing and make learning about your brand fun.”
Amy Balliett, Killer Infographics
8. Answer Your Target Audience’s Questions
“When launching a new brand, it’s so easy to just blog about your brand, but this way of blogging may not get your brand noticed. Instead, look to craft blog posts that answer your potential customer’s questions using tools like AnswerThePublic.com and Quora. Once customers are on your site reading your blog, give them a free resource in exchange for their email address to nurture the relationship.”
9. Keep Email to a Minimum
“Keep email communications to a minimum, and only send them out when you have something relevant to say. Adopt the same approach with social media postings. Your blog posts should also be scheduled but not overdone. It can be easy to overcommunicate in your zest to launch your brand, but taking a more conservative approach is probably a better option.”
Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
10. Say the Same Message in Different Ways
“Many times, when companies and people overcommunicate it’s because they keep saying the same exact thing over and over again. Instead of saying the same thing, think of ways you could communicate the message in different ways. Everyone is different, so you have to approach people from different angles to understand your message.”
11. Make Sure Your Content Makes Sense
“To avoid over communication, take a moment and make sure that all the content you are pushing makes sense for your brand and is something that your core user wants to see. Don’t just share something to share something, make sure what you are saying is in alignment with your brand.”
Jayna Cooke, EVENTup
12. Respect People’s Time
“Some startups overcommunicate by sharing every detail of every single feature update with their mailing list. You may have worked hard to add a new feature, it may improve your product’s functionality, but you probably don’t need to share the nuts and bolts with your busy customers. Respect people’s time. Keep the information you share relevant and high-level.”
13. Don’t Communicate in the Wrong Way
“There really isn’t a danger of over-communicating when you’re trying to gain traction with a new brand. But there is a danger of communicating in the wrong way. Take the time to really strategize your content and be intentional about sharing value and being present for others across different channels. The more you can offer value and benefit, the more likely others will start seeking you out.”
Nathalie Lussier, AmbitionAlly
14. You Can’t Over-Communicate
“Part of starting a new brand is convincing people that there is a need for what you are doing. People tend to have a presumption that what you are doing will not work. It is better to overcommunicate and risk divulging too much — but succeed in convincing them of your value proposition — than to safeguard too much and have everyone write you off.”
Joel Butterly, InGenius Prep
