It is no secret that in today’s highly competitive and rapidly evolving market, running a small business is not a piece of cake. According to research conducted by the Small Business Administration, only half of new businesses survive during the first five years, and only one-third of them survive for 10 years. Similarly, Forbes identified that out of 10 businesses, almost 8 fail within the first 18 months.
A study conducted by Tech Jury revealed that around 89 percent of marketers identified building brand awareness for their businesses as their top goal. This means that to outshine the competition and make your product offerings and branding messages stand out, your business needs a well-thought branding strategy.
This is because effective branding helps your business and its products get recognized and establishes trust among your target audience, which is vital for your business’s survival.
Apart from this, an end-to-end branding strategy helps demonstrate your brand story, thereby helping you in creating brand relevance. This helps your business stay on top of your prospects’ minds.
Still, wondering how you can tap the real potential of branding and why you should never ignore it? Here’s what you need to know:
Table of Contents
#1 Develop an Effective Brand Tone
The findings of a study revealed that 65 percent of customers said that effective brand tone helps them connect with a brand.
It is a known fact that the brand tone has become more crucial than ever as a means of standing out from other players in the market. If you want to make sure that your business has an effective and impactful brand tone, you should first understand what brand voice is.
In a true sense, your brand tone is the distinct personality that a brand displays through its marketing communications. For instance, the company FireBox’s brand tone can be defined as creatively funny. The image below shows how the company’s website is represented in a light-hearted and catchy manner.
This means that if your business did not have a distinct brand tone, your target audience wouldn’t be able to identify your business and relate to it. Still not sure how to develop a memorable and unique brand tone for your business? Here’s how to go about it:
- Conduct in-depth research, and understand the attitudes, emotions, and characteristics of your target audience.
- Ensure a consistent brand tone among all your marketing communications, such as your website, leaflets, brochures, social media sites, emails, etc.
- Build a strong culture in your company that depicts your brand voice.
- Be yourself.
#2 Choose the Most Suitable Color Scheme
A study conducted by Forbes discovered that your branding colors can improve brand recognition by up to 80 percent.
This is because of the color scheme that you choose impacts your audience’s emotions, thus making it a vital part of your company’s branding. Besides this, colors help make your brand memorable and attractive in front of your prospects.
Unsure how to choose the most suitable color palette for your business that can help tap the real potential of branding? Don’t worry; we have curated a handful of expert tips and tricks to help you get started:
- Choose the primary color of your brand first. For instance, McDonald’s primary color is yellow because that’s what comes to our mind when we think about this brand.
- Select the colors that match with the personality and common emotional characteristics of your target audience.
- You can also rely on the color psychology principles for understanding common color meanings.
#3 Ensure a Professional Business Image
Are you unable to convince your customers that your products are of high-quality? Wondering why are you unable to gain the trust of your target audience? The simple reason could be that you have failed to portray a professional image of your business.
If you want to ensure business success, then it is crucial to represent your business professionally. This is because it helps enhance brand credibility and allows you to gain your audience’s trust.
Not sure how to go about it? For your business’s professional look and feel, you simply need an inspiring and creative logo design. This is because the logo serves as the foundation of your branding and helps establish your brand image.
However, it is critical to note that a poor logo design can turn your customers away and hurt your brand image. As a result, you should consider hiring a well-known logo design company, such as Logo Design Valley, that can create a classy and timeless logo design for your company. While hiring a designer, don’t forget to communicate all your design requirements effectively to avoid any room for confusion.
#4 Collaborate With Industry Relevant Influencers
The latest survey conducted by the InfluencerDB revealed that there are 500,000+ active influencers on Instagram, out of which, around 81 percent have followers up to 15,000 – 100,000 users. This is because people are more likely to follow their favorite influencer’s recommendations and purchase products accordingly.
However, collaborating with an industry-relevant influencer could be a challenging task. Therefore you should always look for an influencer that has an audience similar to yours.
#5 Create and Share Engaging Content
We often hear marketers say that Content is King. Therefore, to make your business stand out, you should create and share engaging content. This is because informative and relevant content helps educate your audience about your product offerings, and brand messages, thus ensuring effective branding.
Still unsure how can content help take your branding game to the next level? Have a look at the numbers yourself!
- A study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute discovered that around 91 percent of B2B marketers mentioned that they leverage content marketing for reaching out to their target customers.
- According to research carried out by Altimeter, around 78 percent of consumers said that they will trust your brand if you would create customized content for them.
- Aberdeen’s research revealed that the conversion rates are almost 6 times higher for content marketing adopters than the non-adopters.
These studies show that by creating and sharing interesting content with your prospects, you can tap the real potential of branding. Besides this, informative and SEO optimized content can amplify your business’s online reach, thereby successfully accomplishing your branding objectives.
The Bottom Line
In a nutshell, it is critical to note that branding is essential if you want to make your small business stand out in your target audience’s eyes. However, always remember the golden rule that effective branding requires consistency.
So, if you’re looking to tap the real potential of branding, you should follow the above-mentioned tips and get a professional logo designed.
Author Bio:
Audrey Throne has an ongoing affair with the words that capture readers’ attention. Her passion for writing dates back to her pre-blogging days. She loves to share her thoughts related to business, technology, health and fashion.
Find her on Twitter: @audrey_throne
