Business Corner

You own a small business and you’re doing well but recently you have noticed that your competitors have a slight edge on you. Wondering why? Chances are, it has nothing to do with your product or price – it’s the simple fact that they are more memorable than you. There are two ways that you can increase your memorability. The first is through advertising and marketing and the second is through small business branding and brand strategy. To learn more, continue reading this article. Today, we will discuss the branding basics and give you some need-to-know branding tips.
Before we discuss branding tips, let’s begin by discussing a simple question: what is branding? Think about small business branding as a definition of what the clients think your business is about. With a good brand strategy, you can easily differentiate your services or products from those of your competitors, giving you the leading edge. To clarify, let’s use a brief example. You wake up late one morning and if you don’t leave soon you will be late for work. You don’t have time to make your own breakfast but you do have time to stop for a quick drive through bite. As you are thinking about where to go, you suddenly hear “Badabababa I’m lovin it” play in your mind. Where do you head? Towards the golden arches!
Why did you choose McDonalds? You may think that it is because their food tastes great (and that can definitely be part of it), but doesn’t most fast food taste good? Most people do not realize that many of the decisions they make are based on branding. McDonalds has developed a great tag line that sticks in our heads. On top of that, anyone over the age of 3 knows what the golden arches represent. Small business branding, or the combination of a good tag line and a memorable logo, play a significant role in the success that McDonalds has seen in the past decade. By creating a strong brand strategy and developing your own tagline and logo, you too can see your business expand by making it memorable to your clients.
Let’s cover some cool branding tips to help you build a magnetic brand. First of all, there are many things that you can do to increase the successfulness of your logo and tagline. However, of all the branding tips available, there is one that stands out as the most important; small business branding alone is not enough. Once you have developed a brand strategy, logo, and tagline, you must follow through on your promises. If your tagline is “I’m lovin it”, you better keep customers loving it. You can do this through brand management. Brand management involves a great deal of things, each of which is designed to keep your customers happy and keep them remembering your brand in a positive light. Brand management can include things such as manufacturing a high quality product, keeping your prices reasonable, and providing high quality customer service.
If you own a business, small business branding will become a necessary part of attracting customers. By developing a brand for your customers, you will make your business memorable, keeping them interested and returning for more. If there is one piece of information that you should take away from branding tips it is this one; branding alone is not enough. You must also engage in brand management tactics to ensure that your brand is seen in a positive light rather than a negative one. Start developing a brand strategy for your business today and give your customers something to remember you by!

When it comes to advertising, customers often see your logo before they even know what your product is. Some logos, like the Nike swoosh or the McDonalds’ arches, are so synonymous with their brands an explanation isn’t needed. It has been estimated that Americans are exposed to over 2,000 ads a day. In this consumer market, how do you make your logo stand out?

There are several basic elements to keep in mind when you go to create a logo. A memorable logo is able to be described by consumers. This is beneficial to your company because even if the public forgets your name, they can still convey the message to others. Not everyone will remember Lacoste, but if someone says, “the shirt with the alligator on it,” you know what they’re referring to.

The trick to creating any logo is to keep it simple. When you design a logo, keep in mind people need to be able to tell what it is at a glance. If the logo is too cluttered or the text is too difficult to read, it won’t work. When you play with fonts, it’s easy to become distracted by the various font options. Your public will not know what was going through your mind when you were creating it, so unless it’s simple, they won’t know what you were trying to say.

Logos also need to be both effective without color and able to be scaled down. When you advertise, you may not always have a color or large space to work with. For those reasons, your logo still needs to work no matter what context it is being viewed in.  Read more... (459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)