Want to Build Credibility in Your Market? Try These 15 Strategies

Industry credibility and brand recognition are critical if you hope to optimize your business for its target market.

With major competitors vying for the top spot in any industry, making a name for your business and improving the market can be a difficult journey. As a new business owner, this means you’ll need to dedicate plenty of time to learning and researching the industry to understand where your business can offer improvements.

As business leaders, the members of Newsweek Expert Forum have dealt with the challenge of breaking into the industry and gaining credibility and recognition. Below, they offer 15 tried-and-true tips for entrepreneurs attempting to optimize the market.

Be a Thought Leader

Establish yourself as an expert in your field by writing articles or blog posts, giving speeches or presentations or even teaching classes. By sharing your knowledge and demonstrating your expertise, you will be able to build trust with potential customers and clients. Attend trade shows and conventions, join professional organizations and make connections with other professionals. – Umang Modi, TIAG, Inc.

Collaborate Rather Than Competing With Competitors

Be authentic and original. Collaborate and don’t compete. As an entrepreneur, don’t look at what the competitors are doing and answer them. Instead, find what the market needs and fill it with your own authentic style, practice and invention, amplified by self-promotion utilizing the power of social media. If you let people know that you are good and worthy of recognition, they will applaud you. – Dr. Abraham Khoureis, DrAbeKhoureis.com

Share and Leverage Expertise

A business owner can build credibility by sharing their expertise with local business groups and with their clients through workshops and seminars. They can then leverage those experiences in social media posts and by asking the attendees for reviews that can be shared on their website and in marketing collateral. – LaKesha Womack, Womack Consulting Group

Have Street and/or Educational Credentials

Once you have had success in your endeavors, people then tend to pay more attention because there are facts to back it up. When you have that “story doing” to match the storytelling, that helps. The other way entrepreneurs can boost their credibility is by having genuinely insightful things to say about their industry. – April (Margulies) White, Trust Relations

Establish Your Business as a Trusted Resource

By sharing knowledge on your chosen expertise, you can become a thought leader in the market and field. This thought leadership typically makes the owner a trusted resource and therefore more credible. You can share knowledge on social platforms like LinkedIn, write guest articles, appear on podcasts and speak at events. The key is being where your audience is and looking for information. – Mary Cate Spires, Reputation Avenue

Offer Products or Services That the Market Values

It’s critical to deliver a high-quality product or service that the market values and one that is also trusted and secure. Simple, essential and consumable communication and marketing techniques will help build brand reputation and market demand. – Margie Kiesel, Avaneer Health

Surround Yourself With Those Who Have Experience

Be the subject matter expert and surround yourself with people who know what they are doing. Always walk the extra mile and be honest about the obstacles. – Krisztina Veres, Veres Career Consulting

Make Yourself ‘Everpresent’ on LinkedIn

With so many different opportunities to publish and connect, LinkedIn provides the key opportunity to connect and grow your professional circle in any way you want. This includes referrals, new leads, partners, investors and more. – Chris Tompkins, The Go! Agency

Get Yourself Out There on Social Media

Social media, giveaways and specials will put your brand out there. With exceptional value and a great product, your company will grow and flourish. – Tammy Sons, Tn Nursery

Consistently Be Where Your Audience Is

The rule of seven says it takes seven touchpoints before someone remembers your business. Use online and offline marketing touchpoints to surround your customers consistently with your brand. The more they see you, the more they know, like and trust you. This translates into both short-term sales and long-term brand building. – Krista Neher, Boot Camp Digital

Use Your Connections

Who you know is important, and people want to share experiences for you to learn from to avoid making the same mistakes they have. Look to mentors and people in the industry to see what worked for them and if you can implement those optimizations. Specifically, social media is a great way to start to gain momentum and flourish as a business while also placing the business in a media article. – Paul Miller, Miller & Company LLP

Be Seen

If people don’t know what your business does or who you serve, they will not be able to find you. Entrepreneurs need to ensure their ideal clients know what they have to offer. This can be done through social media and LinkedIn, providing value to podcasts, articles and the media. The more entrepreneurs get their message out, the more people they can serve. – Donna Marie Cozine, Consult DMC

Build on Small Successes

Proof of concept and early success is one of the best ways to build credibility, yield support and generate referrals. Track your wins, create a strong story around them and have a process in place to easily promote them. Building upon small successes leads to larger success and gives you a better ability to achieve long-term goals. – Jacob Kupietzky, HCT Executive Interim Management & Consulting

Create a Sustainable Business Model

I’m a big fan of sustainable business models–long-term growth plans that create sustainable cash flow. If you’re a new business owner, the first thing you have to do is prove is product market fit, then you need to get yourself a phenomenal salesperson. From there, you will get the insights you need to execute strong grassroots marketing strategies. Market penetration doesn’t happen overnight. – Melissa LuVisi, tab32

Gain Recognition and Credibility

Providing free, exceptionally high-value and original content that meets a need or solves a problem ensures that an entrepreneur is going to be viewed as trustworthy and reliable. These are two critical aspects to gaining recognition and credibility with both existing and potential customers as well as market influencers. – Lisa Lundy, Lisa A Lundy

Previously published on Newsweek.