Small Business Branding

Another excellent article from Mason at Small Fuel:

Branding for Small Business: Good or Bad?

April 26, 2008 | Written By Mason Hipp

For as long as I’ve been in the field of marketing, there has been an ongoing debate as to whether branding is useful for small businesses.

Many people argue that a business owner has more important things to worry about than creating a brand, and that it’s best to wait until you are established before branding yourself.

On the other hand, many are of the opinion that you will never be able to establish yourself and become successful unless you invest in branding.

So, which is the right answer?

Is branding necessary for the success of your small business, or is it a waste of your time and money?

What is branding anyway?

Before we get any further into this discussion, I think it’s important to establish some definitions. There are two in particular that I’d like to settle on.

Brand

The word brand means a lot of things to a lot of people, so for the purposes of this article, I’m going to stick with my favorite definition. The reason I like this definition so much is that it makes sense, it is all inclusive, and it doesn’t require any caveats. It is also a definition that most of the experts agree on.

“A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer”

What does that mean? Basically, any perceptions, memories, images, or ideas that your consumers have about your company, that’s your brand. Think about Apple—new, trendy, simple—that’s their brand. Microsoft on the other hand has a geeky and corporate brand.

Branding

Branding, while similar to ‘brand’ is a slightly different thing. Branding is an action.This is a subtle distinction, but I think it’s rather important for small business.

Branding is the act of building positive perceptions in the mind of your consumers

Branding is what happens when you’re out at a trade show and have big signs. Branding is buying an ad with your picture or logo on it so people will see your company. Corporate sponsorship = branding.

Why Branding Stinks for Small Business

If you’re in small business, there are several reasons you shouldn’t spend time or money branding.

The first is argument against branding is simple—it costs too much. Both time and money are at a premium in small business, and since there isn’t much of either, what you have shouldn’t be wasted on things that don’t have a direct return on investment. Income is king, and everything you spend should bring in more money.

The second major argument says that small businesses can’t have brands. The logic goes as follows: in order to have a brand people need to see your logo and remember you. Big businesses spend millions of dollars so they will be remembered, but what chance is there that a small business can ever have their image stick in the mind of the consumers?

The second argument against branding doesn’t really hold much ground in my mind, since the solution is pretty simple. Smaller company, smaller budget, smaller brand. You might not ever be remembered by the whole of the USA, but you can probably get your image to stick in a 5 mile radius around your company, or in your local networking groups.

Why Branding is Awesome for Small Business

There may be several arguments against branding a small business, but there are an equal number of counter arguments.

The first pro-branding argument is the obvious one: branding doesn’t have cost that much. There are many ways to put your image out into the community without spending a lot of money.

In my mind this has a lot of weight, and can be completely true, depending on your situation of course.

The second argument says that to avoid branding and focus only on sales is taking very short term view of your business. Branding is a long term process, and having a good brand at the start will help create a solid business for you into the future. Starbucks started as a single shop and built their whole company on a fabulous brand.

The final argument for branding a small business is that having a professionally designed brand will show that you’re, well, a professional. Credibility is the key to making sales, and by having a poor or non-existent brand you will be throwing away your money, even if it is spent on “direct income generation”.

The Best Plan of Action

I’ll come right out and say this first: if you had to put me in one of two camps, pro-branding or anti-branding, I’d definitely be in the pro-branding group. I think ignoring something as big as how your company looks and how people perceive it is a big mistake.

That said, there are a lot of important things to consider with small business, and I agree whole-heartedly with many of the anti-branding arguments. I’ve seen many small businesses spend so much time and money branding that they slowly withered away and died.

Time and money are clearly critical to small business and spending all, or even most of it, on branding will be a poor decision.

Creating an awesome brand, however, will build immediate credibility for your small business and can boost the sales from all of your other activities.

So what’s the final verdict?

I recommend spending enough time or money to create a professional and credible brand, but not spending much on “branding-only campaigns” until your company can really afford it.

What are your thoughts?

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