Have you ever remembered a small business even if you’d only seen it a couple of times? It could have been a local bakery with excellent packaging, a clothing business with a really good story or a small online business that just made you feel so well looked after.
What made you remember it?
It wasn’t necessarily the amount of money the business was spending on advertising. It was something to do with its identity, its communications or its customer experience that set it apart.
For a small business it can be a real challenge to get noticed when you’ve got the big boys with the big budgets and all the associated resources. You don’t necessarily need to spend a fortune to build a brand that people can identify with. It all begins with knowing your audience, communicating your value and creating an experience that people will actually remember.
Here are some practical ways of making your brand more recognisable without necessarily putting any real strain on your marketing budget.
1-Know What Makes Your Business Different
Before you even start thinking about adverts or social media posts, have a good look at your business.
What do you actually offer the customer? What is it that makes your approach different? Why would the customer choose you over another?
These questions will help you to work out the attributes you’d like people to associate with your brand.
Imagine two tiny clothing businesses selling the same sort of thing. One is all about the affordable everyday wear, the other is all about the carefully curated range for the person who likes to keep it very simple. They’re both selling clothes, just to very different customer bases.
You don’t need to invent something completely new in order to stand out. The difference can often be in the way you deliver your service, the market you’re in or the values of your business.
Try this: create one sentence that says who you help what you give and why it matters to them. That sentence will become the foundation of your website and your social media messages.
2-Make Your Brand Easy to Recognise
Your brand should feel familiar in every instance that people encounter it.
Think about your website, your Instagram feed, your product packaging, your business cards and all your other promotional materials. Do they all look like they’re from the same business?
You can build a consistent identity without having to spend a fortune on a design agency. Keep it simple really, stick to a small colour palette, use readable fonts, have a consistent photography style and apply that across all your marketing.
A home based candle business for example would probably go with warm neutral backgrounds, consistent product photography and simple packaging. Over time the repetition of those elements would create a very familiar look for the customer.
Consistency doesn’t mean that every post has to be the same. It just means there should be a consistency in the way your business presents itself in all its various guises.
Free or low cost design tools can be used to create templates which will save you time and reduce the cost of unnecessary design.
3-Give Your Brand a Personality
A logo will of course help to identify the business, but it’s the way the business communicates that can make it feel more personal.
How do you talk to your customers? Are you using the sort of friendly, every day language? Do you explain the more complex bits in a professional but accessible way? Do you have a bit of a cheeky side?
There is no right way. The key is to choose a tone that fits your audience and stick with that tone.
A tiny skincare business might just go ahead and write a series of fairly straightforward educational posts on how to use their product rather than make any grand claims about the results you’ll achieve. A creative agency would probably be more inclined to write about the thinking behind a piece rather than just the finished product.
When your communications are consistent and genuine the customer have a far clearer idea of what to expect from you.
Your brand voice should be based on your actual business values rather than just a copy of the voice of some popular competitor.
4-Stop Treating Every Social Media Post Like an Advertisement
One of the problems that small businesses face is what to post. If every single thing you post is going to be about selling a product or promoting a service then it all quickly becomes very repetitive.
Your audience may also require some useful information or a reason to trust your business prior to them being quite ready to buy.
Of turning every post into a sales pitch focus on sharing real knowledge and experiences from your work.
A local bakery could show how an order is prepared introduce the people behind the business explain how to store their products and answer any questions, about custom cakes. This helps build trust and connection with your audience.
A digital marketing business could be sharing some of the website errors they’ve come across, explaining a useful SEO concept or demonstrating how a content idea can develop into a campaign.
These are all useful examples in terms of helping people to get a better understanding of the business.
Start with three simple content categories:
* Teach something: answer a question that your customer is likely to ask.
* Show something: share your process, your working environment, your behind the scenes.
* Explain your offer: make sure people know what you’re offering and how it can be of benefit, to them.
You don’t have to be publishing all the time. Just pick a schedule that suits you and focus on producing content that has a purpose.
5- Let Satisfied Customers Tell Their Stories
People will invariably be looking for reassurance before they commit to a business they’ve never used. Honest customer feedback can be a massive help in giving them a feel for what the experience is like.
If a customer leaves positive feedback then ask them if you can use that on your site and/or on your social media profiles. You can also ask them to leave a genuine review on the relevant platform.
A freelance web designer could well be the one to share a client’s comments on the design process, the communication during the project or on the finished site. A small gift shop could well be the one to post a customer’s photo of a product they’ve purchased.
These stories share a lot more than any kind of advertisement ever could.
Keep in mind to show what customers have gone through. Do not. Create fake reviews or say things about outcomes that you cannot actually prove.
Even a few real reviews can have a big impact in helping someone who is thinking about contacting you feel more certain, about what they should do.
6-Build Relationships Instead of Always Chasing Reach
Getting access to new people is useful, getting access to the right people and building relationships with them can be just as important.
Look for businesses that serve the same audience and would benefit from working in partnership. They do not need to be companies or businesses that are directly competing with you
Conclusion
Creating a brand that people remember does not always require a large amount of money for advertising. The important thing is to understand the people who use your products or services share what makes your company unique and provide a regular experience that people feel comfortable with. It is really about the details from the way your company looks and the posts you share on social media all the way to how you treat your customers and the real comments you receive. All of these things can make a difference, in how people see your business.
You do not need to do everything all at. Start with what you have concentrate on what your customers care about and then keep getting better as your business grows. A strong brand does not appear suddenly. It is created over time through being the same being real and making relationships.
Are you ready to create a brand that really gets attention without spending a lot of money? That is what I do at Bloom With Rawan. I help companies create their presence through digital marketing, SEO, social media and creative content.
Lets make your brand one that people actually see, trust and remember.