There is an old saying; you must learn to crawl before you walk. It has never been truer than when it comes to branding. So many small businesses embark on growing a brand before it is established. The result is a hodgepodge of confusing imagery and messaging, a failure to connect with prospects, customers and even employees – potential brand advocates-, a lack of credibility, and a waste of time and money (if there was a budget in the first place). If you have leaped onto the branding bandwagon, take a few steps back to focus on the basics: commitment, continuity, and consistency, the 3Cs of small business branding.
Commitment
Branding is a process. It requires more than a command of marketing buzzwords social media platforms. It’s a process built on planning, time, and a budget. In an interview with OPENforum, widely respected branding guru Mary Van de Wiel, of The NY Brand Lab, put it best:
So your brand is what sets you and your business apart. It’s never just your logo, name or tagline. It has a real and distinct personality, an energy and attitude, character, behavior, value system, code of ethics. Your brand reflects who you are (you’re the Brand Guardian, after all), what you believe in, what you offer and why you do what you do. And, of course, why it matters.
Your brand matters, you bet—no matter how big or small. No matter whether you’re wearing pinstripes in a corner office or fluffy rabbit slippers in the back bedroom. If you have a small business and an online presence, you’re on the global map (whether you like it or not!). After all, in this virtual world, everyone has total access and can come knocking on your virtual door any time, day or night. So if you’re interested in a business with customers, you’re going to want a brand because without it, you lack an identity, a pulse, a presence—and a purpose.
Read Branding for Small Business: Does it Really Matter at OPENforum.com.
If you are committed to your brand, you will want to dust-off and open the pages of your business plan. How did you define the business and its unique selling proposition? Does the business plan include a marketing plan? If not, get to work. Here are three previous posts to guide you along the way.
- Two Blueprints for Success: A Business Plan, A Marketing Plan
- Five Reasons Why a Marketing Plan is the Key to A Good Night’s Sleep
- 3 Often Ignored Elements of a Simple Marketing Plan
Continuity & Consistency
These two Cs form the pillars of how the audience experiences your brand. Without a unified visual, written, and verbal approach to all marketing and communications activities, and a strategy to deliver repeated messaging to your audience across all channels, the brand is like an emperor with no clothes.
A few tips:
- Develop a brand bible (some refer to this as a stylebook), a set of guidelines for both your offline and online identity. The guidelines address the use and application of your image, including colors and fonts, voice/tone, messaging, including the elevator pitches, boilerplates, and slogans, spokespersons, mascots, and more. A brand bible is necessary to have for every business, no matter its size.
- Take inventory of your marketing and communications assets. Do they adhere to the standards in the brand bible? LGK’s Marketing Assets Toolkit provides an inventory checklist you may find helpful.
- Remember the marketer’s Rule of 7: A prospect needs exposure to a message at least seven times before deciding to take action.
- Sweat the small stuff because you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Seize the opportunity to build and strengthen your brand in often-overlooked places, both internally and externally, and beyond the product and marketing collateral. Are you reinforcing who you are on email accounts and signatures, telephone greetings, documents and forms such as memos, estimates, invoices, billing statements, and reports? There is a disconnect if a prospect sees your brand one way on a proposal and another way via, let’s say, social media. There is a disconnect when your email address is different from the domain address. Many online administrative solutions allow you to customize your customer interface portals and deliverables. Never discount the power of branding. Seize the opportunity.
How does your brand stack up to the three Cs? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section of this post.
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