3 Approachable Tactics for Gaining Brand Awareness as a Creative Solopreneur

Welcome back to The Latest blog! It's been a minute since I've written and I'm so excited to be back.

This week we are talking approachable tactics for gaining brand awareness as a creative solopreneur. If you're reading this blog, or have been our friend for some time, you are most likely somebody with a passion and/or a deep purpose that lies within this passion. What you really want is to live through this passion. Live and breathe through it day in and day out, and you're willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to get to this reality of simply doing what you love.

If this sounds like you, you're definitely in the right place :)

As much as a life doing what you love sounds like the most beautiful thing you could possibly ever want and desire, doesn't mean that it's not going to come with some effort. And when I say SOME effort, I mean quite a lot of effort. Out of the audiences of people I serve, I'd say 'creative solopreneur' is the closest one to myself. Having worked in marketing for 5+ years now all while incorporating my initial foundations in media production, this path has been a lot of learning and understanding what it takes to jump off the cliff into my own version of the art and strategy, and this sounds way less scary than it actually is.

After starting Essence as an official service-based business in 2021, I am STILL learning, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. Going out on your own takes a lot more courage than one could ever anticipate, even after absorbing all of the advice you could possibly intake from YouTube, fellow creators on social media, or even in your local community. Every person's path is so unique that it's almost impossible to determine the kind of path yours will be. All that we can really do is follow our intuition amongst all of the advice given to us through many mediums, and I must say that hearing this advice, hearing other people's transformations and stories is what truly motivates me to keep going.

So what I hope you consider today after reading through these tactics for gaining brand awareness, is your own constitution, intuition, and goals. All of this should be taken into account, despite what's "hot" or "trending" within the landscape you're navigating.

My goal is to give you real life experience so that you can determine how something may translate to you, your offering, or your product. I also encourage creativity when it comes to translating these tactics! There is no right or wrong, just what actually WORKS. These brand awareness tactics are all real life examples of strategies I have incorporated in my business(es), or have first-hand experienced my clients incorporate and received positive feedback or growth from. I hope you can take something from each of these and gain the awareness you've always dreamed of for your business.

Here we go!

Consider doing free work in the beginning. I know that this can be a bit controversial, but I am a firm believer in free work when it comes to getting your foot in the door- simply because this is exactly what I did and I experienced almost immediate awareness around my business with my target audience. I'll relate this concept to something we've all experienced in our lives. You know when you're applying for an entry-level job and for whatever reason, they want to see a portfolio of experience? Or you may have gotten far in a job interview process and have no idea why they didn't choose you. The reason is most likely because somebody who was still at entry level had something to show for their work. You may wonder- how? Well, free work is absolutely one possible answer.

Now, there IS a point in time where I believe you should no longer offer free work- and I actually suggest offering free work pretty exclusively, not openly. For example, I offered free work for a few reasons- one was because I was working with a website designer and I needed relevant content to display on my website, and another reason was because I wanted this content to really speak to my target audience. And as a photographer, this was important. My website designer suggested I reach out to a few businesses that were small enough to approach, but would also fall in line with my ideal/dream client. So I did, and the results where AMAZING. This allowed Essence to completely transform in the look & feel of my brand, and at the end of the day, it allowed for more businesses to trust in my reputation and abilities because I had the chance to build a portfolio with no outside expectation - simply just my own creative expectation and direction and that is a beautiful thing.

Support others in their work. This can look like many things, although the first thing we probably think of is utilizing social media. Whether it's through Instagram story shout outs, commenting, and liking posts, the overall goal here is to engage. Build the connection. This goes truly a long way, especially if you focus in on a specific community and consistently engage with everyone around. But it doesn't stop at social media, and it certainly shouldn't! You can attend and/or promote community events (this is one of my favorites because face-to-face connection is KING), collaborate with other like-businesses (that don't compete with your offering) in giveaways, offerings, workshops, etc, refer your friends, and offer testimonials/reviews if you've engaged with a business's service, offer or product. I think people do underestimate what support can really do for a business owner or solopreneur. It truly gives us faith, and the motivation to carry on and keep going. If the support dies out, doubt can easily seep into the cracks and cause us to feel like we're not validated to offer this kind of value- which is almost never true. And of course, the more we support others, the more we naturally receive support back to us.

Show up where you want your people to find you. As much as our world increasingly continues to become more digital, there are still endless opportunities to show up where your target audience hangs out- digitally or in-person. In this step, I encourage you to think outside of the box, because what you may think is outdated, or non-existent, most likely absolutely exists! You just have to do the research to find it. My partner recently has been researching ways to promote and market his fine art outside of just social media apps. For many reasons, this is becoming more and more prevalent in his world, and overall for artists, creatives, and people who make a living on their talent. Relying on a social media algorithm feels unsteady and doesn't always support those who are trying to break into a creative field. In this process, we've been doing research into art forums as another option for promoting his art. After about a week of research, we found really great independent art forums that were exactly catered to his style, and the kind of people who appreciate a mix of dreamscape/occult art. So this is just ONE example of how you can show up where you want your people to find you. Of course, social media is a great option regardless- but the more strategic you can be on social media apps the better. For instance, if you offer something that is extremely visual and aesthetically-driven, showing up on Instagram and Pinterest would be your best bet. Rather if you've got a written blog full of valuable information, you could consider word-driven apps like X and Threads as your short-form counterpart.