How to Impress Potential Customers with Personal Marketing

What is personal marketing, and how can you leverage its power to get more clients and build a lasting personal brand? Discover here!

What is personal marketing, and how can you leverage its power to get more clients and build a lasting personal brand? Discover here!

Bill Gates. Elon Musk. Anna Wintour. All of these people have/had a day job. And yet, when we think about their brands (or brands they work for), we invariably also think about them as people.

The reason for this? Stellar personal branding and marketing.

Personal marketing may seem like something only a handful of people could benefit from. Namely, professionals that work directly with clients, such as consultants, coaches, real estate agents, and freelancers.

However, whatever line of work or industry you’re in, personal brand marketing can be a huge boost for your professional development.

Before we get on with some practical tips on how to create a personal marketing plan, let’s explore why anyone can benefit from some personal promotion marketing.

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What is personal marketing, and why is it useful?

Personal marketing is the process of promoting an individual as a brand, leveraging one's strengths and abilities to create a unique image and reputation that sets them apart from others. Along with highlighting their skills, personal brand marketing should also reflect a person’s values and personality.

As with a product or service brand, personal branding and marketing help you to connect with the right target audience and distinguish yourself from the competition. But there are also some other more specific benefits of growing your individual brand.

Securing better job opportunities

Maybe you’re the CEO of your own company and you don’t plan to have another job anytime soon (or ever). Nevertheless, it’s always good to know that whatever happens, you can stay competitive in the job market.

Positioning yourself as an expert in a specific field will allow you to have options at any stage of your career.

Do more of what you love

As a CEO of a company, you’re hopefully at least somewhat interested in the products or services the company offers. However, this doesn’t have to be your greatest personal passion.

Developing your own personal brand and marketing separate from your company’s brand is a great way to explore the things you’re really passionate about. Is it writing? Consulting, or helping people? Academic research, or even Twitter trolling (hi, Elon Musk) - a strong personal brand gives you the chance to pursue those passions, without (necessarily) having to worry about whether it’s financially viable.

Expanding your network

Ever heard of the phrase everybody likes a winner? While it may not always be the case in personal relationships, it’s almost always true for professional ones.

When someone has great personal branding and marketing, there’s a good chance people will simply flock to them. It’s not even about likeability, it’s about convincing people that you have something to offer to the world.

Demonstrating your marketing skills

Whether you’re a marketer or not, this is a skill that’s desirable in almost every profession. If you’re able to do self-marketing well, chances are that you’ll be a great asset to any company or team.

Having stellar personal marketing shows that you’re eloquent, reliable, and well-organized, all of which are skills virtually every employer looks for.

Differentiating yourself

Last, but certainly not least: just like brand marketing, personal brand marketing is all about showing your unique selling point. In personal relationships, especially meaningful ones, we usually don’t choose which aspects of our personality we will show.

In personal marketing, you can pick and choose aspects of your personality and work that best fit the picture. Perhaps you have a gardening hobby, but not everyone needs to know about your reality TV addiction. Or, you have a useful background in accounting, but do you really need to go into detail about your barista days when you were at university?

There’s no one size fits all. Just like with any other brand, you need to decide what’s important or relevant to your target audience. For example, Neil Patel is well known for his marketing prowess, but there’s no harm that he’s also rocking a memorable bald look!

7 Golden personal marketing tips

As douchy as it sounds, the starting point for any individual marketing efforts is knowing who you are. I’ll leave that part to you.

However, if you want to learn how to create a personal marketing plan that will help your personal brand grow - these 10 tips are a great start!

Create a stellar LinkedIn profile

A social media platform where a professional can show their skills and achievements? Yes, that is the first place where you should flaunt your abilities and reach potential job opportunities, and grow your personal brand.

According to LinkedIn’s own insights, 93% of recruiters use the platform to research and recruit candidates. You can easily view it as your own portfolio, a platform where you can showcase what you can do and your past experiences. But above that, it’s also a place where you can find your culture fit, and like-minded people, and companies can get in touch with you. The many detailed search filters make it possible to reach such a targeted audience, whereas no marketing campaign can do that for you.

You can also use it the other way around: to research the companies that are interested in you. The same search tools work the other way around, and companies tend to show their teams, company culture and latest updates on LinkedIn. Here, you can definitely learn all about their impact, mission and vision, as well as the people who work with them.

And of course, to keep pace with trends, updates and news in your respective industry through LinkedIn Groups. These are the perfect places to get the right people’s attention to your personal brand.

Utilize direct marketing

Direct marketing means any type of marketing-motivated act that is done through direct communication or distribution/ anything from sending emails to texting through social media, is considered direct marketing. It is called direct because it takes away the middleman in communication.

Networking also falls into this category, and good salespeople know that there is no better way to leave an impression than meeting people in person.

Granted, you can’t exactly show up at conferences and showcasing events now, but events relevant to your industry are a great way to make yourself known, meet people, network, and broaden your contacts.

Share your expertise on podcasts, tutorials, or keynote speeches

Are you a high-quality professional at the peak of your career? Have some cutting-edge know-how, or skills? Or maybe have a wide experience and can help your peers with it?

Having your podcast, vlog, blog or doing keynote speeches will help with your personal brand recognition. How many marketers have you seen that have their own YouTube channels or podcasts on subject matters relevant to their job?

The reason for that is that this strategy greatly helps with visibility, but also creates  a high-profile status inside the industry itself.

Design a personal brand website

A personal marketing website is the face of a brand. It can help interested target audiences reach you, it can help with your SEO and being the first result when people search on browsers for a professional in your industry, it can also be a platform for you to show your experiences, projects and talents.

It’s something that is generally overlooked because people think it’s a very basic branding asset, but a website with good and consistent design and all the important information ticks all the boxes and helps you reach customers.

Don't neglet your social media profiles

Apart from LinkedIn, it’s good to also be active, or at least visible on social media. Yes, Instagram and Facebook are more private social media platforms, but you can have a business profile there as well.

Make sure that your tone of voice and the content you share are suitable for a professional. Traditional social media platforms have a much wider audience, so you never know who can land on your profile and reach out for a business opportunity.

Take part in debates and discussions

Being a part of discussions in groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, forums, and even replying to questions related to your expertise on Quora, can help your credibility and visibility too.

Putting your name out in front of  potential customers and future employees is a great strategy, Especially when they see you are knowledgeable,have opinions, and give back to the community and help your peers learn and grow.

Design unique and memorable personal branding

Finally, personal branding design will help you have a distinguishable and memorable brand. Details that might seem small, such as a personal logo, business cards, branded portfolio on relevant platforms and your own website, will help you seem more professional, dedicated to your brand, and immediately leave a better impression.

Creating a brand identity for a person is just as complex as any other branding project. Of course, you can try to hire an experienced branding and marketing company. However, bear in mind that these usually charge thousands of dollars for a branding project.

That’s why an inexpensive alternative such as our unlimited design service can be of great help! After all, when it comes to your personal branding, who can ideate better than yourself?

Give us some directions, and we’ll start working on all the graphics you need to build your brand. As many requests as you want, at a fixed monthly price!

Conclusion

No matter your job title or industry, personal branding and marketing is something everyone should think about. Curating a powerful professional brand image can provide you with security in the job market. However, it can also help you with growing other brands, whether it’s your own company or your clients’.

Don’t expect to build a personal brand overnight. Be prepared to do a lot of networking and spend considerable time devising a professional brand image.

Still, it’s a perfect investment in yourself. And if you need any help with design, we’re happy to help.