Building a personal brand with low resources seems like an impossible task for most young entrepreneurs. However, it can be easier than you think.

Imagine this. A set of one hundred logos of the top 100 brands in the world is given to you. How many companies would you be able to recognise? Probably at least half of them. Why?

Because they’re all around you, you see them on ads on your computer and smartphone, during television breaks, on billboards, in the newspapers, as well as in the stores you visit and the products you use daily.

In this article, we’ll go through the steps needed to build a personal brand if you’re starting your business venture.

1.   Create a Personal Vision of Your Brand

Every successful company started with a vision.Click To Tweet

The brands founder wanted to make a change in the world and made a 10-year or a 20-year plan.

That plan serves as a guide on how you want others to perceive your company in the digital age. It later translates to how you want your brand to be recognised by your customers. The following are questions you must ask yourself to create a personal vision of your brand:

• Who am I?
• What are my values?
• Which values do I want to promote?
• What are my passions?
• Which passions do I want to pursue?

Once you find answers to these questions, you can develop a long-term scheme to accomplish this vision. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers.

2.   Build the Foundations

You know what your brand has to look like. Now it’s time to see what your existing resources are. Do you have any skills or credentials? Or do you have a keen interest in something?

After you have defined your brand vision, here’s how to build your brand effectively:

• Brand mission: What is it you want to accomplish? How can your brand help people?
• Brand message: What do you want to say to your audience? How do you want to say it? What is the key message to send through your marketing channels?
• Brand personality: Are there some of your personal traits you would like your brand to emulate? How do you want people to see your brand?

Moreover, your brand personality should align with your core values and the traits you want to emphasise. But who are the people interested in your brand?

Let’s see…

3.   Define Your Target Audience

The product you’re selling can’t appeal to every single person. The same goes for your brand. You will have to filter out those who are the least likely to buy from you.

Likewise, you’ll have to choose only the ideal clients, meaning those that will find your brand useful and be genuinely interested in what you have to offer. This also goes by the name customer avatar.

To create a targeted customer avatar, you’ll need a variety of data and targeting ideas, including website analytics:

• Demographics: What is the audience’s age, gender, income, education, and profession?
• Wishes and needs: What are their goals and their dreams?
• The issues they face: What are their pain points? What are they trying to overcome?

If you’re new to the idea of a customer avatar, check out this guide.

4.   Build a Community on Social Channels

Social media marketing is a great way to reach out to your audience on a budget. It will be challenging at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to build a community of people who are genuinely interested in your brand.

First, you’ll have to determine which social channels your audience prefers. If it’s Instagram, make sure you create an Instagram profile and post regularly.

Oprah Winfrey, the show hosting queen, for example, posts regularly about her private life on Instagram and has a staggering 16 million followers.

Additionally, you should:

• Tell your story in an exciting manner: Try to connect with the readers and the viewers emotionally.
• Make your brand easy to find: Place your social icons on your site and join social media groups. Use hashtags in your posts.
• Listen to your audience and build better customer support.
• Use data engagement analysis to track the success of your marketing efforts.

If you want to acquire more followers, check out Strategies to Get 1,000’s of Facebook Page Likes for FREE or learn how to effectively Use Instagram Hashtags.

5.   Create an Offer They Can’t Refuse

After you’ve decided which social channel you’re going to focus on, it’s essential to give offers to your followers regularly (if you’re selling products of services).

Even if it’s a daily 10% discount offer, it gives your audience a reason to keep coming back. This step has more to do with sales than with your personal brand, but it will help position you higher in the branding game.

If you aren’t selling products or services and use your brand as a point of contact with your followers or to boost your profile, you can do the following.

• Post links to valuable content daily.
• Engage with your followers and communicate with them.
• Create content with free or low-cost resources.

6. Use Free Resources for Building Your Personal Brand

There are numerous resources you can use to build your personal brand and many of them are free. Here are some of the things you can do to build your brand at no cost:

• Publish articles on your site.
• Start guest blogging.
• Make infographics with infographics tools.

Once you know which free resources can help you in your personal branding, here are some low-cost resources if you have a small budget for branding.

7.   Check out Low-Cost Resources for Building Your Brand

Most new entrepreneurs have either no budget or a small budget allocated for building their brand. These low-cost (and FREE) resources will help enhance your personal brand:

• Add videos to your marketing strategy. You can film them on your smartphone or create them with tools like My Simpleshow.
• Take advantage of paid advertising and affiliate marketing directory.
• If you have multiple social media accounts, use automation tools such as Hootsuite.
• Organise an event or partake in an event within your niche.
• Want to have a website, but don’t know a line of code? Use Bluehost.
• Optimise and manage your profiles with BrandYourself. Let the people find you faster on search engines.
• Use FREE tools for designs and images like Canva, Unsplash or Pixabay.

Are You Ready to Build Your Personal Brand on a Budget?

Personal branding is an essential part of every person’s business path.Click To Tweet Although it may look like an impossible task, you can indeed build your own brand with low resources. It all starts with vision and foundations.

Once you know what the terrain looks like, you can define your target audience and spread your voice to social media. Continuous promotion and communication with your customers will position you as the leader in your industry.

Good luck!