Starting a small business is no easy feat. Especially in the midst of a global pandemic that has forced many other businesses to close their doors. (Though the numbers may not be as dire as some pundits would have you believe.)
In the digital age, finding ways for your business to stand out from the shuffle and grab people’s attention is a matter of survival. Not sure what you can do to elevate your brand? Check out these four amazing branding strategies tailored for small businesses!
1. Develop Your Brand’s Design Standards
Apple. Coca-Cola. Starbucks. What does each of these mega-brands have in common? They have a standard design across all of their media.
They’re consistent in the size, placement, and color of their logos. Their graphics hold consistent line weight and border sizes, even when they adjust for changing themes throughout the year. They also use colors that they know will evoke the emotions they want to grow in consumers, and keep those consistent as well.
These design standards should hold in your print marketing, online marketing, and even your curbside sign. When designing your sign, make sure to work with a knowledgeable site, like https://resource4signs.com/channel-letters, to get your needs met.
2. Know How to Position Your Brand
In the pre-COVID days, brand positioning was all about showing how your product or service was superior to your competitors. It was about backing up your claims with fiscal and other data sets.
Nowadays, brand positioning focuses as much or more on empathy. Don’t focus on your revenue or profits, but rather, on addressing your clientele’s needs and pain points. Position yourself in your customer’s mind as an advocate, not as a salesperson.
3. Social Media Is Your Friend
Many sites offering branding tips for small businesses before us have stated this. We will reiterate it here. Social media is your friend. Your business cannot survive without a social media presence.
Whether that presence is better served as a Facebook page, Instagram page, or YouTube channel is a matter up for debate. What’s unquestioned is that businesses can either have a social media presence or fade into obscurity. Don’t let that happen to you.
4. Know Your Customer
This may seem like common sense, but a central component of all branding tips we can offer is knowing your customer. To come up with a proper logo design and know how to position yourself in your customer’s mind, you need to understand them. Know what images and emotions appeal to them, what fancies you’re trying to reach.
Clean, slick, modern marketing might play well for an educated, urban crowd, but won’t do as well in a rural market. Something that tries too hard to be ‘hip to the kid’s lingo’ might wind up costing you both young and old clients. Know your customer, know your audience, and your business will thrive for it.
Reviewing Basic Branding Strategies
Let’s examine the above branding strategies for a common thread. Between keeping consistent design standards, knowing how to position your brand, using social media, and knowing your customer, what lies in the center?
The consumer. Your customer is how your business lives or dies, so if you center your branding efforts around reaching them, your business will grow.
If you enjoyed this article on branding tips for small businesses and would like more marketing and other business tips, check out our blog daily for more content like this.
