Believe in the small business brand

Why do I believe in the small business brand?

A strong brand = sales. There are a lot of marketers that will tell you that 'branding' and 'small business' do not go together, for one simple reason. Money. Large company marketers recognise that it takes a lot of money (and marketers) to achieve 'brand building' - a type of marketing that they believe doesn't earn you sales in the short term - more of an awareness thing that helps the 'real' marketing work better. For a small business, your brand is everything to do with sales. And by branding, I mean the experience of you as a business, from other people's point of view.

From the very first impression

Whether you are investing in marketing, or still believe word of mouth is the only way to go for you - brand building is what you are doing from the first impression of your business, through your years of servicing a customer.

How am I brand building?

This includes what it is like to talk to you, the business owner - as a supplier, customer, or someone simply giving you a look over. How do you talk, what kind of personality do you have? What are your product/s and services like, and what they do for people? Are they what you say they are? Do you communicate properly what they really are? How your employees handle situations, enquiries, messages, complaints, greet potential customers. Do you take the time to answer a silly question? Can you be found on the internet, and does your business card look anything like your website? Is that leaflet doing you any favours? How you deliver your product/ service and follow up? How quickly do you act? Do buyers have a good experience using your product, get real value or a result from your service? Do you help them to use it properly? Is it enjoyable popping into your shop, or do people want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible? Is it the same for your website? Do you make it easy or really painful to buy from you? If you ask for feedback, what do you do when you get it? Do you send a defensive note, or do something about it? Do you appear to be like your customers, or are you what they aspire to be like, or even a guilty pleasure? If the customer comes back again, can they buy the same experience again? Or is it all a bit hit and miss? Does your blog give a reader a chance to get to know you and your business in a different way? What kind of tweets do you do? All of these are ways a small businesses can build a brand - which is largely a memory of your business that people create, based on their experience of you. Big businesses have to spend money creating experiences or ways to show what their brand is, to reinforce, sharpen and evolve the memory of their brands because they have so many more people to reach, remind and reassure in the face of other companies that want the business. As a small business, you pay in effort (to create a worthwhile customer experience), and occasionally in money (for the right reasons).

What is a brand?

A brand is: 1. What your business is about - your purpose - and the way this is brought into everything you do; and 2. It's how a person experiences what you do, and the memory they create as a result.

What could your brand be?

Whether you are a painter known for great work at speed; a friendly butcher that remembers who likes lamb chops; a printing firm that always makes the deadline; an accountant that really 'gets' a specific industry; a family restaurant where the waiters don't mind that the kids spilled their drinks 3 times; the gym where worries slip away as you enter; the IT support guys that really listened to what the problem was; the florist who knows the colour scheme of your home; the local farmer who makes unbelievable sausages from happy pigs; the corner shop that always stocks the right milk; the hairdresser that remembers to ask how Mum is; the coffee shop that makes the usual as the customer walks in; or the baker who makes the best bagette for 50 miles - your brand will be what your customers experience. If they make a memory of you that does something for them, promises irresistible value, they will buy what you sell. Your brand will deliver sales.

Take control of your brand.

The effort to build your brand should be purposeful - that way, it's not a question of 'we're doing something right, but we're not sure what'. Or worse - 'something just isn't working, but we can't pinpoint what it is'. Taking control of your brand is about defining what is key to making it happen consistently, and be consistently meaningful for the people you come into contact with.

What does a logo do then?

A brand is so much more than a logo, but often a logo is the button that a person presses to remind themselves of the memory of the experience of that business. Make it an attractive button.

Be remembered for the right reasons

And yes, for a small business, the brand is key to sales - in your marketing it is the key that helps to make the first sale, and then the memory of the experience is what helps the customer to come back or to recommend you. Often small businesses have so much competition and can be easy to forget, so the strength of the brand is what will make one chosen over another time and time again, and be remembered. Be proud of your brand. Bronwyn Durand founded JupiterJasper, the Marketing Mentor for small businesses. Bronwyn consults on commercial identity as The Brand Whisperer. Do you get my free weekly email? Sign up to '1 Thing to Improve Your Marketing this week' here.