Tips for Branding Your Business
Branding is a fairly broad term and it basically means all of the elements that are related to your business that people associate with. In other words, branding is the personality of your business. This encompasses many different factors such as the name of your business, the logo, the tagline or slogan or an advertising jingle. It may also include many other intangible qualities such as a specific niche or specialty area that your business services, some particular qualities about your business or staff or dozens of other attributes which creates a perception of what your business is like. I will address some of the more important factors of branding your business and ways to create a brand. Many public relations firms consider branding to be an important element of your overall marketing plan.
The Single Most Important Element of Branding
If I was asked what the single most important element of branding is, I would have to say your logo. The reason I feel this way is because your company’s logo design and its particular color theme will be the underlying visual component of virtually all of your online and off-line advertising and marketing. The logo will be used on your website, vehicle signage, business cards, stationery, office forms, wearable items such as shirts uniforms and caps, brochures and virtually every other type of marketing or promotional piece.
A Professionally Designed Logo Will Pay For Itself Many Times Over
Your company’s logo plays an important role in the perception your customers and prospects have of your business and it is something that will most likely remain unchanged as long as you are in business. Therefore having a logo design that presents the image and message you want is important. The average price for a professionally designed logo is about $300 and that is money well spent. It is one of the most recognizable components of your business and consumers immediately place a higher perceived value of the company that has a professionally designed logo over one that does not. People feel that if a company has invested the money in a professionally designed logo, it probably will be around for a while.
What Else Matters About Branding?
Besides the visual components of branding such as the logo, a catchy slogan or tagline is also an important factor in helping you to brand your business. I am not talking about some lame, generic tagline such as “When Quality Counts” or “Call Us When You Want it Done Right”. That shows a complete lack of creativity and in my opinion it insults the intelligence of your prospect because those are the things that everybody wants from a company and certainly does nothing to separate you from the pack.
The Elements of an Effective Tagline
An effective tagline should really be a mini mission statement that defines your best quality, most important area of service or type of product or whatever else you feel sets you apart from your competition. Making your business honestly stand out from your competition is one of the underlying core benefits of branding. I suggest you put some thought into this and decide who your target market is or what specific product or service you want to be the authority on. I’m not saying that you have to limit yourself to only marketing a particular product or service, but it will assist you in your branding efforts to be associated with something specific such as that.
How You Can Brand Your Business
Here are some examples that may help you to better understand the concept of branding. If you are an auto detailing service, some suggestions for branding could be experts at pet stain removal or pet odor removal, RV boat or aircraft detail specialists, no extra charge for weekend service, heavy oxidation removal specialists, the leading company in the area using XYZ equipment or technology, luxury or exotic cars, antique vehicles or using all eco-friendly or green products. All of those specialties or sub niches could potentially brand your business and make people want to go to you first when they think of that particular type of service. Most people prefer to deal with a company who appears to be an expert in a particular area.
Other Ideas for Branding Your Business
If you are a home remodeling business, some of the suggestions for branding would be all of our workers are employees no subcontractors used, visit our website to see a list of our satisfied customers, we offer the longest guarantee, in business for 40 years at the same location, family-owned and operated for three generations, top-rated on Angie’s list, top-rated by Better Business Bureau or similar notable qualities such as that.
Other Resources for How to Brand Your Business
If you are stuck for some ideas, I suggest you go to Google and type in one of the main keywords for your business and take a look at the top three businesses that appear in the organic search results. Typically those top three results will get between 60-70% of all the clicks. There is a reason they are in those top positions so it would be a good idea to study them. I’m not saying to copy what they do at all because their business model might be different from yours. However, you can at least get an idea of how they present themselves to give you some insight on how you might improve the image of your business and website.
To summarize this, branding yourself is partly about creating a visual brand revolved around a professionally designed logo and color scheme that will be carried throughout all of your online and off-line marketing. The other part of the branding component would be to position yourself as the local expert. You want your customers and prospects to believe that you are the most qualified company for solving their particular problem. You want to create the perception in their mind (and be able to back it up) that you are the go to person that can best serve their needs. This may take a while because it may take some time to refine what you are doing and also determine what it is that you are best at. Surprisingly many businesses have never thought about this so the answer might not be obvious. The important thing is to get started and you can adjust it as you go.
