A ‘curb appeal’ refers to the solely superficial first impression you, your belongings, or your company makes. As most company founders know, in the first year of a company, people rarely spend on superficial things. There’s just no budget for it. But making a great first impression outside and inside is the best investment for a new company on the market. This may seem like an impossible task, but there is a way to raise your ‘curb appeal’ without spending too much money or effort on it in the beginning phase of your company.
There are a handful of ways you can make yourself approachable to your desired customers, and the first is having an online presence. Social media is the easiest place to look more put-together than you actually are. People do it every day with their personal lives, and companies use this tool as well to be more appealing and show their best side to the public. These can be humble shots of serene office space, some pictures of employees, products, a few how-it’s-made short videos, anything that helps people feel more close to you while envying your aesthetic.
Your aesthetic is something that you should be polishing from day one, as that’s your most relatable asset, and your number one weapon on social media when it comes to winning over your already interested audience. To polish your chosen aesthetic, you only need to spend a tiny amount of money to spruce up one part of the office. This can be a desk where you work each day, or it can be a workspace where there are materials and products all over the place. Whichever space you decide to advertise throughout your platforms, it’s important to make it feel like home for your audience. Make it relatable, make it homey, and rarely change the looks of that corner. The same goes for all statements you post on social media. Today people look for relatable companies to trust, and they value transparency. Therefore, to earn their trust, you have to be honest, clear about your goals and products, and show them something they can relate to.
The second way you can launch your appearance is possibly the best investment any company can make, which is creating a marketing strategy. This – as almost anything nowadays – can be self-taught, but it’s a wise investment to hire a marketing manager. A lot of startups hire students or interns to save on money, because a marketing strategy is one of the basics these students learn in school, but is too complex to learn overnight.
A marketing strategy handles everything from what to post the next day, to what your 5-year goals are in regards to expanding. It handles your ads, your public image, and creates a financially beneficial timeline for marketing expansion. Simply put, keeping your eye on your marketing strategy will save you a lot of time, money, and wasted energy. It pinpoints what you need to invest in in order to make a profit quickly and easily. Without this, you will probably be spending a lot of money and time on things that won’t take you from point A to point B.
Another route that some company owners take – but is not favorable for others – is including their audience in their everyday lives. Some people do live videos, some people do “day in the life…” videos to make their story more approachable, transparent, and homey. Your customers will feel like your friends, they feel like they have a say in what you do (and as a marketing tool, you can even give them a chance to actually have a say in it). These companies feel closer to our hearts, and also, nowadays it’s very important for customers to know the face behind the name, and this does that very well. Talk to your audience about future plans. If you’re moving your office, show them prospects, and “take them with you” on house tours. Show them how you decorate, and how you work every day. As mentioned before, this is not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. This is a very unique style of conducting business and involves letting some walls down. Boundaries can be crossed, and people who choose this path have to be very conscious about what they share and what they don’t. So if you don’t feel like this is a path worth taking, you absolutely shouldn’t.
Overall, the two main focus points of raising your ‘curb appeal’ are having a rock-solid marketing plan, and having a relatable aesthetic that is very appealing and polished. If you have these two, you are practically unstoppable. Advertising by using only your true self, your office, your employees, your product in its purest and simplest form is the best thing you can do today, as people react to honesty. That mixed with a concrete marketing route and plan will solidify the future of your company.
