Crafting Your Identity: A Guide to Small Business Branding Success
Branding Tips for Small Businesses
Branding your business is always a challenge, even for big brands with resources at their disposal; but for small businesses, the budget is tighter so investing in branding can be an even bigger hurdle. With limited resources, it’s even more important to come up with a brand strategy for your small business. Knowing what the benefits of branding for a business are is the key to gaining a bigger audience and an even bigger return on investment. In return, you can use your profit gains to get more resources for future use.
Lost on what to do for your small business branding initiatives? No worries – we’re here to help! Here are some of our branding tips for your small business to reach success.
Develop a clear brand strategy
In order to create effective branding for any small business, we must first establish who the brand is. Before diving into the creative elements that everyone loves, like logos and colours, we first have to look at why your brand is here in the first place. A few questions you can ask yourself when it comes to what your brand’s strategy is are:
- What is your brand’s purpose?
- Who is your brand helping?
- What is your brand vision and/or mission?
- What does your brand believe in?
- What are your brand pillars?
This can be an overwhelming process – branding for small businesses isn’t for the faint-hearted! However before we can cultivate the ideal branding for your business, we need to answer these big questions before we dive into the other elements of branding.
Determine your brand voice
Aside from the visuals, having a clear and consistent tone of voice (TOV) in all your communications is needed for brand-building. Your TOV sets the tone on how you’ll be communicating towards the audience. It also helps you pin down what TOV works best for your market. For example, if you’re a cafe catering to nearby university students, a more casual TOV will fare better.
Having the right TOV can also help evoke the right emotional response from your audience. This is helpful in certain marketing tactics such as telling your brand story. By employing a more wistful and emotional TOV, you’ll connect better with your audience and gain more trust from your target market.
Come up with a memorable brand name and logo
The first thing is to come up with a brand name that stands out among the rest. Remember, a good brand name is memorable, meaningful, and easy to pronounce and spell. Brainstorm ideas together with your team based on your company’s services, audience, or anything that strikes inspiration. Afterwards, refine your ideas and have a back-and-forth to discuss what works and what doesn’t.
Designing a new logo pretty much works the same way. Having a clear understanding of your brand, mission, vision, and services can help you craft your business’s visual identity. Be mindful of the font, colour, or symbols you use, as these can carry a significant meaning to your logo. Get ready for rough drafts and sketches along the way, for these will be crucial in finalising the perfect logo for your brand.
Craft a brand guideline for reference
Once you have a name and a logo ready, it’s time to build the visuals around it. Having brand guidelines, even for small businesses such as yours, is an absolute must. Not only does a brand bible make it easier and quicker to create visuals and write text for your assets it also keeps everything you release neat and consistent. Customers tend to recognise your brand when all your collaterals have a clear visual indicator.
When creating your list of brand guidelines, don’t forget to include the nitty-gritty, seemingly minor details of your branding. This includes the logo, font, colour pallettes, spacing guidelines, logo do’s and don’ts, and more. The more comprehensive it is, the more consistent and organised your brand will look.
Grow your online presence through your website and social media
What’s the use of having these visual and tone guidelines if you don’t have an online presence that reflects these rules? Having a website and social media pages is the bare minimum when it comes to establishing an online presence. With these assets, you can connect better with your audience online and build your brand from there.
When crafting your website or curating your social media content, always go back to your set brand guidelines to use as a reference. This helps catch and prevent any mistakes before a post or a web page goes live. The process of checking and rechecking your brand bible might seem tedious, but it’ll be more beneficial for your content and assets in the long run.
If social media isn’t your thing, head over to our social media agency, REALE; a multifaceted group of innovators working with all things social to create genuine partnerships, connections and campaigns that change the trajectory of your brand.
Work with a branding solutions provider for your small business
While these tips are meant to make it easier for business owners to come up with a good brand strategy for their small business, it’s not as simple as it seems. With no branding expertise and knowledge, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and come up with less-than-stellar strategies as a result. But by outsourcing branding services for your small business, you’ll be able to lighten the load and focus on your strengths while the pros do the rest.
At ARTHAOS, we know what branding for a business is. With the most experienced and passionate creatives working alongside your business, you can rest assured knowing your strategy is in the right hands. Leave everything to us and we’ll make your brand soar with the right branding strategies for small businesses. In need of the right people and branding tactics to liven up your business’s online presence and see profit? Chat with us for a quick assessment of your brand needs. Get started on your journey to stronger, bolder branding!
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