Building A Brand From Scratch: 3 Things To Consider
Starting from zero is difficult. Let's make it slightly less so.
Happy Sunday friends,
I've been spending the week learning a bit more about paid media and learning how to suck slightly less at golf. I can tell you that the latter is more challenging than the former. Kidding. Kind of.
Anyway, today I want to break down 3 must-haves when building a brand from scratch. Building from zero is hard. I'm still going through it myself, right there with you. If you're reading this as a small business owner or a creator starting from ground zero (or close to it) — this'll help give you some much needed direction.
Now, an important disclaimer. These 3 things hinge on the assumption that you have a genuinely good product, and have dialed in your target audience. Per usual, great marketing won't save a shitty product (except for Dunkin coffee - they've finessed an entire generation).
1 - Proper Platform Selection
When you're strapped for cash and don't have thousands to spend testing ads, organic reach is your best bet to reach your target customer. Yet, many new brands make one of 3 mistakes:
1a. They pick platforms that their target customer isn't active on.
This is part of why understanding your target audience is so important. If your customers are senior citizens, are the majority of them going to be active on TikTok? If your customer is Gen Z, are they going to be super active on Facebook? Probably not.
The whole point of content strategy is to get your brand in front of your ideal customer, and move them along the buyer's journey — from Awareness to Evaluation to Conversion ($$$). Picking the right platform to occupy is the first step in that journey.
1b. They pick platforms with atrocious organic reach (looking at you, Facebook).
Simply put, if you're going to put all of this effort into getting an organic content strategy off the ground, you want to give it the best chance to pay off. Do you really think that the Facebook's 0.5% organic reach gives you the best chance? Probably not. Even Instagram is getting to a point where ground from zero is less and less likely without ad spend.
In general, YouTube and TikTok (when done right) are the platforms that I would look at when it comes to getting your content in front of more people.
1c. They pick too many platforms to target at once.
I've made this mistake before, and trust me — it's a recipe for burnout. When you try to balance 5 platforms at once as a team of one, it's virtually impossible to be effective on all 5.
Instead, concentrate those efforts into 1-2 platforms. Get great at those. And once you have scale on those initial platforms, you can broaden to new platforms. For example, I'm focusing on YouTube and my newsletter for my personal brand. YouTube has high potential for organic reach, and the newsletter gives me a close connection with my audience. I use YouTube as top-of-funnel to get new readers here.
(Let me know if you'd like me to dedicate a whole newsletter to platform selection, it's an extensive topic)
2 - Set A Proper Time Horizon
Here's the uncomfortable truth. Organic content doesn't yield results instantly. You can think of it like boiling water. You don't see anything until it hits 212 degrees — but when it does, you know.
Another analogy that fits is health and fitness. You're not going to obliterate 50lbs of fat overnight. But, if you follow a plan with sound principles for long enough, you'll wake up 6-12 months from now in that dream body of yours.
At first, your content will function the same way. If you implement point #3 (stick around), you'll get good traction — but it likely won't be anything groundbreaking. You're simply setting the foundation.
Failing to understand this sets you up for failure before you even begin. You'll be stressed about your lack of results, constantly look for "hacks" and quick fixes that don't work, and end up burnt out before you know it.
As music legend Pitbull once said, "been there, done that." It's not fun.
Rather, set a proper time horizon. Commit to 6-12 months without expectation. In those 6-12 months focus more on your processes than the outcomes. Are you achieving a consistent cadence? Are you improving your skills on camera, in your copywriting, etc? Are you making sound adjustments based on metrics?
Dial in your processes, and give them time — watch what happens.
3 - Do The Unscalable
This is perhaps the most underrated part of growing a brand from scratch. The truth is that even when you do everything right, it's going to take time to gain traction on social media platforms.
But, who said you have to rely on an algorithm?
Instead, manually engage your audience. Send genuine DMs to people in your industry. Start networking. Make connections. Reply to your target audience's tweets. Do the work yourself.
An example of this that's stuck with me from the esports industry is the Dallas Fuel. A lot of their Twitter strategy revolves around replying to fans, surprising them via DMs, and more. It's no surprise that they have one of the most engaged fan bases in the Overwatch League. And this doesn't just apply in esports. If you run a service business or sell a product, take note.
Building up a network of your first 100 fans is far more important early on than hacking the algorithm ever will be. These people will be your biggest advocates. They'll want you to succeed. They'll refer others to your product, to your content, etc.
Then those 100 fans become 1000, and so on...
Thing is, you have to approach it from a similar perspective as you approach your content. Don't go into conversations with expectation. Focus on relationship building, not value extraction. People can smell that from a mile away.
Sure, this approach takes time. It takes hours on your phone (I don't even wanna see my Screen Time Report from Apple anymore LOL). But, you didn't start a business because you thought it would be easy, right?
In both of my previous endeavors — nutrition coaching and esports content creation — the genuine friendships I built along the way ended up serving me far more than growing on Youtube ever did.
Here's an actionable strategy: Start 5 meaningful conversations around your brand on a daily basis. Could be with a social media follower, a peer in your industry, a new vendor, I don't care. Do this for long enough (and with the right intention) and you'll have a real network built out in no time.
TL;DR: Investing time into your community is the most lucrative investment you can make as a new brand.
Some thoughts
Building from scratch is hard. Even with the right strategy. There are going to be days where everything clicks, and others where everything is falling apart. Often times the latter.
But, I'm confident that if you implement the 3 principles we just went over, you'll take some of that stress off your plate.
Now, before we get into the resource of the week, I need you to do me a quick favor — hit me back and let me know what your biggest current struggle is with marketing. Would love to create more content around what YOU need :)
Resource of the week
Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time teaching myself about paid media strategy. You’ll probably see me write a bit more about it as I solidify that knowledge.
I want to share one of the YouTube channels that I’ve been binging in my quest to become proficient in paid. Ben Heath’s YouTube channel is packed with videos answering most questions you could have about FB ads.
No, not sponsored. Just found a lot of value here and thought you would, too.
Pull up a seat, stay a while
Finally, if you're new around here and found this valuable, drop your email right here so I can get this in your inbox on time every week:
Until next Sunday at 9am PST,
Tommy
PS - want to work together to build your brand? Book a call and let's talk. Taking on 1-2 more freelance clients at the moment.