Dedicating limited time and resources, as a small business, to a long-term venture is never an easy decision to make. Plus, it could be challenging to quantify the impact of branding on one’s bottom line, whether in the short or long run.

However, available evidence suggests that investing shrewdly in branding always pays, whether you’re a shop down the road or a Fortune 500 Company. A 2017 study commissioned by Wunderman revealed that 89% of consumers stay loyal to brands that share their core values. If you do not pay attention to small business branding, it will be hard to project your values and subsequently attract loyal customers.

If you’re looking to get a hang of branding for small businesses and how to build a memorable brand, this guide is a great place to start.

laptop, monitor and keyboard along with a branding booklet on a desk

What is business branding?

Business branding refers to the process of researching, developing, and implementing a set of distinct features to your business so that consumers can distinguish you from other businesses. The overall aim of branding is to give your business a unique identity and positively influence how your customers perceive you.

Why is business branding important?

Here are a few more reasons why you should pay attention to branding for your small business:

Provides a direction for your marketing efforts

The right brand strategy helps businesses maintain a consistent tone in their marketing communications. It imparts a general direction for your marketing efforts, influencing the platforms you’ll choose

Builds trust and loyalty

The overall aim of small business branding is to create the right perception among your customers. When you present your business in a way that resonates with your target audience, they’re more likely to trust you and stay loyal to the brand.

Aids recognition

Good branding practice advocates having a consistent design and tone across your physical store, online store, social media pages, marketing channels, and all other points of contact. Thus, it becomes much easier for people to recognize your brand even without seeing the name.

What are some branding tips every small business owner should know?

Building a truly memorable brand requires a great deal of intentionality, consistency, and patience. However, your business is bound to reap the rewards if you can push through. Below are a few important guidelines on how to brand your business to stand the test of time:

Define your mission statement

The first step towards building a brand that lasts is to ask yourself why you’re in business. When you’re able to articulate the motivation behind your company, you can craft a mission statement that accurately encapsulates your purpose and plans as an organization.

At its best, a mission statement sets the direction of other branding efforts. Through your mission statement, you can define your organizational values, core functions, goals, and how you plan to serve your target audience. Since the statement is going to be a key part of your company culture, you should try your best to ensure it reflects what you truly stand for as a brand.

Determine your target audience

The next step towards building any brand is to determine who you’re building for. If you don’t get this step right, it might be difficult to fully reap the rewards that come with having a cohesive brand strategy. Remember, it’s the customers that bring the awareness, recognition, trust, and revenue you want your brand to generate. That’s why you need to learn all you can about your buyer personas and target audience. Doing that will ensure your branding decisions reflect their wants and preferences.

Create the visual elements

Your brand’s visual elements include your logo, colour palette, iconography, fonts, themes, and other aspects of visual design. These are typically the first things customers notice about the business. Thus, it’s vital to create a good first impression while maintaining a high standard of quality and uniqueness.

Importantly, you also have to be consistent with your visual elements across all platforms. That is, your website, social media pages, email blasts, physical store, fliers, and every other point of contact should have a consistent design and team. This would help you achieve the ultimate goal of branding, which is to ensure your audience can recognize you anywhere they see you.

Furthermore, it’s always advisable to come up with a brand style guide while designing your visual elements. The guide will provide an insight into the composition and application of the elements, and ensure any designer or agency will remain consistent with your branding style.

Find your voice

The next component to consider will be how you communicate with your target audience. Ideally, you should have a brand voice that resonates with your core values and target audience. For example, if you’re a skincare brand that cares about clean products and the environment, then you should incorporate words like healthy, natural, clean, inclusive, environmentally friendly, green, etc. into your copy.

As always, your brand voice should remain consistent across all your channels. Thus, if you want to portray yourself as a hippie, millennial-friendly brand, you should maintain the same tone in your emails, social media posts, website content, blog posts, etc. Even seemingly official communications like press releases should still reflect your voice as much as possible.

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How do you put your branding to work?

Once you’re done with the basics of branding your business, you’d have to integrate the new brand throughout every phase of your business. Importantly, it would be best to pay attention to all customer touchpoints, whether physical or virtual. Below are a few ways you can apply your brand:

Website: Logo, typography, colour palette, copies, CTAs, product descriptions, etc.
Social media: Profile photos, posts, captions, and even sponsored ads
Physical store or Product pack: The design, colour, size, and texture of your packaging materials should reflect your brand if you run a product business.
Advertising: Digital and print advertisements, business cards, promotional materials, etc.

Building a positive brand image and perception is an investment that promises to yield massive returns. However, the results of business branding do not appear overnight. You’ll have to be consistent with your efforts and ensure you’re always focused on the big picture. Importantly, your branding strategy should not only focus on tangible aspects like imagery, voice, logo, and other visual elements. You should pay equal attention to customer experience because this is what truly differentiates your brand from the rest of the pack.

An introductory guide to branding for small businesses in 2022