7 Small Business Branding Hacks for 2021
Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.
— Steve Forbes (Editor-in-Chief of Forbes business magazine)
Yes, even if you’re a small business, branding is essential for you. It is the way you define your business not only to yourself and your team but also to your external audience. Branding is the identity of your business.
Outlining the company’s commitment to its clients, branding creates a positive impact on the customers.
But branding can be a challenge for small or businesses at the infant stage. Because neither they are known to too many people, nor they can invest a lot of money and effort in distinguishing their brand from their competitors as the business giants do.
And that’s exactly why startups or small businesses need some smart tips to turn into a highly successful brand in the future.
Remember, all the big brands started off as small businesses once. So, keep your hopes high and follow these hacks to create a distinct brand identity for your small business.
Define Your Brand Identity
Identity is cause; brand is effect, and the strength of the former influences the strength of the latter.
— Larry Ackerman
Branding is more about defining your values, your visions, and who you truly are as a company. Just as much it is about the look and feel of your website’s visual assets, the same way, it is about how you treat your customers as well.
Hence, the first step of branding for small businesses is determining your brand identity or know who you are, who your target customers are, and what makes you unique as a brand and makes your business stand out in the crowd.
Focus On Brand Name And Logo
Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.
— Marty Neumeier
The logo and the name you choose for your small business define the look and feel of your brand.
While brand recognition starts with the name of your business; people associate brands with their logos. The logo serves as the face of your business.
Hence, create a memorable logo and a good name and start using them on your company’s website, products, services, promotional materials, social media posts, letterheads, business cards, and every online or offline media released on behalf of your company.
Create Unifying Brand Standards
Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception.
— Ashley Friedlein
Have you thought about how you can identify your favorite brands so easily even when you get just a glimpse of any of their branding elements?
Well, it is because they have standardized the branding format and always stick to those format standards.
So yes, to brand your small business, just creating a logo or brand name is not enough, you have to stick to their formats too.
Consistently use the same fonts, color, visual styles to maintain a cohesive brand image. It helps to build recognition with your audience and makes them remember who you are.
Be Original, Be Consistent
Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.
— Elon Musk
To truly break into the market as a brand, you need to be original with your ideas and content and consistent with your brand target.
Remember, as a small business you can neither afford to have any accusations of copying other more successful brands nor making any alterations now and then.
You don’t want the audience to have a wrong perception of your brand, right? It gets hard for the audience to trust a brand that copies others or changes its attitude constantly.
Maintain Quality & Be Daring
Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.
— Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
Quality is the key to creating an exceptional brand and there must be no negotiation regarding this.
No matter what service or product you’re offering, if you know you’re not compromising on the quality, you should be proud of it. Amidst the plethora of low-quality products, your quality products can be a breath of fresh air that the audience will remember, and would love to return to.
And the quality of your products is to get you far; then being bold and daring in presenting your brand and ideas will get you there much faster.
Being a small business you are not encumbered by the large layers of bureaucracy that can prevent you from being more flexible and meeting the ever-changing needs of your customers, right!
Then don’t hesitate to be different as it will make your branding efforts more effective.
Engage With Storytelling
Storytelling is a powerful way to bring brands to life.
— Bill Dauphinais
Do you know that a brand identity can be developed through the stories a brand decides to tell?
Brand storytelling not only increases brand awareness but also helps to build a strong emotional connection with your audience.
Since today’s consumers are driven by the personal connections they share with a brand, brand storytelling is an effective way of creating a successful brand image.
Brands like Nike, Liberty Mutual, Folgers, all have featured brand storytelling to make their brand marketing campaigns successful.
Leverage The Power Of Social Media
A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.
— Scott Cook
Believe it or not, but consumers control your brand, their opinion matters. And consumers talk about it on social media.
Hence, it’s time you open yourself up to the social media community, ask for their feedback, interact with your customers, foster a sense of trust and show your authority in your niche industry.
You don’t have to be on every social media platform. Just figure out where most of your target audience will be and start using that social media channel to tell your story and create a lasting impression on the customers.
EndNote
Branding doesn’t happen overnight!
Creating a successful brand identity and building a solid brand reputation requires time, patience, persistence, and strategic planning.
As said by Jeff Bezos, “Branding for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn recognition by trying to do hard things well.”
So, you have to be committed to the importance branding has to your small business’ success and start working on it.
But, wait! You don’t have to do this on your own! We can help you do so. We are the branding and digital marketing experts you can trust with confidence!
