Does a Brand Really Matter If You’re a Small Business?
Yes. Absolutely, yes!
I was reminded of the importance of small business branding when I read a recent post on Duct Tape Marketing which asked the question in preparation for a March 18 webinar. (Click here to get the archived webinar)
Your brand is a vital part of your business even if you are a one-person shop. Your brand is the sum total of what you and your company represent to the world. Thus, when we hear Coca Cola or see the NIKE swoosh, all of our experience with those brands flood into our brains. So, it is with you and your company.
You need a brand. To build your brand, you must understand the most important problems you can solve for your customers—and how to position your company as the ideal solution provider. You can’t do everything to help your customers, but you can do one thing—or a few things—brilliantly. That’s the essence of your brand promise: “What problems can our customers expect to solve by working with our company?”
Don’t try to promise the world. Not so long ago I ran into a solopreneurship whose company name attempted to do exactly that: [Company Name] Does it all! Since this was a one person company, that brand promise was unfulfillable. But, even worse, the promise everything brand made it difficult for anyone to remember and repeat exactly what this person brought to the customer table.
Contrast that with Shama Hyder’s company brand, ClicktoClient.com: “The Online Marketing Experts”. When you reach her website, you know exactly how she can help you and that she understands your marketing challenges from her home page:
Losing business because you aren’t fully leveraging the internet?
You are in the right place. We can help.
Click to Client is a full service online marketing firm that excels at 2 things:
- Training individuals and companies to be online marketing rock stars in their own right.
- Serving as the outsourced “in-house” online marketing department for companies around the world.
After a quick visit to Shama’s website, I know exactly what she does, how she can help me, and how I would describe her services to prospects.
So, yes your small company brand is not only important, it is vital to your success.
In that spirit, you’ll want to access the archived Duct Tape Marketing Small Business Branding Webinar.
Here’s what you’ll learn and who will be teaching you:
The “Truth” About Small Business Branding – using your small business brand to outsmart the competition – a panel discussion featuring practical branding tips and tactics from leading small business branding experts
Panelists:
» Karen Post – The Branding Diva & Author of Brain Tattoos
» John Moore – Creator of Brand Autopsy & Author of Tribal Knowledge
» Sam Horn – Author of Pop! – Stand out in any crowd
» Aaron Weiss – Chief Product Officer for MarketSplash
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Comments [7]
Amen, Newt. You don’t just need a brand, you have a brand if you run a business, small or otherwise. Every time you interact with your customers, employees or vendors you are building a brand. So, it is better to think about what you want the brand to be and be proactive in brand building. If you don’t position yourself, others will position you.
Branding is TOTALLY over-rated for one-person companies selling B2B. The people who generally promote branding are in B2C advertising, design, or marketing. And this concept that everything you do and everything you say is part of your brand… nonsense! For a small business, a memorable name, a tasteful logo that you use consistently, a clear positioning statement, and a firm grip on your value proposition are all you ever need. Leave it to Coca-Cola and Nike to spend their millions on branding. Small B2B services don’t have the money to waste. And when a corporate buyer needs of a service, they don’t sit there with all your branding rushing into their brains. They think, “Do I need this guy? Did he perform last time? can I afford him? Great!” and they pick up the phone. I say again, don’t waste your precious money on branding exercises beyond what I listed above.
Gordon,
Thanks for taking time to comment.
Your point about not spending big bucks on branding is valid for small business. But, what I’m really driving at is that you still need to create your brand in the sense of making it crystal clear to your customers and prospects what they will experience and how they will benefit from working with you. That should then inform all of your communications.
Harry,
You are so right. Even Gordon who wrote a somewhat critical post about spending big dollars on branding has clearly positioned himself as ‘that whitepaper guy.’
Great post Newt-and thanks for the mention. ; )
I think people really have yet to understand the word “brand.” Lots of folks think it’s a vague concept.
The best way for a small business to define it’s brand is to internally decide what they want to be known for. The best brands can be summed up in a phrase or a word.
The smaller a company, the more you are your brand – good, bad or otherwise. It took me a while to find a way to identify what I wanted my brand to be in terms of the limits of how far we would be willing to go, what we would deliver and what we would not take on. Once I knew that I found what turned out to be a super business name that summarized directly what that was. From there it became a matter of needing to learn to stay on point in all aspects of the business, so as not to over-promise or under-offer.
Brands today must offer a value proposition relevant to their customers. Small Business can flourish in this environment with a clear vision and mission. Most importantly, small business should have a basic social media infrastructure in place, in order to build and maintain relationships with customers. I recently was introduced to Shama Hyder thru Twitter, and she really illustrates how to be entrepreneural using social media tools without compromise to authenticity and honesty. It just shows…Good posts.