Branding goes beyond a company’s logo. It captures the essence of the company through every visual (logo, materials, website, colors, fonts, etc.) and through the voice and tone of all content. For small businesses, it is crucial to have strong branding to stand out from the many competitors in the market.
Here are 4 reasons why branding is important to your business:
1. Increases Recognition and Awareness
Strong branding helps increase awareness and recognition. As you post on social media, add content to your website and implement other marketing and business activities, more prospects will take notice of your brand. It is important here to note that consistent branding helps increase brand recognition even more. It also impacts the bottom line as companies who present their brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%.
2. Helps Keep Consistency in Marketing Efforts
Because consistent branding is a large driver of brand recognition and awareness, it also helps keep all marketing efforts aligned. For example, every piece of content, social post and landing page you create should have the same look and feel. These items should share your brand colors, iconography and messaging throughout. Inconsistency with any of the key branding elements can potentially lead to confusion among prospects and customers.
3. Builds Credibility and Loyalty Among Prospects and Customers
Once someone recognizes your brand, it can often lead to them finding your content credible. Adding thought leadership content to your website and social media platforms can help this process and with an established brand behind the content, it makes your company and expertise that much more credible. The more content and aspects of your brand customers interact with and experience, a greater sense of loyalty will set in. A credible brand can help encourage current customers and prospective buyers to seek out your content and brand amidst competition.
4. Helps Define a Strategy Moving Forward
As your brand builds awareness, recognition, credibility and loyalty, it can ultimately help support marketing strategies and tactics moving forward. It also helps keep the focus on ensuring branding is consistent as activities change and are added to the marketing plan. Receiving feedback from potential buyers and current customers on various aspects of the brand can be helpful and you can ask questions like the following. Do they like how you present your brand across platforms? What are some things that made them continuously recognize your brand? Having answers to questions like these can help make strategic marketing decisions in the short- and long-term.
Branding Best Practices for Small Businesses
With an understanding of why branding is important for small businesses, consider incorporating some of these best practices into your business.
- Create a Style Guide. Doing this will help everyone involved in your business to be aligned with brand colors and guidelines, which helps ensure consistency across activities.
- Design a Simple, Yet Memorable Logo. Your logo is oftentimes one of the first things audiences see that relates to your brand and company. Ensure it is something that stands out and they can easily recognize it on future occasions.
- Align Your Website with your Brand. Your website is one of the first touchpoints people have with your brand. Use brand colors, your logo and other brand elements to stay consistent. Remember: consistency is key.
- Incorporate Branding on Social Media and other Media Platforms: As mentioned previously, consistency is key. Utilize logos as profile images and keep brand colors prominent for other design elements on social media and digital platforms.
Start on the Path to Strong Branding and Marketing Success
With a complete understanding of what branding is and why it’s critical for small businesses, take the next step on the path to marketing success with our Brand Messaging Course. This on-demand, self-paced online marketing course highlights everything you need to know about branding and the steps to take to form a cohesive, recognizable brand and support it with strong, impactful messaging elements. Get started today.
