One only need look around to see that brands carry influence and potency. Large companies, with large marketing budgets, have the wherewithal to saturate the market with their brand and their messaging, but what about the small business that doesn’t have that large marketing budget?
[jbox color=”orange”]Your logo is NOT your brand! Your brand is the umbrella that encompasses and conveys your company’s vision, values, personality, positioning, and image—your brand is the sum experience prospects and customers have with your company.[/jbox]
Running a business in this day and age can be a daunting task. Thanks to the explosion of e-commerce opportunity, the global marketplace is just as available to a microbusiness (defined as less than five employees) as it is to large corporations. Regardless of size, having a strong brand is critical to success in today’s economic landscape.
So what is a brand anyway? A brand is much more than simply an image or a catchy slogan — a brand is the umbrella that encompasses and conveys a company’s vision, values, personality, positioning, and image; it is the face of the company or product it represents. A brand is comprised of every aspect of a company; but especially anything that touches the external world. Your brand is your message, your actions, the actions of your employees, where you show up and where you don’t show up; it’s the promises you make and the ones you keep, and so much more. In a nutshell, a brand is the big picture—it’s the idea or image of a specific product or service that consumers can connect with.
A successful brand is built with intention, a solid foundation, and a well thought-out strategy. Without these, it doesn’t matter how much money is thrown at it, if the brand is built haphazardly, it will eventually fail. Today’s interconnected global marketplace is a platform where people are more than statistics—they are able, willing, and even demand to be able to engage and interact with the brand, to be a part of the process and the story. Brands fortified with a solid foundation are better able to not only allow, but encourage and grow as a result of this engagement.
What constitutes a solid brand foundation? There must first and foremost be a well-defined vision and purpose for the brand which shows that those forming the brand have an understanding of the target market and how the brand will address the market’s needs. The vision and purpose of the brand must be coupled with a clear and believable differentiator that sets the brand apart from its competitors. The differentiator is critical to leveraging the brand’s market potential. Without a differentiator, the brand has no real leg to stand on, and all that remains is a company forced to compete on price.
The differentiator, once defined, needs to be refined into a clear and concise value proposition which conveys to the target market the company’s vision, purpose, and differentiator in a compelling and contrasting way. Finally, the brand needs to be visually communicated to the market. This requires an effective visual representation—an easily recognized logo—which speaks to the brand’s vision, purpose, and value proposition in a way that engages prospects and customers.
Your logo is an extremely vital part of your brand foundation. It is the single element that your audience uses as the key recognition factor when identifying your product or service. Your logo, regardless of where it appears, whether it is in full color, or black and white, imprinted in one color, or embossed with no color, should always be consistent in its overall look and feel.
To build a successful brand, think of it as a composite of many elements, most of which the company is able to determine and control through intention and strategy. But keep in mind, that in today’s social media landscape, there are elements outside of company control such as media, bloggers, consumers, and all of the myriad conversations they have separate of your marketing efforts. The trick is helping to guide these outside elements by providing clear, concise, compelling, and contrasting brand messaging that conveys your value proposition, and then living up to the promises your brand has made so that those outside elements don’t feel the need to change the message.
The absence of communication only leaves room for rumor and innuendo. Hence the importance of developing a strong foundation for your brand, and then employing good marketing strategy to communicate the message to your target market.
