Why small businesses also need distinctive assets

One of the most basic goals of any business is not just to be noticed, but to be remembered favourably as well. Small businesses and professional practices are no different. When the time comes, you want to be the first, most fitting name that comes to mind.?

In other words you need to earn a little fame?…and because it’s not an easy thing to do, you can use all the help you can get.

Yes your logo does the heavy lifting for your identity, but the role here of colours, patterns, shapes, fonts, symbols and other graphics is regularly underrated. Marketers call them distinctive assets or codes and these codes can make a useful contribution to your task of earning the fame you need.?

Often though, small, localised businesses make this task unnecessarily hard for themselves. They take short-cuts with their identities. They settle on logos that look obviously home-made and then handicap their marketing goals by also not developing any distinctive assets.

The most common justification for this approach is budget and it often comes from the mistaken view that any spending on appearance is a cost and not an investment. Building a brand is an investment and what the brand looks like is a big part of that.

Distinctive identity codes don’t just improve your ability to be distinctive, they make you more interesting. Used creatively they signal pride and enthusiasm for what you’re bringing to the world and they give wings to your promotions by helping them to be unmistakably yours.

Your promotions could be multi channel campaigns or simply posters or flyers, but even if you don’t have the budget to buy media, distinctive assets can certainly help you make the most of your owned media. Don’t just trademark your vehicles and signage and premises and stationery and brochures and website and apps, Code them visually too.