Having a brand can have the potential to make a memorable impression on customers, as well as distinguish yourself from your competitors and demonstrate what it is you offer that makes you the better choice for consumers.

So, what exactly is branding, and why is it so important for small online businesses? We take a look at how your messaging, marketing, and engagement can be the difference between a successful start-up or a struggling online business lost in the digital crowd.


 

What is branding?

Branding helps create and cultivate emotional connections with your consumers. How do you feel when you see a familiar brand that you love? What emotions does it trigger when you purchase from a brand whose products you use regularly and value? Do you feel a sense of familiarity and affinity when shopping with your favourite brand? These are the kind of aspects that you should warrant from a consumer when creating your brand identity.

However, when it comes to creating your business’s brand identity, you should take note that branding is much more than just a catchy slogan or dazzling logo. Branding, if done right, can positively influence the consumer experience and create a loyal customer base.

Get to know your customers

Understanding the behaviour of your customers can help you create a brand identity for your business. Are you a niche business that appeals to a certain demographic? Do you target Gen Z and Millennials? Or do your products only resonate with women while offering a specialised bespoke service? Once you understand who your customers are will you know the type of branding that will be most effective in your market and most importantly to your audience.

Check out your competition

Competitor analysis is crucial in analysing the competition and understanding rival businesses’ marketing and branding strategies. By researching competitors’ brand identity, you can grasp how consumers react to rival branding and look at ways in which you can further improve upon it.

Get creative

Once you have researched the market and analysed your customer base and competition, it’s time to get creative. This is the part of your branding strategy in which you create and finalise your business logo, colour palettes, copy and content style, photography and graphics for marketing campaigns and social media.

Depending on your budget you can hire a professional freelancer to create your graphics and logo or attempt to do it yourself. There are a lot of freelance services online that you can utilise to help you in your branding strategy. Here are a few of our favourites.

Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services that provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide. You will be spoilt for choice as talented writers, graphic designers and social media marketers offer their expertise. We recommend that you thoroughly research the platform and compare prices and portfolios to ensure the best fit for your project.

PeoplePerHour is a UK-based platform that gives businesses access to freelance workers. Like Fiverr, we recommend that you research the platform to ensure you find the right freelancer to help with your branding strategy.

It is also worth noting that a lot of freelancers offer multiple services. It may be worthwhile (and cheaper) to secure the services of a specialist that has an array of skills in content and copywriting, graphic design and social media marketing rather than utilising the services of multiple people for different tasks.

Create a story

When it comes to your branding, what kind of story do you want to tell? Do you want your branding to uplift and inspire? Or do you want to focus and raise awareness of a social cause? While branding should be uniquely personalised and help your business stand out in a saturated market, it should also not isolate and offend potential customers. This is too often the case with many businesses who take on virtuous social crusades in their branding and messaging only to be met with poor sales and customer backlash.

Instead, focus on branding that tells the origins of your business and a story that is relatable but still focused on your product and service. Ask yourself the question, how does your business solve consumers problems? And how can your branding and story showcase how you can solve those problems.

Summary

For small businesses to stand out in an overcrowded online marketplace, it’s more important than ever before to have a strong brand identity. Bells and whistles are great but when it comes to creating your brand, remember that consumers are online to search for the information they need to make decisions about products to potentially purchase.

Your branding should resonate with the audience while captivating and engaging them, but ultimately your branding should possess the right amount of information to allow customers to make an informed decision about your product and service and whether they should purchase from you or not.

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