As a small business owner, you might think that branding strategies are one of the best things about Apple, Google, and McDonald’s. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how big your company is (or how small it is!). If you are a business, you need to think about branding strategies for your own business.
Big companies may have large budgets that can be used to create an identity. However, you don’t need a bank account like Apple’s to create better branding strategies. In fact, don’t forget that most of these big brands today started out from their founders’ closet! Of course, there are many ways you can differentiate your business, attract the attention of your customers, and make your business memorable without hitting your budget. Below, we share three key tips to help take your small business’s branding to the next level.
1. Define Your Brand’s Identity
Branding strategies are more than just the logo and fonts you put on your website. Your branding is who you are as a company – your values and your purpose. It’s the way you treat your customers, as well as the look and feel of your visual assets. So, before you move forward with more tactical steps in your business strategies (such as designing your logo), you should take the time to clarify who you are as a company, in other words, your brand identity.
There are a few steps to the process:
a) Figure Out Who You are as a Business
If you already have a clear idea of who you are as a brand, that’s fine – but if you don’t, that’s ok too. It’s time to do some corporate soul searching. Asking yourself some in-depth questions can help you discover who you are and who you want to be as a brand. When defining your brand identity, ask yourself questions such as:
- If I were to describe my company in three words, what would they be?
- What do I want to be known for within my community/industry?
- What are the core functions and values of my company?
- What kind of difference do I want to make in my career?
The more clarity you get about who you are and how you want to portray your brand, the easier it is to set a focused brand identity that will stand out and attract the attention of customers.
Take for instance, in 2019, Zara has been ranked 29th on Interbrand’s list of best global brands. Zara’s core values were often described in four simple words – beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability. The brand leveraged on its efficient production process to regularly churn out the latest fashion. This earned them the reputation of “freshly baked clothes” in the fashion industry, as quoted by numerous media outlets. Zara was so well-loved by people because it filled the gap in the market to provide quality yet affordable products.
b) Figure Out Who’s Your Target Audience
This may seem obvious, but there are small businesses that focus more on figuring out who they are and what kind of products or services they want to offer. Yet completely ignoring who they are trying to sell those products to. As a result, their branding suffers.
Take some time to define your ideal customer by asking yourself:
- Who are they? How old are they? Are they mostly a certain gender?
- Are they able to afford my products/ items or services?
- What are they expecting from the companies they do business with?
- What is important to them? Why do they need it?
- When will they use your product or service?
You may end up with more than 1 target audience group or the groups may overlap but it’s good to zoom in on one group if you’re just starting out. Alternatively, compare against your existing power users to see how similar they are to your ideal customer.
When you know who your target audience is, you can use it to guide your branding strategies and customer-facing communications. The end result will be a brand that truly connects with the customers you want to work with most.
c) Establish your “Special Ingredient” – Point of Difference
Regardless of what your business does, chances are, there are already other companies doing the same thing. Therefore, if you want your business to stand out, figuring out your point of difference (POD) is key! You need to figure out what makes it stand out. Your POD is what makes you special; it’s what makes a customer choose your company to do business with over your competitors. It should be integrated into every part of your branding strategies.
Your POD doesn’t have to be something earth-shattering. Think of it this way: if your company sells leather jackets, your POD is your “special ingredient”, making you unique. “Special ingredients” could be using ethically sourced materials in your products or having the best customer service and more! Whatever it is, figure out what makes your business stand out—and build that POD directly into your brand identity.
d) Get Clear on What’s Working in Your Industry
You want your branding to stand out and be different. But if you want to have effective branding strategies, you also need to keep watch of what’s working (and what’s not working) in your industry.
Take stock of your competitors and what they’re doing. Notice any trends? For example, let’s say you’re launching a new fashion brand. Take note of your competitor’s branding colours and style – do they focus efforts exclusively on their websites or utilise other social media platforms? While you don’t want to steal nor copy off brands in the market that you aspire to be, take stock of industry trends to get a sensing of what’s connecting your ideal market. You can also derive insights from competitors who are not doing as well to learn from them before building your brand identity with some groundwork!
2. Get visual with your branding
Once you’ve defined who you are, who your customers are, where you excel at, and what works in your field; it’s time to start designing your brand. This step is important as you want to brand your small business as a well-established business. The following highlights some things to look for when selecting designing your brand identity.
Designing Your Brand Identity
- A brand style guide: Before you start designing, it is important to identify details. This includes your brand colour palette, fonts, and your design strategy, such as do’s and don’ts. This is a great way to organize your design details and ensure that you, your designer and anyone else working on your brand are on the same page with your brand direction.
- A company logo: Your logo is essentially the face of your company; This is the first thing your customers see when they encounter your brand. The company logo is a visual asset that is most closely associated with your business. Your logo should be the first thing you design because it will act as a jumping point for all your other displays (such as your website and your business cards). Some free platforms you can use to get started include FreeLogo Design, Hatchful and Tailor Brands Logo Maker.
- Business cards: Business cards might seem outdated but they’re still heavily used when meeting a potential partner or networking to spread awareness about your brand.
- A website: Your website is like your company’s digital real estate – and when people visit your website, the look and feel should match the rest of your business. Making sure to read up on available resources such as SaaS tools, on how to build a website best for conversions.
Depending on your business, you may need additional branding assets (such as product packaging), but the most important thing to keep in mind? Regardless of where customers meet your brand, the look, feel and design should be consistent. If you are not sure how to brand your business, you will confuse your customers and ultimately lose them to the competition. Instead, you can check out free resources online to standardize your branding.
3. Look Out for Partnership/Collaboration Opportunities
People want to interact and transact with brands that they trust. However, if you are new to the industry, it will definitely take time to grow the confidence in your brands. How then can you speed up the process? The fastest way to do it would be to seek out partnership opportunities with other brands that serve your target audience but are not directly competing with you. For example, Uniqlo often collaborates with different artists/brands (such as Billie Eilish) to push out clothing lines. This encourages fans of Billie Eilish to purchase Uniqlo clothing and attracts attention towards Billie Ellish’s songs.
In essence, if a customer is introduced to your brand by a brand that your customers already know and trust, they are more likely to expand that trust to you and consequently deliver their business to you.
To Wrap it Up
Ultimately, to build a strong and recognised brand for small businesses, the most important aspect to start with would be to know oneself. Otherwise how else can you portray a consistent brand identity or messages to your customers? From little details such as the colour and feel of your visual branding, it is of top priority to spend time understanding how your brand can strategically position itself in the industry. Likewise, in this aspect, Shopform’s value proposition is based on user-generated content in social commerce. By building a community on our platform where consumers share about the different brands they purchase from, this could be a good start point for you to conduct your market research and build your branding!