How to start branding from scratch for small businesses?
As a small business owner, it’s obvious & valid to think branding is something that’s for big companies like Apple, Samsung & Google. But, that’s not true.
No matter how small or big your business is, if you are into business, then you must walk to the road of branding. Big companies may have a huge amount of money dedicated to branding & advertising. But, you don’t have spent thousands of dollars to promote your brand, you can always start with small.
There are tons of things that you can do to build an effective branding strategy and stand out from the crowd. Let’s look at some of the effective branding strategies that you can implement right now which will not only uplift your brand but it will also help to gain customer’s attention and make a business without costing you tons of money.
Discover who you are
Before going for branding, you need to discover who you are and why are you into a business. You need to identify your core business values, mission, and vision towards the company and your audience. Besides, you need to have a strong brand voice, which speaks on behalf of you.
Well, it’s kind of hard if you haven’t figured out who you are. But asking deeper questions related to business will take you closer to define your brand identity. You can start with questions like:
- How do you describe your company in three words?
- What do you want to be known for in the marketplace?
- What are your company’s core missions & values?
- What unique value do you offer to your audience?
- Why should people come and care about you?
- What kind of differences do you think you can make in your business industry?
Get a clear picture of your brand by answering all these questions. The more clarity you get, the more you can implement these things into your branding. Hence, your brand will be different, unique, and grab consumer attention as a result.
Research Competitors
The next effective branding process would be researching your competitors. No matter what you are trying to do, there are high chances that other companies are already doing it. So, if you want your business to be successful and stand out different from them, then you need to work very hard on your POD.
POD is simply a Point of Difference that makes your business look different from all the competitors in your industry. The more you work on your POD, the more it makes you special resulting in big sales and loyal consumers.
Your business POD can be anything. Let’s suppose, you are operating Mo: Mo house in your area, your POD can be your “Special Sauce”. It’s what makes your company unique. Now think what could be your POD? It could be your customer service, it could be your signature sauce, it could be you & family that has been serving the industry for generations.
Like we said earlier, it could be anything. Your job is to figure out what that unique POD and incorporate it into your brand.
Determine your target audience
Target audience, it’s one of the very important steps in branding. You can take this as the foundation of your brand as well. You are into business, you are serving people, but you can’t be everything to everyone, right?
Well, that’s where the targeted audience comes in. When you are building a brand, you need to figure out who’s your potential consumer and who exactly you are trying to reach. You need to build a strong buyer persona who is likely to buy your product or services. You can start identifying them with all these variables like:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income
- Education Level
Likewise, you can also identify them with their interest, goals, and factors that motivate them. Similarly, you can narrow down your audience and be the king of the niche market.
The identification of the audience plays a vital role in the overall process of branding. It is like an exercise where you have to know your audience, their desire, and what did they expect from you. If you can meet their expectation, then it will benefit all areas of your branding process and overall marketing efforts.
Visualize your brand
Once you identify your targeted audience and you’re done with who you are, the next step would be visualizing your brand from all the possible means. This process is equally important & crucial for both big and small companies.
Some of the things that you should not miss while visualizing your brand are:
- A brand style guide
Before you go for the design part, you need to figure out various elements like color palette, fonts, and design do’s and don’ts. A brand style guide is a great guide that helps everyone who is working on the design part to stay on the same page.
- Logo
Logo, it’s like the face of your company and it’s the first thing that people notice whenever they hear your company’s name. This is the first thing you need to focus on while getting into the design part.
- Website
At present, if your company doesn’t have a website then you’re going nowhere. The website is like the physical location of your business that millions of people can visit with a single click. Whenever people visit your website, they should feel nice and comfy. It should have reflected through brand style guidelines.
As a small business owner, these visuals aspects are quite enough. You may require additional branding assets like packaging, letterhead, stamp, and many more. But that’s not important at the moment. For now, be consistent with your work. Whenever your consumer encounters your product, they should feel the same with the look, feel, and design.
If they’re confused, then be sure that you lose them and the winner will be your competitors. Branding is all about consistent and hard work. Likewise, it won’t happen in a day, it takes time.
Let us know about your company and we will guide you through all your branding needs.
