In This Article
What does small business branding have to do with business growth? Everything.
You probably haven’t given much thought to branding your small business. Let me just tell you something right off the bat, your business is being branded as you read this.
Customers and prospects have already given you a brand identity, the question is whether or not it agrees with what you think your business brand is.
So, if you’ve got customers complaining about price, they have no idea why they should choose you. And that’s a branding problem.
Why Does Small Business Branding Really Matter?
The simplest definition of brand identity is how your customers would answer the questions “What are you committed to?” and “What can I count on you for?
Branding for small businesses can feel overwhelming, especially when you don’t have the instant name recognition of a Fortune 500 company. Building trust is even more vital when starting from scratch, one customer at a time.
Think about brands you connect with — they probably evoke a certain feeling. Maybe it’s trust, excitement, or a feeling of belonging. This is the power of small business branding. It provides positive feelings that translate into profit.
According to a 2019 study, trust is a major factor for 81% of consumers deciding what to buy. This is even more critical for small businesses. Big brands can weather scandals and bad press, but small businesses don’t have that luxury.
In other words, a strong brand identity can get you through quite a few rough patches.
Stronger Brands Mean Less Marketing
Another benefit of successful small business branding is that the stronger your brand, the less you have to spend on marketing and advertising. That’s because an effective brand clearly communicates the brand promise. And when you deliver on a brand promise, people will buy more, pay more, and recommend more.
Apple is a great example of this kind of a trusted brand identity: Apple has a brand trust score of 88% among consumers with 77% of Apple users saying they would recommend the brand to a friend or family member.
The goal for small businesses like yours is to establish that relationship upfront with customers, turning them into raving fans.
Pricing Protection
No one talks about this, but a unique brand gives you the freedom to charge more than the market price because you promise more.
Investing in branding strategies and brand assets like blog posts, choosing social media platforms that support your message and the real difference you make in your ideal customer’s lives will support your brand story and make you the obvious choice for your ideal customer.
Small Business Branding Strategies You Can Start Now
A branding strategy is essentially a blueprint for how you present your business to the world, with the goal of attracting, inspiring, and motivating customers to choose your product or service every time, regardless of the competition or price. For solopreneurs, this might sound overwhelming, but it’s really about finding a strategy that feels natural to you and resonates with your ideal customer. The good news? You don’t need a massive marketing budget to build a powerful brand. What you do need is a solid strategy that fits your style and voice, meeting your audience exactly where they are. Let’s break down a few key areas to focus on.
1. Start with Your Messaging
Before you think about logos or fonts, your branding strategy starts with the words you use to describe your business. This is your marketing message, tagline, or slogan. It’s how you communicate your value to potential customers. Are you fun and quirky, serious and professional, or somewhere in between? Whatever tone you decide on, make sure it’s consistent across everything you create—from your website to your emails and social media posts.
Your message is what people will remember you by, so think about how you want your audience to feel when they interact with your brand. Are they supposed to feel energized and excited, or calm and reassured? Tone and style matter here too. Is your brand personality formal or informal? Friendly or authoritative? The National Park Service’s Twitter account is a perfect example of a lighthearted, approachable tone that reflects the experience of enjoying nature. Lake Superior’s account follows suit with a witty, fun approach that matches the serene but awe-inspiring beauty of the lake itself. Even if you’re a solopreneur, defining your brand’s voice this clearly can make a huge difference in how you connect with your audience.
2. Focus on the Look and Feel
You’ve heard people talk about logos, but when it comes to branding, your look and feel are so much more than just a logo design. It’s about creating a cohesive visual identity that matches your message. Start with your colors. Colors are incredibly powerful and can influence emotions and perceptions of your brand. This is where understanding the psychology of color comes in handy. For example, red can convey energy and excitement, while blue often evokes trust and reliability. Choose a color palette that aligns with how you want your brand to be perceived.
Once you’ve settled on your colors, think about the imagery that will define your brand. Will you use vibrant photos, playful illustrations, or sleek, minimalist designs? The imagery you choose should complement your brand’s voice and message. If your brand is about creativity and fun, maybe you’ll lean towards bright, whimsical illustrations. If you’re a solopreneur in a serious field like finance or consulting, clean, professional photos might be more fitting. Either way, make sure there’s consistency across all platforms—your website, social media, emails, and any printed materials.
3. Choose the Right Fonts
The next piece of your branding puzzle is typography. Believe it or not, fonts can say a lot about your brand. Just like colors, different fonts evoke different feelings. A sleek, modern font will give a completely different impression than a playful, handwritten one. Your fonts should match the tone of your brand. If your messaging is casual and fun, a bold, unconventional font might work. If your brand is all about professionalism and reliability, a clean and simple serif or sans-serif font could be your best bet.
4. Create a Consistent Brand Experience
Consistency is key to building a memorable brand. Your customers should get the same vibe from your brand whether they’re reading an email, checking out your website, or scrolling through your Instagram feed. Everything from the images you use to the words you write should look, sound, and feel like you. When your audience feels like they know you, they’re more likely to trust you—and trust leads to loyalty.
Look at any successful small business or personal brand and you’ll notice a consistent style. Whether it’s the minimalist aesthetic of a boutique clothing brand or the quirky, upbeat feel of a local coffee shop, the brands that stand out have clear, consistent personalities.
How To Create A Small Business Branding Strategy
By now, you hopefully understand that you need to prioritize branding efforts to succeed. But how do you go about it, especially on a tight budget?
Do the Research & Find the Gaps
Like any other part of running your own business, marketing is a process. The moment you feel stuck or lost — get back to the process. When creating small business branding, this always starts with market research.
But not just any research. Start by identifying the problems you solve with your business and how you do that uniquely.
- Think about who else offers similar products or services. What’s the “secret sauce” that you bring to the table?
- Check out which companies pop up on the first page of Google when searching relevant terms. How are their websites designed?
- Take note of their marketing efforts and understand the overall customer experience — is this an area you could improve on and highlight as part of your branding?
Understand Your Ideal Customer… I Mean REALLY Understand Them.
This is the first question any marketing person will ask. It seems obvious, right? And yet you’d be surprised most small business owners are extremely vague. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that “everyone” was there customer!
I know, it’s more fun to go straight to designing logos or writing clever taglines. However, resist the urge to jump into creating marketing materials until you feel like you know what your ideal customer has for breakfast and what color underwear they are wearing on any given day. I’m joking, but only a little bit.
Branding is about forging an emotional connection, impossible unless you understand what matters to your customer.
Here are a few things to get you started:
- Reach out to existing customers you love working with. Ask if you can take them to lunch to interview them in exchange for a discount. You’ll get invaluable insights into their lives and who they are.
- Join, contribute and hang out in Facebook and Reddit groups your ideal customers would join. Notice I didn’t say they are members, just that those are groups they are LIKELY to join. Answer questions, help those people by sharing your expertise. Keep a running list of common challenges, problems and questions that they are trying to solve.
- Another smart small business branding tactic is to create customer personas. Categorize these groups by shared psychographics or common buying behaviors. This insight lets you segment your audiences so you can communicate more effectively — think Facebook ads or special offers.
Brand Your Offer — Not Just Your Logo
While a well-designed logo is important, it’s only one component. Smart business owners think strategically about their overall market position.
Here are a few examples:
- FedEx and Domino’s have branded their offer around being fast.
- L.L. Bean differentiates itself through superior products. This is reinforced through an amazing return policy.
- Walmart has deliberately positioned its entire brand around offering the lowest prices. While not exciting, it’s effective and positions them strategically within their industry.
- Nike doesn’t even bother talking about shoes. Instead, they focus entirely on big ideas to inspire us through celebrity sponsorships.
As a small business, you’ll see a greater return on your branding activities by deciding on one key differentiator and fully committing to it. This commitment might mean incredible personalized service, even if saying “no” to a certain client type. You only have so much bandwidth as the CEO, so decide how to invest that limited resource — your time is more valuable than your money.
Clarify Your Visual Identify To Increase Brand Recognition
Branding is more than just designing a cool logo, although that’s definitely a part of it. Think about the colors you choose, what those say about you, and the emotions they evoke.
Did you know that 81% of consumers crave an element of trust before buying? It’s no wonder businesses deliberately showcase brand consistency across every marketing effort. For example, research found a 10-20% increase in revenue from consistently presenting their brand. That’s because, whether consciously or subconsciously, people make assumptions based on visuals alone. For example, the finance industry often uses blue because it represents trustworthiness. Green conveys calmness, used by companies like John Deere. And red creates urgency and is heavily favored by food and retail industries.
Typography also plays a key role — this goes beyond choosing the correct font. A luxury brand wouldn’t use a playful or whimsical font because it would damage the brand’s image of sophistication. This also plays out in the images used for things like social media or on your website. Images convey emotions, just like any other creative element. Do you prioritize user-generated images or slick, highly stylized ones?
Your job is to blend these elements with the information you’ve gathered in a way that resonates. This takes time but is a worthwhile investment. As your business grows, you’ll offload this work. As a small business owner, you likely can’t outsource this element — but that’s ok. This is where you’ll develop brand equity by building those early relationships. This foundation will set you up for long-term success.
Build Your Brand Voice: Listen to How Your Brand “Sounds”
That unique way that your brand sounds is called your brand voice. A strong brand voice goes a long way toward building a consistent brand.
Think back to when you walked into a store and got bad vibes from the salesperson. This can even be subconscious. They may have said all the right things, yet something about their tone left you feeling… “off.” It probably caused you to walk away or make a mental note never to return.
This concept directly applies to your small business branding. Things like your ideal customer and market niche dictate the personality and vibe you choose.
A luxury brand communicates differently than one aimed at millennials or Gen Z, which might use more humor.
77% of customers build buying preferences around companies they follow on social media. Just remember — authenticity is everything here.
People crave honesty. Choose a brand personality and brand voice and commit.
Resist jumping on every new social media platform because everyone else is. This comes across as desperate, inauthentic, and ultimately hurts your overall brand equity.
Branding Tips: How to USE Small Business Branding?
Getting clear on your branding is one thing. Actually, using those insights to build a profitable company — that’s something else altogether.
Creating Your Small Business Website
A well-designed website is the hub of your digital storefront. In many cases, your small business website is the first time someone “experiences” your brand, and first impressions matter. Consider this: Is it clear who you serve and what problems you solve? Do your visuals reflect the unique brand personality and target customer we’ve been exploring?
As tempting as it is to rush through, you must invest the time here. If you are serious about small business branding, your website is your most powerful asset. Take your time, there are countless free resources and tools available so cost shouldn’t stop you. This leads us to the next vital element of a great branding strategy.
Look for Strategic Partnerships To Grow
If the above examples seem like a lot, this next strategy is about building relationships. We’ve already covered how people do business with those they know, like and trust. You can fast-track the process with joint ventures.
An example is the popular budgeting app You Need a Budget — YNAB. They are strategic about collaborating with podcasts that attract their target customer: think financial educators or budgeting experts. Not only do these podcasts repeatedly endorse the company, but it exposes their brand to a wider audience. This builds instant authority and trust — clever, right? This then reinforces all the other elements of their small business branding, such as content or website. They have strategically utilized a combination of these efforts to position themselves as the go-to source within the crowded personal finance space.
FAQs About Small Business Branding
What is small business branding?
Small business branding clarifies what your company stands for using a variety of strategies. It’s more than just a logo; branding helps your company stand out, earns trust, and provides a platform to build from over the long term.
What are the 5 C’s of branding?
The 5 C’s offer a great framework when defining your strategy. Consider these five areas as you think about your marketing strategies.
- Clarity helps determine if your brand easily communicates its core mission and vision.
- Consistency looks at the uniformity of brand elements across different mediums.
- Competition asks tough questions like: How do you strategically position your product or service to highlight what’s unique? What customer pain points are you solving?
- Costs clarify how to allocate precious capital. Ask questions such as “Do I have a realistic marketing budget?” (For example, research by The CMO Survey suggests that businesses spend an average of 11.72% of the total budget on branding. Experts advise allotting at least 12-15% or more toward branding in initial phases.) What are the most impactful areas to spend limited resources on?”
- Communication involves carefully choosing which media platforms and marketing messages resonate with your ideal customer (and ditching the ones that don’t.).
How to create small business branding?
Focus first on strategy: Think about who you serve and what customer problems you are best suited to solve. Defining your brand is more than just choosing a color palette; you’ll need to answer questions about your business, like who your ideal customer is and what media channels you’ll use to connect with them.
| Area to Clarify | Details To Focus On |
|---|---|
| Why |
|
| Target Audience |
|
| Positioning |
|
| Personality & Voice |
|
How much does small business branding cost?
How much you spend depends entirely on how you plan to do it. For example, businesses allocate an average of 11.72% of their budget to marketing, with experts suggesting an allocation of 12 – 15% or more toward branding for a new business or during significant changes. Ultimately your branding budget hinges on a variety of factors. Will you require a branding consultant, or can you manage in-house? How intricate is the desired brand strategy? Building a website for online presence requires more resources than just social media accounts. Consistency across these elements is key to maximizing your return. Think of this as an ongoing investment and prioritize it over the long term.
Conclusion
Effective small business branding extends beyond a simple logo; it’s a thoughtful process. When done correctly, your branding communicates who you are, your value, and your difference. It also answers why they should choose you. As a small business owner, you are competing against corporations with unlimited marketing budgets. This can seem daunting — but you have an unfair competitive advantage, your customers. It comes down to trust, and people buy from people and companies they trust. Building strong, relatable, and trustworthy small business branding attracts new leads, encourages customer loyalty, and drives sales.