Most companies are looking for ways to grow their brand, and options for doing so are nearly limitless. However, some strategies will work much better and have longer-lasting results than others.
In his book “This is Marketing“, Seth Godin lays out his overall philosophy on this:
The truth is that most brands that matter, and most organizations that thrive, are primed by advertising but built by good marketing. They grow because users evangelize to their friends. They grow because they are living entities, offering ever more value to the communities they serve. They grow because they find tribes that coalesce around the cultural change they’re able to produce.
You can pour increasingly large amounts of money into advertising, and that can certainly help, but the biggest brands grow because users want to share them with others. Word of mouth still dominates marketing, and most podcasts grow because of individual sharing and not because of their iTunes ranking.
You need to get the core pieces in place first, like a solid website and great marketing, but if users aren’t compelled to tell their friends about you and the value you offer, real growth will be hard to find.
