Brands aren’t just for big corporations. In fact small businesses benefit greatly from brands, especially in highly saturated markets — food, beauty, bars, artisan you-name-it’s, you get the idea. It’s simple: small business with big voices get bigger audiences than so-so competitors. If you’re a small business looking to up your game and reap the benefits formerly saved for the billion dollar corporations, listen up and listen good. To compete in the big leagues, you’ve got to suit up for it, and branding is the way to do just that. Branding helps you think big, act big and aim big so you can blow through the competition — because, hey, you deserve it.
The Advantages Of Being Big, Or Looking Like It
While you may be excellent at what you do, customers prefer not to play their risk card on smaller businesses, especially if there are hundreds of bigger, older companies providing similar products or services. As a customer, you want to know you are working with a company that has good processes in place, excellent customer service and undeniable credibility. Your brand helps you look the part, but it also helps you act the part. It cuts through customer skepticism with collateral — communication policies, marketing & outreach strategies and branded processes needed to play big and gain credibility from your target audience.
Your brand allows you to state your worth with conviction, personality and a consistency so streamlined it might as well be automated — but it’s not, because people still aren’t totally sold on automated customer service. In the next section we’ll give you some strategies for boosting your brand in 2017.
Streamline Your Professional Look
A strong brand is rooted in your company’s core truth and vision, and every message, from the website to customer service, should be communicating this core truth.
- The Website: The website and the logo are your first impression. If your website loads at a DSL pace, or contact information is difficult to find, you’ve lost.
- Branded communication: on the telephone, in emails and in person, there should be a uniform client communication method that speaks as your big brand voice. Branded communication creates a sense of consistency, so even if you are one guy working out of a garage, you can communicate to your audience like a major corporation.
- Get listed, nationally — even if you just have virtual offices in certain cities, national listings help you get picked up locally while also showing you as nationally credible.
Showcase Your Expertise
With branded messaging and a goal behind the image, your brand helps you highlight your expertise in ways that are in line with your vision and goals.
- Participating and hosting seminars, webinars and tele-summits showcases your credibility and creates opportunity for increased word-of-mouth marketing.
- Generating valuable content on blogs and other platforms establishes you as an expert in your field, while also providing collateral for your audience to refer to on a regular basis.
- Building social networks is a critical part in building your reputation in today’s market. Your brand helps you maximize your reach on social media platforms and increase brand loyalty.
Commit To Your Message
Someone somewhere once said “When you start getting sick of your brand, your audience is just starting to notice it.” Having a strong brand story — that core of truth and vision we talked about earlier — helps you commit to your vision, even when you’re sick of it. Your brand story stands by you, helps you grow and affirms your growing audience that you are one of a kind, through and through.
Get Help From The Experts
Having a team of design and content crafters in your corner can make a world of difference when boosting your brand effectiveness. If you’re serious about looking big, acting big and aiming big, give Bareknuckle a call, and we’ll see if we’re a good match.
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