You might be asking, “what is a brand?” For starters in the business, it might be quite difficult to come up with your unique brand. Products can easily be decided but when it comes to your own brand, there are many competitions in your niche and you just want to stand out.
So, what is branding? And why is it important to put your products out there? I summed up a few pieces of information to guide you, business rookies, on achieving a fully-fledged brand.
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Table of Contents
What is Branding?
A simple search on google can easily define branding as “a name, term, design, symbol or any feature that identifies one’s seller goods or services as distinct from those other sellers.” The term is used in business, advertising, and marketing.
Think of your favourite fast-food chains for example, how does Mcdonald’s differ from KFC? When you think about it, it’s almost the same. They sell the same food products but because of their logo, slogan, and overall branding, we can easily distinguish the two even from afar. That’s how branding works.
Importance of branding
- Identity and Reputation
Branding helps customers easily identify your products or services. So the next time when they purchase from your store, they’d know what to expect. Good branding can set you apart even from multiple competitors.
Good branding plus quality products or services can help increase your brand value and awareness. The more you get good reviews, the more customers will trust you.
- Build Confidence
When you show your brand to the public make sure that you stand by it. This creates confidence and trust in the public. The more confident you are of your business, it is easier for you to identify your customers and know what they want.
- Setting the purpose and direction
Establishing a brand is setting purpose and direction. When you know what you want to deliver, you can now implement your brand values and reach out to like-minded audiences.
- Higher sales
The most important one, which every new business owner wants, is consistent growth in sales. When you see that your hard work has paid off, and your customers are satisfied, that means you’ve successfully built a good brand image.
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Branding for small business
So for small businesses like mine, where do you actually start? It’s easy actually, get to know what you’re selling.
Ask yourself, what are your products or services?
What is it that you are good at or what can you offer to potential customers? I know that some of you have already decided on that, so we can skip this part…
Research!
When it comes to research make sure you know who you’re selling to. You can create a buyer persona, this is a detailed description of your potential customers. Questions like what do they want? what are their hobbies? or even their dislikes? how much time do they spend on social media? just to name a few. You can find examples of these questions or buyer persona templates online.
photo credit: 10 Customer Persona Tools & Templates (contentharmony.com)
Another thing to research is your competitors. A competitor’s analysis is research that involves your competitors, basically an in-depth sight of what they offer? their target market? their marketing strategies? social media apps they use? and more.
Doing research is very important and can be easily done by anyone who is starting a small-scale business. This helps you get the general idea of the business industry you’re entering and will help you a lot in your future marketing strategies.
Build brand assets or brand design.
We cannot overlook the creative process of branding. This is when you start to make your assets like your logos, typography, colour palettes, photography style, copy (tone or voice), general art direction, etc. Creating your visual and copy guidelines help you sustain consistent and cohesive branding.
For someone in my industry as a new business entrepreneur, digital templates really involve a lot of visual aesthetics due to the competitive industry.
As you can see, Designs & Art by Rae uses the colour red, with an illustration design as a logo, and a friendly voice in copywriting.
Create a brand story!
It’s basically the vision and mission statement of your brand, crafting a good brand story helps customers empathize and understand what your brand stands for. Make sure that it is authentic and faithful to its promises.
More Tips on Branding for Small Businesses
- Standout with your branding
Think about your uniqueness and what makes you stand out from others? What can you offer that they can’t? Make sure you commit to your mission statement.
- Create your website
A professional-looking website builds trust and helps customers connect with your products or services. Website creators like WordPress, Wix, GoDaddy are free.
- Connect visually
Your brand visuals can help you stand out among others. Graphic design apps like Canva are very friendly to use for business owners in creating graphic assets.
For my business, for example, I create affordable templates for women entrepreneurs and anyone in the industry who’d love feminine designs to use for their business.
- Choose wisely your social platforms
If you’re selling digital products like me, connect with potential customers using social media sites like Instagram or Facebook, especially groups specifically for your niche. There are so many ways to potentially get clients to utilise these free apps for your business. Also, try to look at other social channels like Pinterest or Tiktok. These apps can elevate you to success.
I even wrote about Pinterest for beginner’s so make sure to check that out!
Starting out a business is not easy however with hard work, dedication, and creating the right strategies, you will find your success as even as a beginner. So don’t lose hope, and always be confident with your products or services.
These are only a few suggestions to help you get started but hopefully, these nuggets of information may help you. Don’t be scared to continuously progress and tweak your branding as time pass by.
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