Tweet

Keys to Branding Your Small Business

Written by: Jay Lipe

Article Overview: During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a rancher would mark his cattle with a brand. This brand, depicting an image unique to his ranch, distinguished his cattle from another’s in the event of a broken fence. Branding, in today’s modern marketing world, operates much the same way. It seeks to distinguish a product or service from the competition and create a lasting impression in a prospect’s mind.

Keys to Branding Your Small Business

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a rancher would mark his cattle with a brand. This brand, depicting an image unique to his ranch, distinguished his cattle from another’s in the event of a broken fence. Branding, in today’s modern marketing world, operates much the same way. It seeks to distinguish a product or service from the competition and create a lasting impression in a prospect’s mind.

Pay dear attention to your branding programs from the outset because they work to strengthen the “link of trust” between your company and its buyers.

Shaping your brand image
To start, consider first the personality of your company. Is it sexy or sweet? Tough or tender? Is it more like John Wayne or George Clooney or Andy Griffith? And if you think all this is hooey, consider these questions: Do Marlboros really taste better than other cigarettes? Is H&R Block superior to the tax accountant down the street? No, but a big reason these companies are leaders is because they’ve successfully built a personality around their brands.

Name; The first step
How different would you be if your name was Clem or Matilda? Your company name sets a tone for your brand, right from the start. Names can be generated from invented words (Xerox), initials (IBM) and founder’s names (Johnson & Johnson). Some of the best names though communicate a benefit (U-Haul or Budget Car Rental).

Logo; Your company’s symbol
A logo is a distinctive symbol or mark that visually represents your company. To get one that passes muster with the quality police, I recommend hiring a design firm. Because your logo is one of the first visual brand elements your buyers see, put some time and money into it.

If your logo will appear on fax cover sheets, fax it to yourself. If it will appear on billboards, enlarge it to 5 feet and see what it looks like (don’t laugh, I actually did this for a client). Put your logo through the quality checking paces before you use it. You’ll be glad you did.

Taglines; A memorable definition
I’m a big believer in taglines. In 10 words or less a good tagline can communicate the core essence of a brand to the market. And for small businesses, it can be one of the most efficient marketing weapons in their arsenal.

A tagline is simply a short description of a business’ reason for being. It could incorporate elements of its expertise, its target audience, even the markets it serves. A tagline can be both direct and subtle—whatever it takes to get the prospect to say to themselves “Oh, I get it.”

If you’re unfamiliar with taglines, work with a copywriter or marketing consultant. In an hour or two, they can take the core essence of your company’s brand and translate it into a memorable and pithy tagline.

Once you have a tagline, always connect it to your logo as a standard practice. Either place the tagline below your logo or alongside it. But, whenever your logo appears, your tagline should there with it.

Fonts and typestyles
Using the proper fonts and typestyles also define your brand. Try to standardize fonts and typestyles that appear routinely in your marketing materials. Use only a select few.

Hint: If you’re working with an advertising agency or marketing firm, make sure their designs use fonts that are readily available. A client of mine once worked with a designer on some marketing materials. The problem was the designer chose a very creative font that ended up also being hard to find. In the end, the client had to shell out hundreds more dollars to buy the font for its printer because they did not have it.

Colors: Creating a mood
How do you feel when you walk into a yellow room? When you see a sign with a red background color, what’s your first reaction? Colors generate emotional reactions, and it’s important to carry that over into your branding program.
So, here is a quick list of common colors and the emotions behind them:

Color Emotions behind the color
Red Stop, passion
Yellow Caution, cowardice
Green Go, safe
White Purity, virtue
Black Luxury, prestige
Blue Authority, calm
Orange Strength, stimulation
Brown Warmth, comfort

When deciding on your company’s color, pay attention to the colors used by your competitors. You don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by choosing a color already associated with your competitor.

The sounds of your brand
One company I call on the telephone plays rap over its on-hold system. I don’t know about you, but I believe there’s more to music than 3 bad chords and rotten lyrics. I hate being on hold with that company. And their relationship with me suffers ever so slightly each time I call. If your business has on-hold messaging, or your retail store has background music, make sure it’s appropriate.

Publish some guidelines
As your company grows, consider developing a brand manual. It can be as simple as a 3-ring binder that records how you want brand elements to appear. It should cover the use of your logo, type sizes/fonts/styles, guidelines for color or black and white, and where certain brand elements should be located on the page or screen.
This is a great resource for internal staff to follow and can also be used for new employee training.

Remember…
Your brand shows up in a wide variety of marketing vehicles. To help you identify all the places your brand can be found, I’ve developed a comprehensive Branding Checklist. For a free download, click here.


In the end, hold your branding efforts to the highest standard possible. Spend a little extra to keep your brand high-quality and consistent across your company. Your customers (both current and new) will thank you for it.

Related Articles
  The definition of branding
  Branding: 7 Important Questions and the Straight Answers
  Home Based Business Branding To Identify Your Opportunity
  The Value of Branding
  Building A Better Brand in the New Year

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
Exclusive: Interview with Results - Hi Forum Members, I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles). As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business. This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business. I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months. At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews. I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum. If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM. Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Re: Biz Plan Competition - i just wanted to say that posting Small Business Events on CanadaOne is a great resource. Thanks Julie!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to develop the best lateral thinking skills

Ready for a Fresh Image?

Five Daily Marketing Habits to Increase Sales

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.