When you’re just starting out running a small business, the hardest part is often simply gaining visibility beyond your initial network. Indeed, for many small companies the first buyers are people you know or people you know who have referred you to someone else. Steadily – we hope that’s the case! – you gain more customers from that network over time who get to know your business and what it stands for. That’s great as you continue to spread word-of-mouth, which hopefully comes from the great products or services you provide. But at a certain point (sometimes it’s earlier and sometimes it’s later), your business ends up running through your network connections and their friends.  And at that point, many companies get stuck. How do I attract more customers? How do I make them aware of my company and what I do?

Marketing and Your Brand Identity

What’s interesting is that, in those early stages, many companies don’t think about their brand. They may have done a little marketing, for example – perhaps some digital advertising or social media – but they may not necessarily consider the brand in those activities, as much as sales or other immediate rewards. And it makes sense in many ways. There are so many things a startup or new company has to do around other core areas – the products and services offering, dealing with finances, trying to get those immediate term sales, and even all the administrative stuff – that oftentimes the owners or leadership might de-prioritize what they might view as some esoteric, intellectual marketing exercise.

After all, it’s not exactly a common refrain at small companies to ask: “What’s our brand stand for?” as you attempt to navigate those first crazy years as a business. That said, as any marketing professor will tell you, it’s a question that businesses need to ask themselves.

And also answer.

Indeed, your company’s brand identity is perhaps the single most important reason why others buy from you. And that’s true whether you’re just starting out or at that point where you’ve reached your network saturation. (In those early stages, with network word-of-mouth going, much of your brand identity may be wrapped up with personal identity, as it may be friends recommending you to other friends based on who you are and what they know about you and your reputation.)

The Six Core Areas of Small Business Brand Development

With a brand, much like your own personal identity, you have to start establishing that same (hopefully strong) reputation and narrative, if you will. Larger businesses clearly have an advantage here. Many can spend on brand advertising on TV, radio, digital, mobile, and other formats to get the word out about what they stand for. Because they have a longer-term horizon, they can invest in awareness and developing their unique brand equity among potential customers. But small businesses don’t often have that luxury or the dollars needed to more broadly spread the word about their products or services, even in a local community.

So, how does a small business do it? This is where it gets a bit tricky and pays to take a step back and think through several things, including:

• Your Mission as a Business
• Your ‘Ideal’ Audience and Your Brand’s Relationship to Them
• Your Uniqueness
• Your Visual Identity
• Your Content & Other Promotions
• Your Narrative

Your Mission as a Business

As a company, what do you believe in? Many small businesses don’t actually state that upfront. And because they haven’t figured out their values, or what they stand for, they end up sounding like one big sales pitch when it comes to talking to their customers. Your mission – or what you believe about how you’re serving customers and/or your role as a company itself – needs to be front and center when you communicate with audiences. And it needs to be repeated. Often. This is especially true as you think about how your brand identity comes across. The key word here is trust. Your mission helps establish that in the minds of customers, getting them to know about bit more about you. The reason: People buy from companies that they trust and come to know, especially today when it pertains to values.

Your ‘Ideal’ Audience and Your Brand’s Relationship to Them

The reason we say “ideal” here is that you may be currently serving and attracting an audience that isn’t ideal, one that isn’t going to help you grow in the future. And, in that case, maybe you have to transition or re-imagine your brand for a different audience. An example might be the company Old Spice, which in the last several years has made significant moves to attract a younger male audience, as it faced competition from Axe.

As you start thinking about that ideal audience, how do you see your projecting your brand to meet their needs? Do you need to make adjustments in the way you…

• Talk about things (voice, tone)
• Visually represent things (design, colors, images, video)
• Interact with customers

When companies talk about “audience-focus” this is what it truly means.

Your Uniqueness

What’s that one thing (or few things) that makes your company unique as far as the industry you’re in? Some in marketing call it that “special sauce” that’s only something you do. Maybe it’s a process you have that’s more efficient, maybe it’s a special touch when you execute on something, a unique product or service, maybe it’s the way your treat customers, or even a mission. For example, the company Tom’s was known for giving away a pair of shoes to under-served communities whenever someone bought a pair of theirs. They’ve continued to evolve that mission of giving back – and it’s what makes them unique in the marketplace. As you think about the way your company’s brand projects itself to others, are you repeating that uniqueness or message about what makes you different often enough? 

Your Visual Identity

Does your “look” represent and project both who you are and who your ideal target audience is? Is your look outdated? As mentioned earlier, does your use of images, video, graphics and color scheme speak to audiences? Is it consistent across various different mediums – website, email, social, sales or marketing collateral, for example. How about the fonts you use? Do you present a consistent font, similar to what Apple does in all its promotions? (They use different sizes of SF Pro everywhere.) Visual is typically the area that most small businesses will want to address first because it’s the most obvious. Sometimes that translates into small adjustments – establishing more consistency and rigor around colors or fonts. But typically, if something is off with the brand “look,” it often means that it’s time for a complete rebranding.

Your Content and Other Promotions

As mentioned above, many small businesses won’t have the kind of capital it takes to conduct a broader advertising campaign focused on awareness. (Sure, traditionally lower-funnel ads will certainly provide some aspect of brand awareness as well, but it’s probably not equivalent to broader awareness advertising in many industries.) So, many companies will look to more cost-effective ways. One of those ways is developing content.

We have often stated within these pages that content is the guerilla marketing of today. What we mean by that is content is both cost-effective (it only takes time and effort to produce) and a great way to spread the word about what you represent as a brand. Content also allows you to highlight your expertise, which is a key aspect of bolstering your brand story and narrative, which we’ll talk more about below.

Your Narrative

How are you telling the story of your brand value? We think of a narrative as being both strategic and operational. What we mean by that is your company narrative – in this case we’re defining it as the “story” about your brand – has to encompass all of the elements we discussed above in a strategic, considered approach. But it also has to be implemented in a consistent way. In other words, your brand only has real value to customers if you’ve been relentless in communicating and operationalizing that story about who you are and what you stand for all the time.

We often see companies that have the core aspects of a good brand but when it comes to telling the story, they lurch from being one thing to another. That’s an issue with the narrative they’re telling. An example might be a company that wants to be a high-end retailer but then, every month, offers discounts on the products they sell. The brand strategy they’ve created – about a high-end retailer doesn’t match the story in the market, which is that they’re a discounter.

Conclusion

Establishing a strong brand in the marketplace is essential for your growth as a small business. We hope article helped a little bit in terms of some areas you should certainly consider as you think about expanding and growing your visibility. On July 15, 2021, we’ll be hosting a related event with our friends at The Narrative Playbook on The Impact of Narrative on Marketing in 2021. Join this or any of our upcoming MNG webinars for free.