This post is contributed by Jason Dirkham
When you set up your own small business, it’s easy to get bogged down in the technicalities such as registering your business and tax. Of course these are important to get right, but equally important is creating a strong brand for your new business. Your new business will need to develop a big personality quickly to compete with more established competitors. For marketing purposes and generating sales your brand needs to be memorable and stand above the crowd.
The way to create a good brand is to create an identity that your target market resonates with. When first launching your business, once the legalities are done and dusted the majority of your time would be best spent on marketing strategies. In fact forming a business can be very time consuming, your time may be best spent hiring the expertise of the Your Companyformations.co.uk website, who offer different company formation packages to help get your business up and running as quickly as possible.
So how can you develop your businesses personality in the marketplace?
Identify your target market
Who are you aiming your products or services at? Narrow down the information you collect on your target audience, to include their age bracket, sex, family situation, income and location. What are their hobbies? How do they spend their weekends? This information builds a clear picture of what you would like your brand to look like and communicate. You can specifically tailor your brand message in order to speak on a personal level to your target market.
What do your competitors offer?
For your business to be different and appealing to customers you need to be aware of your competitors and what they offer. Look at their branding, is the message being communicated effectively? It may be a good idea to write a list of what you like about your competitors brand and what you don’t. This list can then be used to your advantage by combining the best bits from your competitors to come up with something unique.
Identify and develop your unique selling point (USP)
At this stage you need to identify what makes your business unique. What does your business offer that your competitors don’t and why do you think customers would choose your business over others?
Design your logo and tagline
Your logo is extremely important and will become your future identity. Whilst designing your logo attempt to see your new business brand as a real person. Where would your brand travel, what would it say, what would it look like and what is it’s personality type? You can then begin to think of the colors and fonts you want to your logo created in. Unless you are extremely creative and well accustomed to creating a brand it may be a good idea to hire help from experts. Your tagline needs to say clearly what your business is all about, it will feature on all of your marketing material such as website, business cards, promotional leaflets and letterheads.
Choose a voice
Your type of business will decide on what tone of voice you want your brand to have. Your brands voice will be “heard” through written material on brochures, website information and blogs, audio adverts and visual adverts either on TV or posters.
To decide on your voice look at what you’re trying to sell, for example if you’re selling products aimed at mothers you may want to adopt a chatty, reliable and approachable voice, whereas if you are selling telecommunications to businesses you will want to sound professional and well informed.
Develop an engaging personality
The purpose of your brand is to draw customers towards using your products and services. You need to communicate with your customers in an engaging way and build a level of trust. You need to make your business first choice. Social media is a great way of getting your brand seen, it is also a good way of communicating with customers on a personal level. Be prompt when answering questions, whilst maintaining a professional manner. Encourage people to share positive reviews of using your products and services and respond personally to any feedback whether it is positive or negative. Often negative reviews can be counteracted with great customer service and response times.
To conclude, your branding can be the key to whether your business is successful or not. Integrate your branding into every aspect of your business, so that it becomes the brand of choice. If you feel out of your depth with creating your brand there are plenty of experts available to assist.
This post is contributed by Jason Dirkham
