Branding For Small Businesses

What does branding look like for small businesses??

When you’re branding for small businesses, it’s ideal to capture your brand story and present it to your target audience. Today, we’ll be talking about brand identity and brand marketing. Plus, we'll list down some tips on branding your business.

The purpose of branding is to actively shape the consumer's perception of your company, product or service according to what you hope they think of when interacting with your brand. An ideal brand uses names, logos, slogans, copy, and other marketing collateral to tell an integrated narrative about your company. Branding for small businesses requires one to understand this. So if you're feeling a little overwhelmed... don't worry; we got you!

You might be wondering about the relationship between branding and marketing. Although it is used interchangeably for many people, it has specific definitions behind it. Branding is what you present to the public and how the public perceives your business. It’s about who the company is, from its brand story, purpose and vision to brand personality. Branding is the long-term partner in this relationship. In contrast, marketing is about achieving short-term objectives. It’s focused on generating sales, revenue growth, acquiring new customers and continuously expanding in the market field.?

Even if the two concepts are opposing somehow, an effective and successful marketing strategy implements and understands the interaction between marketing and branding. While branding identifies your business products and services, marketing leverages your brand and promotes it across online platforms.?

Developing A Brand Identity

Having a brand identity means defining how your company looks, feels, and communicates with customers. Ultimately, it affects how others see the credibility of your business and influences the entire customer experience.

Research

Let’s start with research. This is an important step in developing a brand identity so that you’re able to brand for your startup business. One thing to look into is a buyer persona . Generally, a buyer persona, also known as consumer persona or audience persona is a hybrid of detailed market research and current information from existing customers that illustrates how you target your audience. Basically, it is the task of portraying your ideal consumer.?

Researching into your target audience is needed. Look into:?

• Who your target audience is (primary, secondary, and tertiary audiences)
• What are their identifies? Demographic, background, motivation
• What do they want?
• What are some of their goals, and what challenges are they facing?
• Why do they want it?
• What experiences do they already have, and what motivates them?
• How can you help?

Research into your competitors. You want to know what they’re up to. Depending on what product or service you provide, it’s essential that you see the strengths you have, what you can improve on and how you can be better than the rest. Look into:?

• What are your competitors doing that’s bringing in a lot of customers?
• How do you differ from them??
• How are other companies positioning themselves, in terms of brand identity, visual elements and assets??
• What is their brand personality like? Is it formal, casual, friendly??
• Is it catered to a specific niche audience, similar to yours?

Research into what the public says about you or those working in your team. You want to make sure you’re taking the time to listen to how they perceive your brand. Their perspective is something to seek because they’re essentially helping build the brand. In short, they are the brand. Here are some questions to help you get your research going:

• What are the positives? What can be improved?
• How do they see the business shaping up??
• Does your brand vision match the brand perception??
• Does anything need to change?
• Are more branding and marketing services needed?

Another thing to research is current trends in the marketplace. You want to be able to keep up with big updates.?

Creative Assets?

To develop your brand identity, you need to create assets. What are they? Here are a few:

• Logo
• Taglines
• Brand colours?
• Typography?
• Iconography?
• Graphic designs?
• Photography?

It’s best to keep this all in your brand identity guideline. You can also check out our blog post, all about brand bibles. We include examples there to make it easier for you! A visual identity is crucial to create cohesion and consistency with your small business. This also creates a level of trust with your target audience. They’ll expect these creative assets, and it’s what they’ll look for.?

?For example, in our previous blog post, we talked about the importance of logos , as they are usually the first contact, the first impression you make to the public. Your creative assets aren’t something to take lightly.

Brand Personality?

Boring doesn’t work too well with branding. Even a subtle attitude or personality can make your brand pop. Think of adjectives that might describe your business, and use those as the basis for your proposal.

There should be a personality behind your brand. It might be whimsical or serious, traditional or adventurous, whatever it is–make sure you convey it through your communication, visuals and overall marketing strategy .?

?Your personality impacts your branding strategies significantly. Here is a brand personality guideline to help you further develop this aspect so that your brand identity can come into full swing.?

?If you understand your brand personality, you will be able to create a consistent and authentic message across all of your marketing communications, whether it's through your logo, your business cards, or your social media interactions.

?Here are some questions to look over:

• What is your brand vision and mission?
• What are you prioritizing in your brand??
• What qualities or words match the business??
• If the brand were a person, how would they come across? How would they look and sound??

Brand Marketing?

We’ve gone over research, creative assets, brand personality in terms of developing a brand identity. But something is missing from that mix! It’s brand marketing.?

To grow your business, you need to market your brand effectively. You can differentiate yourself from your competitors within the market if you have a strong, identifiable brand with a consistent identity across all your marketing activities. In addition to giving the company a competitive edge, this gives it credibility when entering the market.

How can you market your brand? There are hundreds of ways, that’s why brand strategy is the key. Connect with us so we can talk about it more! We’ll be sure you talk strategy with you.?

Onto brand marketing tips...

5 Branding Tips For Small Businesses

1) Brand Purpose?

Knowing your brand purpose is the first step to branding your small business. Without your purpose, your branding and marketing strategies will fall flat. You don't want to start something without a purpose, right??

Take some time to reflect on what you want your brand to represent and what the purpose is. Identifying your brand's identity and purpose may be easier if you ask these questions:

• 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. Also, start thinking about your brand objectives !?

2) Consistent Voice?

We’ve discussed consistency plenty of times in our blogs, we’re a firm believer that this builds trust. And where does trust lead? More leads, customers and more money!

Refer back to our brand voice guidelines . Here’s another one to really let you see the importance of a consistent brand voice . With your brand voice selected, you can develop a narrative that resonates with your target audience. All your communication methods, including your website and social media posts, should follow these core elements.

3) Revise Guidelines?

Once you think you’ve built a solid brand foundation for your business. think again. With these guidelines you’ve set up, you will need to revisit them and update them as your business grows.?

This is a step that most people forget about and then they get stuck which leads to no progress.?

It’s important to update, revise and revisit brand foundations to match your updated creatives, purpose and possibly new brand goals.?

4) Social Listening?

Social listening is a term you may be unfamiliar with. So, read on! When branding your small business effectively, you’ll realize how quickly social listening is important.

You can use social listening to find out what your customers are thinking by watching your social media platforms. You can also learn about how your audience sees your brand - and understand them on a deeper level.

Social listening involves:?

• Monitoring competitor mentions, social media mentions, keyword mentions, etc.
• Customer reviews (positive and negative): responding to them and learning from them
• Taking notes, gaining knowledge from what you’re seeing?

Rather than primarily monitoring social mentions, social listening is about getting information about what is happening on your brand. Social listening aims to understand consumer perceptions and moods concerning the brand.

5) Boost Your Brand

It’s time to hype up your brand! Promote it the best way you can, and if you need help getting the word out there, or if you need further marketing services , you can always count on us!?

Social media is the best place to start. Reaching out to family and friends is a great idea, too! Start small and build upon your online profiles. You want to gradually introduce your brand and create curiosity around it.

You can provide easy-to-use information about what your business does for consumers on a clean, user-friendly website. Ensure that the call-to-action points people in the right direction! Think of the words: Connect With Us, Schedule a Call and Sign Up to use.?

Also, be honest with your audience about what you want to achieve–they’ll more likely form a bond and trust with your brand.?After that, you'll want to create a marketing plan. Here are marketing strategies for millennials and another, for Gen Z . We told you we got you covered.

Conclusion

Branding has multiple layers, each of which has its structure and meaning. Marketing is not the same as branding, but the two concepts share many common themes. Each concept works closely with the other and has the same primary goal: serving the business.

Now that we’ve covered 5 branding tips for small businesses and how to develop a brand identity, you can feel confident that you’re equipped with the knowledge that will take you further in your small business journey.

If you want to further connect and chat more about your small business–we’re here on the other line! Connect with us, and let’s talk branding .??