Why Small Biz Needs Branding Most

Building a brand is more than just a logo or visual aesthetic. For businesses, branding is essential for success, especially for small business. Small businesses, unlike corporate giants and celebrity brands, are still working to earn trust from their customers. The biggest mistake small businesses can make is underestimating the power of making their business a brand, and failing to properly express the visual representation of their brand. Here's why:

1. There's Only One First Impression There is only one chance for a first impression with your potential customers and clients. Your visual assets, such as websites, brand photography, and graphic design, need to grab attention, share your value, and establish trust. Customers will correlate the quality of your offer with the quality of your brand visuals. For example, when you receive spam emails, you probably notice a few red flags right off the bat. Some common spam traits include a very basic or chaotic layout, missing imagery or logos, lack of details or business information, and vague promises that sound too good to be true. These red flags immediately alert us to not trust these messages. Poor branding has the same effect. While often less obvious, we filter out brands that we see as below our standards or fail to connect with. Businesses without a strong branding foundation are often missing out on more potential clients than they realize.

2. Humanize Your Brand Building a brand is an opportunity to humanize your business so that customers can feel connected. As consumers, we all want to choose brands that reflect our own styles, values, and choices. Therefore, it's important to convey who you are as a brand, by communicating your brand story, values, differentiators, quality standards, and benefits. Your customers want to know who they're supporting, and why they should choose you.
   

3. Attract The Right Audience Without proper branding for your business, it is highly likely that you will not attract business of the best fit. For some brands, all business is welcome (like grocery stores). But if your business is specialized in a particular niche, you want to ensure you're targeting your specific audience and that viewers understand who your audience is. For example, not all photographers are the same. Photographers need to ensure that their visual assets and marketing materials represent their target audience including their style preferences, shooting methods, timeline expectations, affordability, standard of quality, and value of service. If the branding is not aligned with these factors, the risk is booking clients that don't value your work, are not happy with the results, or share an unsavory experience.

Knowing the value of building a brand and visual assets that grow your business is the first step. The second step depends on what your business needs. Perhaps it's as simple as adding assets to your social pages and websites so that your branding is more visible. Perhaps you're starting from scratch and need a full brand guide created. No matter what, it is important to work with an agency or specialist that is aligned with your brand.

To get branding, website design, content creation, or social media strategy with Rose & Salt Social, book a free discovery call or submit an inquiry.