“Brands.” “Branding.” “Brand strategy.” These words and phrases get thrown about all the time, but sometimes it can be difficult to get a full grasp on all that they refer to and all that these efforts entail. Just what is a brand, and how much does it affect your small business?
We’re here to tell you that branding is one of the most important aspects of your business, no matter its size. It’s also a comprehensive endeavor that truly reflects what your company is about. Let’s take some time together this
#TechTuesday to really dig in and discover what proper branding can mean to your small business.
What Is a Brand?
A brand is more than a logo. Far, far more. It’s more than a tagline or slogan, too. It’s the combination of every element that your customers see and hear. Your brand strategy is your pledge to your clients, and includes everything that you communicate to them, both verbally and visually. Your brand is who you are and what you aspire to be.
Do Brands Matter to Small Businesses?
Good brand strategy gives you an advantage in competitive markets, as it serves as a differentiator between you and your competitors.
Small businesses require an impactful brand like any other business, and in today’s digital world, every business is a global business, regardless of your current sales volume or your number of employees. Investing in branding is not merely the domain of the “big boys,” not simply the purview of large corporations. If you have a business, you need to pay heed to branding and strive to improve your image in the minds of your customers.
Perhaps the most important item to remember is this:
Proper branding results in more money in the bank.
How to Be a Brand Guardian
It’s incredibly important that as the ambassador of your company and its brand, you, the Brand Guardian, if you will, must properly present and cultivate your small business’s distinct voice and personality to your audience. Tap into what Mary Van de Wiel, of
The NY Brand Lab, calls the
“Irresistibility Quotient” of your brand. What makes you irresistible to your customers? Try to focus on a few core items that your brand stands for. Successfully doing so will “up” your Irresistibility Quotient and engender feelings of connectedness from your audience to your business. Apple is the king of this, for example.
Here’s a few “Dos” when it comes to branding to help you serve as the perfect Brand Guardian:
1. Develop your voice. Develop the “voice” of your brand uniformly across all your channels, from social media to company blogs to printed imagery. Are you the long-time, experienced guru in your field, for example, or the plucky upstart with a load of personality and swagger? Make sure this development extends across all aspects and regions of your company.
2. Be passionate. Always work to be incredibly enthusiastic in what you do, as this will carry over to your messaging. People buy into passion.
3. Be authentic. Prospective customers can smell a phony a mile away. Don’t try to give the people what you think they may want. Present your company as it is. Share your true values and feelings. Authenticity is one of the most critical aspects of branding. If you don’t believe in your messaging, no one else will, either.
4. Be consistent. Consistently employ your brand’s messaging and your company’s distinct voice every day across your entire business, from your e-mail blasts to your Facebook posts to how your sales team handles phone calls. If you start a social media presence (and you absolutely should), make sure to stick with it and keep updates flowing each week. Consistency is key. A lack of consistency will cause your audience to immediately lose interest no matter how compelling your initial attempt at branding was.
If you manage to achieve all of the above, your customers will actually
feel something when they encounter your brand, and are far more likely to “buy into” what you offering, both figuratively and literally. Never forget that your brand illustrates who you are and what your company cares about — your company’s internal creed, so to speak.
Is It Possible to Develop a Brand Without Breaking the Bank?
In a word: yes. You can find designers to aid in developing your brand aesthetic and writers to prep your social media without breaking your budget. Perhaps even more conveniently, here at
S-FX we offer all those branding services in-house, all in one place. We offer
branding consulting, as well as custom logo and graphic design
.
Remember, strong branding can make a world of difference between two otherwise identical products. Why can Coca-Cola charge more versus a generic cola? Branding. The voice, personality and style Coca-Cola and other companies have cultivated over time leads to brand
recognition, and that’s made all the difference for them and their bottom line. The power of the recognition behind, say, UPS’s brown or the Yankee’s pinstripes can’t be denied, and it’s all thanks to modern styling through branding.
If you invest in your small business’s branding efforts in a similar manner, immense results will come.
