To overcome this hurdle, business owners must focus on two key objectives in their marketing
strategy: brand recognition and brand awareness.

Brand recognition refers to how consumers remember your business through what they come
across visually or auditorily. Brand awareness is a consumer’s deeper understanding of one’s
brand, like potentially being able to list products from your business, and “sticking in your
customers mind” according to Cision.

Achieving brand recognition and eventually brand awareness is crucial to acquiring new
customers. Brand recognition builds trust and familiarity with consumers, while brand awareness
strengthens the customer-business relationship, leading to deeper loyalty and engagement.

Diamond Exchange Houston owner Gilad Mor said brand awareness and brand recognition are
the most important marketing objectives for one’s business, no matter what strategies they
implement.

Diamond Exchange Houston is a Houston based jewelry store specializing in loose diamonds,
engagement rings, and custom jewelry.

“Get your name out there within the platforms that work best for your business, whether it’s
visual or word of mouth or print media,” Mor said. “It’s all about getting your name out there in
front of clients and getting brand recognition so that way you’ll be memorable.”

When it comes to choosing the correct marketing platform, it depends on what the business
owner is trying to promote or sell, Mor said.

As a jewelry store owner trying to sell a high end product, diamond jewelry, most of the company’s marketing is done visually, Mor said.

Diamond Exchange Houston’s key marketing platforms consist of Google, social media content, and word of mouth marketing. Google is the company’s top platform, specifically the company’s
business profile, Mor said.

“Google is the number one, since a lot of people go on Google and they look for new
businesses, and they also do a lot of their research on it,” Mor said. “The more we come up on
Google with our website and with our [social media pages] … that’s ideal reach for us.”

Diamond Exchange Houston primarily uses Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as their social
media platforms, with Instagram being the most impactful for their target audience due to its
visual nature, Mor said.

Skinimini Beauty social media manager Hannah Henry, said Instagram is also the most
impactful for her mini Korean skincare retailing business, based on their metrics and user
engagement. Henry said the brand also uses Tik Tok and Pinterest.

Skinimini Beauty is a Korean skincare retailing business specializing in mini Korean skincare. It
serves as a middle ground for people to discover new mini products or new Korean skincare
products that they’re interested in, but not quite ready to commit to a full size product just yet.

Henry said brand awareness is an important factor when implementing paid promotions or
advertising, because if consumers don’t have the ability to know the brand exists, they cannot
shop from them and consumers may turn to bigger suppliers due to their lack of awareness.

“When you’re pushing out promotions for the purpose of brand awareness, it allows people to
know that there are other businesses out there that could potentially provide them with an
experience or a product that they’re actually looking for, rather than settling for something that
they’ve seen at a larger supplier.” Henry said.

Tracking the success of marketing strategies is crucial for long term success, it can determine
the effectiveness of the marketing, and whether brand awareness or recognition was achieved.

Diamond Exchange Houston uses multiple tools to track their marketing success, including
Google Analytics, Google Map position tracking, Ahref to track leaders and WhatCoverts to
track how many calls the business receives and what platform they came from.

Henry said when it comes to metrics tracking she uses the in-house tracking provided by
Instagram and Tik Tok. Henry then analyzes the data and runs reports herself to ensure
Skinimini Beauty is meeting goals and staying consistent with engagement.

Henry said tracking metrics and knowing who your target audience is a key piece of advice for
marketing ones business.

“Really understanding who you’re trying to capture, what kind of content they consume,” Henry
said. “With that comes industry research … What is their socioeconomic status? What do they
do for a living? What are their interests?,”

Mor said business owners should remember to not be discouraged by a month of slow sales or
a failed marketing strategy.

“Keep going and fighting for your name to be out there,” Mor said. “If you’re consistent, and if
you’re honest with your client, then eventually you’ll get there.

Let’s talk for a moment about where this idea comes from. Believe it or not, it’s corporate America. I remember early in my corporate career being trained to be a leader and facilitator of what they were calling “quality circles”. The idea was that the people closest to the problems the company was facing were likely the people who best understood the root causes of the problem, and were best able to brainstorm and come up with a new solution. That makes sense, right?

In the corporate environment, it involved not only digging into the root causes of a problem, but also determining what that problem was costing the company. The team would then talk through the root causes until they could develop a solution – not just a band-aid – that would make the problem disappear. When the problem disappeared, the profit would go up. As long as the cost of the solution could be covered by the increase in profit, it would make sense to move forward, and the managers would normally approve of it.

Now imagine this. What if you can take a group of small business owners who are well versed in some of the challenges that are disrupting our communities and get THEM to brainstorm together about how to solve them? What if those same small business owners can engage with groups in their communities to find out where their greatest concerns are? Is it possible that we can all work together to build real solutions in our communities, instead of waiting for “someone else” to do it for us?

Our experience would suggest that it’s not only possible, it’s necessary. Here’s an example.

We recently spent some time in a local high school talking to students. We found that about 1/3 of them planned on going to college after high school. About 1/3 wanted to start their own business. The final 1/3 really had no clue. We know that our high schools serve the college-bound students very well, but what about the other two thirds of the population? Does this start to explain why we only have a 40-50% graduation rate in many of our colleges?

If the problem with our graduation rates is actually caused by our students not being given enough career options to seriously explore during their high school years, is there something we can do about that?

We have a small business team that says there is, and they are calling it “Careers Reimagined”. In this case, a group of small business owners have come together and created an apprenticeship-style learning experience that gives students hands-on experience in learning some of the key skills for becoming an entrepreneur.

This core program can also be modified and adapted to work with mentors from any industry that has an interest in helping to build a pipeline of future employees. The trades industry is one possibility that has been suffering from a lack of skilled talent.

The program not only addresses the hard skills of entrepreneurship like sales & marketing, but also addresses communication skills, technology skills and self-care that leads to physical and mental wellness. What other new ideas can be created through collaborative problem-solving teams? Do small businesses hold the key to helping our communities find more health, more prosperity, and more peace? Stay tuned to this series to explore further!