When I talk to clients about branding I often find that they have quite fixed views about what they think branding is and what they think they can and can’t afford in terms of activities to help ‘brand’ their business.

Many people, when thinking about branding, confine themselves to comments and thoughts on their company logo and design.  Others actual say to me – well, branding is really just for big companies – not for us at all.

As I explain – this is not true – and whilst the ‘display’ of brand values, the breadth of your brand reach and how much your spend on brand identity may be very different if you are a small business – you can still learn and take ideas from the biggest and the ‘best’ brand advocates.

The most important thing is not to limit your thoughts when it comes to deciding how you will develop and exploit the power of your brand.

You can think about it in terms of the 5 P’s of brand.  Let’s take a closer look at what I am talking about…

Proposition

For any business, getting the proposition right is important but for a small business it’s absolutely critical.  A larger company with more substantial budgets may have time to spend developing a clear proposition and testing out options in the market place. 

A smaller business doesn’t.

Instead it needs to develop a clear and compelling message about itself and use this consistently in all business communications.  And this proposition must help you stand out from the crowd – maybe for the niche markets that you serve or the nature of the product or service that you deliver. 

You need to work hard on this – without a strong proposition – a statement or explanation of what you do for your clients – you will find it very hard to develop ‘brand’ messages that make you stand out.

Presence and Presentation

I’m talking about some of the more familiar manifestations of the brand.  This is all about how you convey, visually what your brand (for a small firm your business) is all about.  Everything from your location and signage to company letterhead, brochure ware, website and even the type of paper you use for business correspondence can all help reinforce, or destroy the image of your brand.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the points above to illustrate what I mean. 

Location and signage - now clearly if you are a traditional firm of accountants working with business people and wealthy individuals you are most likely to locate in a well serviced, centrally located office building and you will make sure the signs directing people to your offices are professionally produced and use the correct corporate font and colours, to be consistent with your logo and design of other business stationery.

What would it say about your business for example if you use paper signs, rather than professionally produced ones or if you decided to locate your offices in an industrial estate with lorries coming and going and the sounds of heavy machinery in the air?

Think carefully about the location for your business and if you do chose to locate on an unusual site make sure that (a) it’s not inconvenient for your clients and other visitors and (b) that the interior of your offices and your signage and decoration create the appropriate image of your professionalism and service.

People

Do not, at all costs, underestimate the benefit (and damage) that your staff and fellow directors can bring to your business brand.  This is why, in small businesses recruitment is such an important process.  Bringing in the wrong kind of people, especially if they are customer or public facing, can be a disaster.  Just think of the damage being done to the large financial institutions as a result of their decision to outsource much of their customer service functions to and the sub continent.  It is the brand that is suffering here, with competitors using the fact that they still service customers locally as a point of difference in their advertising.  Just think of the current Nat West ‘there is another way’ adverts.

Perfection

This is where the P’s start to fall down because I don’t believe in perfection in business – but I do believe in providing good customer service and having effective complaint handling processes.  And these two factors can go a long way to developing a great brand or destroying your brand.

As a result of the revolution in service standards over the last 20 years we have had our expectations raised so we expect certain standards of service, as a minimum.  The improvements in communications technology mean we are less forgiving when people fail to get back to us when we make a service enquiry.  Only 15 years ago if you called your electricity supplier with a query and they had to get someone to call you back you may have forgiven them for not doing so.  They may have called whilst you were out at work (not everyone had answer phones then and even if you had a mobile telephone you were probably far more circumspect about who you gave the number to).  In today’s ‘want it now’ environment we expect – ideally - that whoever we speak to will be able to answer our query straight away – and if they can’t we generally expect a response within 24 hours.  When this doesn’t happen we feel let down and are more likely to chase the company concerned, complaining about the poor service.

In contrast if you can deliver high levels of customer service, equip your staff with sufficient knowledge so that they can answer questions and solve problems themselves, and implement the type of technology and systems which allow you to manage customer enquiries and divert calls appropriately, you might just avoid the complaints and make the customer service grade. 

If you operate in an industry that is particularly poor in this arena it could be your point of different, to set you apart from the crowd. 

Persistence

This is where many small businesses can really win but only if they use the elements of their brand consistently.

I’ve lost count of the number of businesses that I have come across who invest in having a professional corporate identity designed for them when they first set up and then don’t use the key elements of that identity consistently as they grow.

The first element is the business name.  Use it carefully.  Don’t get lazy and shorten it unless this is explained and then followed through consistently in future communications.

Use your logo as a branding device – to appear on vehicle livery, signage and even products where appropriate, as well as the obvious places – in adverts, on your company website, on business cards and so on.

If your logo is in a unique colour combination or has been set by your designers in a specific Pantone colour make sure you know the reference code and use this whenever your logo is being reproduced.  It works for the big boys – how else do you think Coca Cola manage to reproduce their famous red on all packaging throughout the world – and it can work for you.  A distinctive colour or colour combination can become sub consciously associated with your business and if you choose the right colours there can be other spin off effects – but that’s a whole other article.

Any small business can use the 5Ps to plan and manage a cost effective branding strategy for their business – but few do.  Follow this approach and you can benefit from the experience of much bigger brand names.