Want your private label brand to succeed? While there are several contributing factors that play into this, marketing is a big one. Not only will this raise awareness of your brand, but an effective marketing strategy will draw in customers, boost sales, and give you a competitive advantage that will make your private label brand much more resilient in the face of challenges and obstacles.
The big question is…how do you go about effectively marketing your private label brand? Read on as FLPL shares some top tips.
Start By Defining Your Private Label Brand
Before you start thinking about marketing your private label brand, you need to first define it. This essentially means determining exactly what it is that sets your brand apart from others. Look at Burger King and McDonalds, for example. Both sell similar products, yet they’re each very distinct brands. By defining their brands, they’ve been able to differentiate themselves.
So, how do you go about doing this? Here are a few areas to think about:
Target Audience
Start by learning more about your target audience. It’s highly unlikely that your products will appeal to everyone, so segmenting your potential customers will help you to successfully focus your marketing efforts. Some of the things that you’ll want to learn about your target audience are:
- Geography – where do they live/work?
- Demographics – gender, age, occupation, and income level are all useful pieces of information.
- Behavior – identify why they would use your products, as well as how often. Find out where they source information about the type of products you’re selling.
- Lifestyle/values – find out what your target audience values in their lives. Learn more about their hobbies and interests, as well as whether they have children or pets.
Once you have this information, you can then create a buyer persona. This is a profile of your ideal customer, and it will help you to narrow down your marketing decisions.
Unique Selling Point
Every private label brand should have a unique selling point (USP). This is the reason that a customer would choose your brand over the competition – it’s what makes your brand stand out from the crowd.
This is usually attributed to unique skills/resources that you or your brand have. It should be customer-focused too. Here are a few examples:
- “Our three-in-one face cream will save you both time and money.”
- “These hair care products are designed specifically for people who are dealing with heat damag.e”
- “Our complexion-brightening face serums are formulated to be used on all skin tones/by all ethnicities.”
Competitor Analysis
Of course, in order to fully identify how your brand stands out from the competition, you’ll need to first know a little more about your competition!
Start by identifying who your competition actually is. You’ll need to research both direct competitors, meaning brands that are offering similar products/services to yours, as well as indirect competitors, which are brands that are offering an alternative solution to meet the needs of your target audience.
Some of the research that you’ll need to do will include:
- Analyzing their website, from its structure to the overall customer experience.
- Social media analysis – spend some time looking into the social media content created by your competitors. Pay close attention to the demographics of their audience, as well as engagement rates.
- Products/pricing – compare the product ranges offered by your competitors to yours, as well as the prices that they’re charging.
- Reviews – take a look at reviews and customer feedback on various independent websites.
Develop a Brand Voice
As we’ll soon discuss, you’re likely to make use of various marketing channels. It’s crucial that your efforts are cohesive among these, which is why you need to develop a brand voice/identity.
Creating a brand style guide, which many refer to as a brand bible, can help with this. You and your team will be able to refer back to this while coming up with various marketing strategies, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
Here are a few factors to consider and include in your brand style guide:
- Imagery, from your logo to your brand’s color palette to preferred fonts.
- The type of language you want your brand to use, be it formal, casual, or anything else.
- Your mission statement.
- Your brand persona. This is how you would describe your brand if it were a person, with an emphasis on personality and unique characteristics.
- Illustrative examples of all of the above, so that anyone can refer to your brand style guide and know exactly how to depict your brand.
Decide on Your Marketing Channels
Now that you know more about your target audience and your competition, you can start to think about which marketing channels you want to use. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular:
Website and SEO
In this day and age, a website is a must. It needs to be professional in order to give your brand credibility, but should also be an accurate representation of your brand image/voice.
Of course, if you want people to be able to find your website, you’ll need to think about search engine optimization (SEO) as well. This involves identifying and using certain keywords so that your brand shows up at the top of search engine results.
Social Media
In today’s world, a social media presence is just as important as having a good website. Not only can it be used to market your private label brand, but you’ll also be able to interact with customers and gain some valuable feedback/data.
This doesn’t mean that you need to sign up to every social media platform that you can find. Instead, figure out which ones your target audience uses the most. Then, focus your efforts on those channels.
Email Marketing
Many experts say that email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing channels around. It’s cost-effective, can easily be personalized, and can quickly lead to conversions.
It goes without saying that an email list is essential if you want this to work. Spend some time building up subscribers, perhaps by offering them various perks for opting in, so that you have a ready-made audience waiting to be reached.
Content Marketing
While content marketing will often tie in with your website and social media, it’s worth dedicating some time to ensuring that you’re producing quality content. Blog posts, videos, and webinars are all great ways to reach new people.
If you or your team has a lot of expertise on a certain subject, creating e-books can be a good way to share that and build your brand’s credibility. Plus, this can also be an effective incentive to convince potential customers to hand over their email addresses for your email marketing campaign!
Influencer Marketing
Influencers are people who have built up a solid online presence through engaging content. You’ll find influencers in every niche, and these can be useful people to team up with if you want your marketing efforts to reach more people.
Influencer collaborations can take various forms. From social media posts to podcasts to product reviews, influencer marketing tends to have an authentic feel that the general public appreciates.
Direct Mail
While direct mail marketing isn’t as popular as it once was, it can still be a useful way to reach your target audience. It tends to work best when combined with digital strategies, so figure out how to bring the two together.
Events
There’s nothing quite like face-to-face interactions with future customers. This is why many brands choose to establish a presence at various events. Whether this means attending networking events, finding relatable industry events, or even hosting your own event, giving potential customers a way to meet you in person can really boost your brand’s reputation.
Create SMART Marketing Goals
In order to give your marketing efforts some focus, it can help to create marketing goals. These should, ideally, be SMART goals, meaning specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based.
An example of a SMART goal would be aiming to boost social media engagement by 20% in the next quarter. This can be measured by tracking likes/comments/followers, and can be achieved by creating new content strategies. In terms of relevance, this would increase brand awareness while improving the relationship that you have with your target audience.
Having specific objectives set out in this way will give your marketing efforts a clear direction to follow. You’ll also then be able to evaluate how well your marketing tactics have worked, after which you can then tweak them to make them even better!
Nurture Your Customers
Once your marketing efforts start to bring in sales for your private label brand, it’s vital that you nurture those new customers you’ve gained. This will build loyalty, ensuring that those customers return to you time and time again in the future.
Here are some of the ways in which you can do this:
- Communicate with your customers regularly, whether by email, social media, or anything else.
- Follow up after every sale.
- Figure out ways in which you can go above and beyond your customers’ expectations.
- Take feedback and complaints seriously. Use these to improve your products/services.
Marketing Your Private Label Brand With FLPL
Does all of the above sound overwhelming to you? You’re not alone. There’s so much to consider when launching a private label brand, and unless you have plenty of marketing experience, getting everything right can be a challenge.
This is why it can really pay to team up with a private label manufacturer who can also provide marketing assistance, just like FLPL does. At FLPL, we have a dedicated team that will help you with all of your marketing needs. From creating a custom logo to building a website to managing your social media channels, our expertise will set you above and beyond your competition, leading your private label brand to success.
Want to know more? Click here to get in touch with FLPL today.
