Transforming your small business into a brand

 

Building a brand 

The first step to transforming your small business into a brand is understanding what a brand is. A brand is defined as a name, or a type of product manufactured by a particular business. Your brand is essentially the personality, identity, and voice of your business. It shapes the impression your product leaves on a customer long after the sale has been made. According to Purely Branded, a brand ‘lives and evolves in the minds and hearts’ of consumers. Its identity is therefore crucial to the business’s future.

 

Brand logo

Your brand logo acts as the ‘face’ of your business – it helps to materialise your brand identity through visual elements. It may be visualised as the mental image a consumer associates your brand with, however, a good logo is always memorable. Through repeated exposure consumers become more familiar with brand elements, thus, your logo helps increase the salience of your brand. It should do more than just look good or interesting, as it has associative attributes, you want it to be something meaningful.

 

Establishing your company’s mission

When transforming your small business, you have to determine what you want your business to stand for. What is its purpose? This means writing out your mission statement and staying consistent with it - describing your vision and goals. Once your purpose is realised, it’s important to uphold it in all your interactions with your customers. For example, you can share your small business’s story and tap into emotion - more on this later.

 

Define your target audience 

This is an important step in market research. A helpful framework your business can use to assist you in this process is the STP framework. This involves segmenting your audience into smaller sub-groups based on shared characteristics, and then using targeted messaging to then determine how to best position your brand - influencing your audience’s perception of the product or service. Learning what your audience wants from your business is vital to creating a brand that people love. 

Credibility

Once you’ve established your brand identity, maintaining your business’s image and keeping it consistent is key to developing credibility and trust. The process of creating a brand identity should stem from your company’s brand promise, so make sure that your brand image remains congruent with your value proposition.

 

Stay flexible

In a rapidly changing world, businesses have to be prepared for change. Transforming your small business into a brand involves making adjustments, big or small, which have the potential to captivate your audience’s attention and have a significant impact. However, whilst educated guesses can be made about how the market will react to a particular strategy, consumers are unpredictable. They may react in a different way than you expected and you should prepare for that by being flexible. It’s important to note that any changes you make should be kept consistent throughout your entire brand.

 

Tap into emotion

Nowadays, brands represent much more than just a product or service. What makes certain brands stand out from the rest, is their ability to elicit an emotion. According to Motista, customers who have an emotional relationship with a brand will likely recommend the company at a rate of 71%. This number demonstrates the importance of developing an emotional relationship with your customer. Brands like Nike represent more than just shoes or clothing, Nike represents performance and motivation. Tying into their message of elite performance, they’ve managed to create an identity. In this sense, Nike’s products are identity forming and so when a consumer wears their products, they model the values of Nike. That’s why elite brands can serve as inspiration for your small business. Your business should be looking at ways to incorporate identity into your products and use association to tie in meaning.

           

Tell a story 

As a small business, you have the unique opportunity to share your story and integrate them into your business’ website. Through storytelling, you can reflect any aspect of your ‘business identity’ and create meaning for your brand. People love stories that move them emotionally and to action. More and more customers are looking at businesses for more than just what they sell, they want to support brands that believe what they believe in. By sharing your story, you give these customers the opportunity to discover a brand that aligns with their beliefs. 

           

Connect with the community

Another advantage of being a small business is that you can create a localised brand. Big businesses like Amazon or Tesla often aren’t in touch with local and relevant events in the community. However, as a small business you can get involved in the community and deepen the relationship between you and the customer. When customers feel like they can relate to the content you put out, response rates are improved, and the connection is deepened. Your small business can volunteer and organise cultural events or sponsor the local junior sports team. This will get your business out there, putting your brand image directly in front of your target audience. 

 

Deliver on customer service

When it comes to marketing, a customer-centric approach is paramount. Customer service is the key area you need to look at when you’re devising your plan on transforming your brand. Quality customer service means having multiple channels through which your customers can connect with you, be it social media, chatbots, or email. By making communication easy and accessible, you give your small business the right means to expand. Another way to keep customers happy is to post engaging and interactive content on your social media channels. This is the kind of content people want to see nowadays. According to Accenture, 33% of customers abandoned a business relationship last year because personalisation was lacking. They don’t want to feel marketed towards or targeted, the best ads are the ones that don’t feel like ads. 

 

Introduce video content 

One way of improving your content is through producing video content. With 4 times as many consumers who would rather watch a video than read to learn about a product, it’s clear why you should add videos into your repertoire. Videos are engaging and you can pack lots of information in them, but it’s critical to remain concise and to the point as you don’t want your videos to be too long. 

Transforming your small business is about first understanding what a brand is. Businesses should then focus on creating a face that aligns with their mission - establishing meaning and demonstrating the appropriate association between your brand and the right emotion. By tapping into emotion, you set your business apart from other businesses, becoming more than just a small business, you become a brand.

If your small business needs assistance in building your brand or help to develop a sophisticated marketing strategy, get in contact with an expert consultant today.