In this day and age, it’s easy to start a business. All you really need is a good mouthpiece, a business license, and a way to accept payments. Between social media, services such as Pixabay, adobe Spark, and canva, and apps such as venmo and cash app, you technically don’t even need a computer; you can pretty much operate an entire business from a smartphone. (You can thank me for the list of free tools later (smile).)

With so many people starting and operating businesses, there’s no wonder it’s hard to 1) get noticed and 2) have your audience take you seriously. I even struggle from “message burnout,” and have become a bit of a cynic when I see new businesses and ads on social media. The good news is that I have a few tips that I believe help entrepreneurs stand out and get noticed.

Be Different.

You may be thinking “duh,” but in all honesty, this is something people miss. They’re selling pretty much the same product, have the same “story,” or use the same marketing tactic. As cliche as this sounds, dare to be different. While everything in me told me to go the traditional route, this past year has been the most rewarding for RRP Marketing. This is the year that we have unapologetically infused our appreciation for the African American culture and love for all things melinated into our branding. According to public data, there are over 7.5 billion people on earth – and each and every one of these 7.5 billion people has a unique purpose. When you bring your genuine self to your brand and infuse your unique DNA into your offering, it’s hard for someone to bring the same, exact thing to the table. When you’re different, you get noticed.

Be Consistent.

Consistency is more than just showing up at a certain time on certain days of the week. Instead, being consistent has more to do with conveying the same message over a period of time. For example, my church introduced a campaign called “Summer Breeze” for a series of events. I had the pleasure of working on this campaign. One thing you’ll notice is the consistency in the artwork on our website, in video, in print, and in social media. The two primary reasons this consistency is important are that 1) it reinforces a story over a period of time, and 2) it helps people identify a brand without a lot of prompting. I’ve watched my church do this over

Stay in front of your audience.

You cannot effectively make an impression by being an on again/off again communicator. One piece of advice I give to clients as it relates to getting noticed is to post on social media A LOT. If you’re following us on our Melanin & Marketing page on Facebook, you’ll notice not a ton of time goes by before you’ll see a post from me. That’s because I want to keep RRP Marketing at the top of my audience’s mind.

Be human and authentic.

One good thing (among many) about being a small business owner is that YOU get to define your voice; a voice that can reflect your true self. For those of you who have been conditioned to convey a certain type of professionalism or display a specific writing style, digressing from your training WILL BE HARD. This doesn’t mean disregard all things professional, it simply means to blend a REAL voice with your message. This is one thing that I believe helped popular YouTubers hit their stride — their transparency and authenticity.