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Every business owners or entrepreneurs want to be recognised by all means. They want their business brand have a strong voice that attract customers. This is what you also want for your small business too, right? How then can you best create brand awareness for your small business in a local community? Here are certain things you need to know and understand.
WHAT IS BRANDING?
A brand is a name, term, symbol or other feature that distinguishes an organisation or business entity or product from its competitors in the eyes of the audience or customers. This approach is used, mostly, in marketing, business or advertising.
In advertising, brand is mainly used with a consistent theme which include; specific name, logo and an image of a particular product, service or company. Let’s take a look at some of the basic features of branding.
BASIC FEATURES OF BRANDING
- Awareness – How many percentage of people recognise your brand? You can achieve this through PR campaign and advertisement on television, radio, newspaper or social media.
- Targetability – Who are your target customers? You should make research to understand who are buying your products or services. The demographic information should include; age, gender, income level and lifestyle.
- Loyalty – Who consistently buys from you? Once you have carefully identified this unique customers, your brand sustainability is guaranteed.
- Consistency – How stable are you in your brand delivery? You should go beyond noise-making on various advertising platform to manning-up to your brand’s numerous promises. Thus, effectiveness is required in this visual game.
Small businesses have good chances of also getting their brands noticed. It therefore boils down to the effectiveness of steps small business owners are willing to take to create awareness for their brands in any local community. If you are unsure what to do in order to establish a solid brand awareness, try these five steps for a start.
5 SIMPLE STEPS TO CREATE BRAND AWARENESS
1. Reviewing Your Brand’s Vision And Mission
Statement How often do you review your small business brand’s vision and mission statement?
Tenaciously studying some of the top brands related to your kind of small business, you will discover something unique about them. They developed a unique key phrase which stands them out in the competitive market. Apple Incorporated and Nike are two popular brands with solid vision and mission statement embellished in their creative campaigns. Their deliberate efforts was able to create a close tie between their brand and customers.
Hence, you should strive to research your key industry and experiment the same approach top brands use to search for clues. The next thing is to jot down the ideas figured out from your small business’ vision and mission statement that can stand you out. Finally, communicate your identity well enough with a strong and reliable promise.
2. Define your Small Business Brand’s Voice Strategically
What is the tone of your brand’s voice?
You can get the tone of your brand’s voice by strategically categorising your brand.
Every business have their unique voices. These voices are detected by target customers at any point in marketing times. Whether funny, irrelevant, bold, posh, or coacive, your brand’s voice should be visible and heard in your marketing campaigns.
3. Create Flawless Logo
What does your company logo say about your small business brand?
Logo is the first contact in any business brand. This is the first thing your customers will see when they visit your small business (online or offline). Beyond its creativity, your logo tends to appeal to your customers and simply explain what product or services you offer.
Hence, having a clean, simple and recognisable logo is profitable in helping you establish your small business brand. You should ensure to choose an interpretative logo that simply integrate the product or service voice and marketing message.
4. Have A Fantastic Payoff or Tagline
How self-explanatory is your Payoff or Tagline?
Payoff or Tagline is that brisk sentence that support your business logo to be meaningful. For an instance, the payoff of MTN is “everywhere you go” and that of RUNWAYS MAGAZINE is “…be inspired, be ahead“. These examples show the vision and mission statement of the company in a simplified sentence.
Don’t forget that you can also use this technique to create a lasting brand awareness for your small business. The rule of thumb is to creatively write a memorable, inspirational and understandable tagline. Your tagline or payoff helps to clearly explain your vision and mission statement to your target customers.
Hence, ensure that you write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that will capture the essence of your small business brand.
5. Placing Your Small Business Brand on ALL Campaigns
The purpose of your small business is to solve the immediate problem of your customers. For this purpose, the goal of your brand awareness is to attract customers through any promotional means available. To achieve this feat, you should make sure that there is consistency in your noise-making. Always place your brand on every message, design, social media packages, service offer, etc. This will better create a unique following and remembrance in the face and memory of your customers.
SUMMARY
Branding is a marketing technique used by business to create a desired image for a product or company in the mind of the customers. Every top brands always use branding to clearly distinguish their product and service from their rivals and create lasting connection with customers.
Therefore, using the right branding features – awareness, targetability, loyalty, and consistency – will go a long way in helping you create a formidable business brand. Also, It will help you build a better customer experience.
Hopefully these 5 simple steps to create brand awareness give you some inspiration. Drop a comment about what steps you have taken to pivot your small business brand to win your customers’ trust.