Small Business Now
  Your site for small business success

By Kim T. Gordon

    What instantly springs to mind when your customers hear your company name? If you're uncertain or, even worse, feel stuck with a less-than-stellar image, it's time to give your branding an overhaul. It's no coincidence that industry leaders in every category from soft drinks to spas toil endlessly to create some of the world's most recognized brands. But it doesn't have to cost millions or take years to put your company's branding efforts on track. Just follow these four guidelines to create a winning brand image.

1. Differentiate Your Brand

    Branding is all about sending a strong and consistent message. Every time a prospect or customer has contact with your company -- whether it's by visiting your website or seeing a print ad -- they have a branding experience. And fine-tuning your brand image is particularly critical if your small business is in a highly competitive product or service arena because it separates your company from the pack.

    If it's been a while since you performed a competitive analysis, make time to take this important step in realigning your brand. Clip all your competitors’ ads and PR coverage, research them online and buy their products and services. Then decide what makes your product or service different. It's this point of differentiation that allows you to create an image that sticks in customers' minds.

2. Promise Value

    Once you know what separates your product or service from its competitors, you can redefine your brand message so that it resonates with your best prospects. How well do you know and understand them? Researching and creating an accurate portrait of your targeted prospects is essential to focusing your branding efforts on the audience that will be most receptive to the unique qualities of your products and services. Trying to be all things to all people results in a diluted and weak brand, whereas differentiation based on what your unique customers want, need, and value most from you will result in strong branding and sales.

    What does your product or service deliver that’s valued most by your best customers? If you're unsure, put "listening posts" in place -- from online message boards to printed satisfaction surveys -- that monitor customers’ perceptions of your brand and uncover unmet needs.

3. Be a Market Leader

    Delivering on this value proposition over the long term not only means your company will live up to its branding efforts, but it will make you a leader in your marketplace. And performing like a leader means keeping your promises. Today, customers consider the "ownership experience" prior to making many purchases. They look at reviews, read in-depth information, and pay attention to word-of-mouth in order to feel confident that the purchase, and post-purchase, experience will live up to the expectations raised by brand marketing campaigns. Nothing torpedoes branding efforts faster than failing to live up to marketing claims. To be a true leader in your market niche, focus on improving your customers’ experiences and interactions with your company.

4. Integrate Your Messages

    Every interaction a customer has with your brand must be uniform across all marketing channels. How consistently is your brand's message communicated? Do the messages of your various marketing programs conflict? For example, your online marketing -- from website content to e-mail solicitations -- should be fully integrated with your off-line efforts, carrying a single, clear branding message and related design elements. To ensure your branding tuneup is a success, audit all your company's current marketing communications. Pay particular attention to sales tools, as these tend to become mismatched and disconnected from other marketing efforts over time. Reintegrate them along with all of your company's marketing tools and campaigns to create a stronger brand image.

Kim T. Gordon's columns and articles are read by more than 3 million small-business owners each month.  She is a small-business expert and the author of four books, including Maximum Marketing, Minimum Dollars: The Top 50 Ways to Grow Your Small Business.