Branding A Small Business
7 Tips for Branding for Small Businesses
Constructing a recognizable brand for your small business doesn't happen in an instant.
Your brand is the cornerstone of your business and will serve as the essence of who you are, what you stand for, how people perceive you and everything else associated with it.
This combination of elements has enabled businesses both small and large to reach greater heights than initially imagined--brand recognition being pivotal regardless if its scope is major or minor.
Henceforth, we're providing seven essential strategies on branding your organization along with why this task should be taken seriously from day one!
1. Define your Brand Voice: The personality and tone of voice that you choose to display should align with the image you want to project. It's important to decide early on who you are targeting and the type of message that would resonate best with them. While this might change over time depending on different factors, having a core identity should remain the same.
2. Establish a Visual Identity: Your visual identity should be distinctive and consistent across all platforms in order to evoke an emotional connection with your audience. This includes choosing colors, fonts, images and other design elements that represent the values of your organization. Thus making it easier for customers to recognize you when they see images or other visuals associated with your brand.
3. Develop a Unique Tagline: A powerful tagline is crucial to the success of any business, big or small. It should be concise and memorable, summarizing in just a few words what your organization stands for and why people should choose you over others.
4. Create Content: Content is a key component of any successful branding strategy. It should be interesting and engaging, offering useful information that people can relate to and inspiring them to learn more about your product or service.
5. Deliver Exceptional Customer Service: People have come to expect high-quality customer service from brands they trust, so it’s important to ensure that your team is providing excellent customer service every time. This includes responding promptly to inquiries, addressing issues quickly and efficiently, and being proactive in finding solutions for customers.
6. Optimize Your Digital Presence: Social media and other forms of digital marketing are essential for reaching a wider audience. Take advantage of the different channels available and use them to your advantage, by creating content that is engaging and shareable.
7. Measure Your Progress: Finally, it’s important to track the progress of your branding efforts. As you start implementing the strategies mentioned above, measure their success with analytics tools such as Google Analytics or social media monitoring software like Hootsuite. This will help you identify which strategies are working and which need to be adjusted or replaced.
Branding your startup business is an ongoing process that requires dedication, patience, and consistency.
However, if done correctly, it can be the most important factor in defining who you are as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Here are some very specific step by step branding guides for: Real Estate, Lawyers, Accounting, Doctors, Dentists, Optometrists, Jewellery, Makeup & Beauty, Skincare, Pet Food, Fashion and Construction.
If you've enjoyed the information we've shared so far, keep reading for an in-depth explanation and guide on how to brand your small business.
Here’s the overview list of branding a small business:
1. Understand Your Brand
Before you begin any branding efforts, it’s important to understand what your brand is and who you are as a business. Start by identifying the mission statement of your company. This will help guide all other aspects of your branding process. Additionally, create a list of values and characteristics that best describe your brand.
2. Develop Your Logo and Brand Identity
Your logo should be the foundation of your brand identity. This is the visual representation of who you are as a business, so make sure it reflects your company’s mission and values. Work with a graphic designer to create a professional logo that will capture the attention of your target audience.
3. Utilize Consistent Design Elements
From your website to business cards, make sure all of your design elements are consistent and cohesive. Use the same fonts, colors and imagery across all platforms for a unified look and feel. This will help create a recognizable brand identity that your customers can easily identify.
4. Create a Tagline
Your tagline should clearly convey the message of what your business is about. Keep it short, sweet and memorable so people can easily recall it when they think of your brand.
5. Craft Your Story
Your story will help to bring your brand to life. Start by talking about where you come from and the challenges you’ve faced to get where you are. People love a good story, so make sure to share yours with your customers.
6. Focus on Customer Service
No matter how great your branding efforts may be, it won’t mean much if your customer service is lacking. Make sure that each interaction with a customer is friendly and helpful. This will go a long way in keeping customers loyal to your brand.
7. Track Your Brand Performance
The only way to know if your branding efforts are successful is to track the performance of your campaigns.
Set up analytics tools such as Google Analytics or StatCounter to measure how well your website, email newsletters and social media campaigns are performing.
Branding for a small business is important because it helps you to stand out from the competition and create a memorable identity for your company.
With these 7 steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective branding strategy for your business.
At The Branded, we’ll go over this together to work with you on branding your small business.
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Branding is a concept a lot of people misunderstand because there’s so much to it.
We’ll define the term in the next section…
What Is Branding for Small Business?
Branding is the collection of experiences your customers have with your business. It’s your reputation.
Your brand is the perception people have about your business.
That is branding, simply put. Of course, it’s not simple when you go through the process of branding a small business.
But it is worth it. And, our Marketing and Branding Agency has proven that.
Growing a business and building a brand is a long process.
It can’t happen overnight or in a few weeks.
It’s not simple, but it is possible to scale your small business with the right marketing and branding strategy.
Branding will require consistency and establishing relationships with your customers. It is ideal to create a community around your brand to achieve longevity.
The branding a small business process includes the foundation steps such as crafting your brand vision and mission. This step will increase sales, word of mouth and brand ambassadors who will vouch for your business.
As brand experts, we carry ourselves as the Best Branding Agency.
We will show you ways of branding a small business in the segments to come.
If you don’t know where to start your brand-building stages, we can help you out with that. Give us a call–we’ll provide you affordable, quick and valuable services that will get your business thriving in 2021 and beyond!
Why Is Branding Important for Small Businesses?
Being in business means knowing the importance of branding a small business.
So why is branding important?
Well, if you ask us, branding is present in every business you have comes across.
It’s how businesses have found success.
Every business starts with branding, and every brand needs strategic marketing.
It comes in a full circle.
Think about it this way: everyone is a brand in their own right.
It’s called their personal brand–their authentic brand self.
Every single person has a name, a face, a specific voice, a way of communication and different traits that make up a person.
Each person leaves a different impression, and how we perceive one person can be different from the next.
To that, we can say branding is a collection of perceptions.
Businesses are like that, too!
They have their unique take.
Their reputation makes up who they are. PR strategies can help with reputation building and branding a small business.
Remember, brand building takes consistency. But, it starts with establishing what kind of consistency it will look like and the feeling you want your audience to have when they support your small business.
How The Branded Can Brand Your Small Business
We had to put a little blurb about us on how we can help with branding a small business.
Branding and marketing are our expertise, and we like to share what we can do!
We are our biggest brand ambassadors, and we’ve seen what our work can do for our clients.
We can provide that to every person and business who needs it. We believe that there is space for everyone to succeed.
With the right branding strategies and the right people to market your small business, you can scale and continually reach your brand goals. With us, The Branded, the Best Marketing Agency around, we can help you in this journey.
Feel free to book a call for a quote on our services. From Brand Identity, Website Development to full-on Branding – we can help!
Let’s move on to branding a small business.
Branding A Small Business
So when you’re branding a small business, you need a strong foundation. We’ve mentioned this a lot throughout our blog posts.
Brand building requires a strong foundation. This foundation is what you’ll turn to when things in your small business don’t go as planned.
Define your brand identity and purpose
Branding a small business requires you to define your brand identity. What does that mean? Let’s explore that together.
It’s time to get introspective to understand what you want your brand to stand for. Here are a few questions that might help you define your purpose and help with your brand identity:
Why does your business exist?
What do you want to accomplish?
What is the motivation behind your purpose?
What value are you offering to your audience?
Why should people care?
What problem do you solve?
What makes you different from your competitors?
It will be beneficial for you to understand brand pillars as well.
It will help in your journey of defining your brand identity.
Figuring out your brand identity will help build your brand foundation for your business.
You’ll be able to use those ideas to create your brand voice, messaging, slogans, taglines, and so much more.
In fact, studies say that 40% of consumers want to choose brands with a clear purpose. Knowing your purpose and defining your brand identity will help.
Here’s an example of brand identity.
Take a look at our client Winners and Whiners.
We created a brand guideline for them to help organize and solidify their brand identity.
This guide not only strengthened their brand, but it helped them communicate their brand message of passion, precision and professionalism. They wanted to revamp their brand, and that we did!
We can do this for your business, too. As a creative Branding Agency, we love helping our clients during their brand foundation steps.
Get creative with your brand and start designing
You have probably had drafts of this, but it’s time to create or finalize assets for your business.
Think of these elements when you are designing:
Brand logo
Tagline/Slogan
Brand name
Choosing a business name can be overwhelming at times, especially if you have tons of options or can’t find one that fits your business. Here is a blog post dedicated all about what makes a good business name.
It also has great examples and free tools you can use to make a business name for yourself. You’ll find something that will spark your creative mind.
Brand logo
Brand logos are like the face of the company. Most people start at this element because they like to visualize what can be. Being a strong brand correlates to having a memorable logo.
This will be the visual asset that will be tied to your business the most. So make sure you have a logo that is unique and memorable. Most importantly, the logo has to reflect your business. A strong logo should build trust and help package your brand together.
*Quick tip on logos: make sure it is scalable to work in all sizes.* Most people overlook this part.
Tagline/Slogan
A catchy tagline or slogan can last you for decades when you market it right and come up with something memorable but relevant to your business.
Don’t underestimate taglines. A couple of examples of global brands that we all know too well would be Nike: “Just do it.” (this is the company speaking to the customer’s attitude), and there’s Folgers Coffee: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.” (they made it rhyme and have since been a coffee brand that sticks out because of that tagline).
Taglines and slogans are powerful. It is also okay to change them as your marketing strategies change. Understand the power of repetition and sticking true to your brand vision, and you’ll have strong brand awareness.
Here is a client of ours: Juci Botanicals. We helped them with Brand Identity, brand positioning, logo design, and so much more. The Branded had the opportunity to design their brand assets.
A brand style guide can help you organize all of your creative branding assets. We’re a Creative Agency that can help you with your brand foundation steps. We’ve done it for all of our clients who have found success during their brand-building stages, and we’re always happy to take on new clients. Branding a small business or startup is what we specialize in as brand experts.
Remember, your business is as strong as the foundation you built it on.
Be firm and confident on your brand name, logo and tagline. We can chat about this together to get your branding strategies going. To tie in part 1 of branding a small business, here is a quote to think about:
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody that needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. – Simon Sinek
Tips for Branding A Small Business
Continuing with branding a small business, here are more tips for you.
Research Target Audience and Competitors
It’s important to determine the target audience you’ll be focusing on.
Focus on understanding the current market and who your potential customers and competitors are.
Doing this will help you have a better grasp of your brand.
Keep in mind you might have to pivot your marketing strategies or change your brand assets to reach your target audience.
Researching your target audience and competitors can impact your brand development. But it should not take away from your brand authenticity and the brand essence of your small business or startup.
Having a target audience makes sense because you can’t be everything to everyone, right? That speaks to no good brand objectives at all. Make sure you be specific and niche on who you are targeting.
Here are some things to do/research:
Talk to your target audience, ask what brands they like and why they support them.
Look at relevant social media accounts that your target audience follows.
Know the market you are going into and analyze your competitors (What are they doing right? What is something they can improve on that you can? Is there something your business can do better?)
Look into what your audience is saying about your competitors. Use Google, Reddit, review sites.
We are the Best Branding Agency and have done this research for our clients as well. We can help you with this step during your brand-building stages. It can be tedious, but hey, we enjoy it!
Starting a business takes a lot of work, and we’re here to provide you all the services you need. Feel free to book a call with us to talk more about your target audience, brand building, marketing strategies and much more.
Branding Consistently
You’ve probably heard this before, but we’d like to underscore this tip: Consistency is key.
It means being consistent in your branded assets: your brand voice/messaging, how you interact with your customers and every aspect of your business.
The risk you take when you are not branding consistently results in confusing your customers, and you can lose them to your competitors. That’s not what you want, so make sure the elements of your brand identity are applied consistently in all channels of your brand.
Here’s an example of a client of ours that stays true to their branding, Traditional. We have helped them achieve brand consistency, brand positioning and brand identity.
Again, consistency is key. Building that trust with your audience through consistency can go a long way!
Branding A Small Business Tips
Empower your customers
Customer service is a key to your brand longevity. Scaling a business requires understanding this concept: if you help your customers succeed, the customers will help the brand succeed.
Another concept to understand: the power of perception. Brand foundation and brand building are so important. But note while you can set your brand’s direction while growing a business, you are not in control of how your brand is perceived. Brand perception is determined by the customers and the public.
Our tip is to spend time building those relationships with your customers. Be where they are and show up.
Once you build, it is also about what you do when you gain that reputation for having space in your marketplace. Ask yourself this:
What reputation am I gaining?
What are customers saying behind our back?
Branding is all about that. It’s about the connections you make, what you’ve built, but also how you are being perceived. That last part is something you can’t control.
*A quick tip* Live and breathe customer service because you need to provide a consistent experience that evokes value and positivity.*
Apply branding across your business
Applying branding across your business requires centring your brand story and brand vision to meet your brand objective. Your brand story will be the bridge that people can connect to.
Remember purchasing is an emotional decision, right? Right.
Having all your branding consistent with your brand story will create trust with your target audience and future customers.
One thing to keep in mind is to have a positioning statement on your website and online platforms.
That can be your brand vision, mission and values or a simple “About Us” page.
You want to share that across your branding to position yourself in your customer’s life.
Are you there to provide value with a product?
Make things easier with a service? Or possibly, provide entertainment?
Your brand positioning sets the tone for the interaction you have with customers.
It sets the tone with how they interact with you, in person or online too.
Every business has a brand story, and every story is worth sharing.
So share it across your platforms!
Here is a client of ours that has a story and used it across their business plan, Sneakertopia. We helped them build a brand by using their unique story.
Evolve and be your brands biggest advocate
You have to be your brand’s biggest advocate.
It’s your business, and branding a small business is no easy task.
So, be there for your brand, for your customers, be all about it.
At the end of the day, no one knows your brand better than the person who created it: you.
So be the best brand ambassador you can be.
And, when you’re hiring employees, make sure that they align well with your brand foundation and core values of your business.
Remember that evolving your brand doesn’t stop with the foundation or your desired brand goals and objectives being met. Your brand needs to remain consistent with your customer interaction and actions to keep existing.
Also, it’s good to accept that you will never have full control over your brand perception.
That is owned by your customers.
Of course, you can lead them in the right direction and manage that reputation that you have built.
But realize that you can’t control their decision or thoughts about your brand–you can only influence it.
That is why you need to be your biggest brand ambassador and brand advocate.
Believe in your small business or startup because it always has to start with you.
Managing a business can be tough, but we’re here to help you market your brand.
We're a Digital Marketing and Branding Agency, we know this world because we live in it.
Branding A Small Business: Final Thoughts
That’s how branding a small business works.
Now you have the knowledge to get your small business growing.
The tips we provided are elements that work together to create strong brand foundations and help create a positive perception for your business. Branding a small business requires a lot of groundwork.
You have to make sure you spend time crafting each element so that it matches your brand story and brand vision. It also has to resonate with your target audience.
You don’t need to spend a lot of money on branding, but you do need to spend a lot of time crafting each element.
We understand that not everyone is specialized in writing, graphic design, researching and branding in general–so that’s where we come in!
We’re a Vancouver Branding Agency offering affordable and quality services that can help scale your brand.
As a Branding Agency, we specialize in helping small businesses and startups.
We’ve done it for a lot of our clients who have gone on and grown and manage their business after we helped them.
Some of our services include Branding, Website Development, Creative Design and Brand Identity. Here’s a list of our branding and marketing services.
Make sure to contact us! We can chat about branding your small business or startup.
Happy Branding!
If you need help writing a business plan for your startup, checkout our guide here https://www.brandedagency.com/blog/writing-a-business-plan-guide
Checkout our Other Blog Posts
Other Resources
Branding in a Box for Small Businesses
Digital Marketing Report for 2023
The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Brand Identity
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Feel free to check out our other blog posts here for more valuable information to scale your business.