Branding on a Budget

Guest post from Maria Ross, founder and chief strategist of Red Slice ( www.red-slice ) a branding and marketing consultancy based in the US.

Branding does not have to be some big expensive effort that only companies like Apple or Virgin can afford. If you run a small business, you need to spend time thinking about and conveying your brand as well. A brand is more than just your logo or website - it's your essence, your core. It's the experience people have with you, the impression you leave in their minds. So you need to really think about what you want that impression to be and ensure all your visual and experiential touchpoints - including all your marketing activities - consistently convey that to your audience.

The best thing entrepreneurs can do to save money is to first sit down and create a clear, strong brand strategy. This entails defining who you are, what you represent, what feelings you want to evoke, what value you provide, how you price things, who your ideal audience is, and how to best reach them. This requires sitting down and answering some key questions. People that don't do this first and launch into creating a website or investing in marketing programmes are just throwing their money away. When you have no destination, every road looks like it will lead you somewhere.

Know thy audience and thy brand and you will know the best communication vehicles and marketing tactics in which to invest -- and more importantly, at which phase. Translation: only pay for things that will move you forward.

1. Create a strong brand strategy -- this foundation will save you time, money and headaches (and countless billable hours) before engaging with a designer, programmer or writer. Consider your strengths, weaknesses, the benefits you offer customers. Who is your competition and how are you different? Who (and where) is your ideal customers? How do you want to be perceived – what adjectives best describe what you want to be to people? Are you playful and whimsical or formal and conservative?
2. Define your ideal audience - put as much precision around who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, what they read, if they watch TV, what clubs they belong to, etc. so you can ensure you only invest in marketing programmes that really get in front of them, rather than blasting your message to everyone and having no one pay attention.
3. Leverage free stuff first -- We all know about Twitter and Facebook, but what about other free marketing opportunities? Solicit unpaid speaking engagements at a local business or networking association. Partner with complementary businesses to put on a joint promotion or create a referral programme. These are great ways to promote without spending a penny. And make sure simple things like your email signature and your outgoing voice mail message are opportunities you are using to further convey your brand promise.
4. Map activities to buying cycle phases - Think about the phases of the buying cycle: Awareness, Education, Evaluation, Purchase. What information does the potential customer need at each phase? Put yourself in the prospective customer's shoes and visualise them finding you in various ways. Are they driving in their car when the need for your product arises or do they do extensive web research when buying such a thing? Are they at a trade show when they see your product? For each phase of the unconscious buying cycle, they have different information needs, so you must plan your marketing activities accordingly.

Make sure you picture that ideal customer in your head and how they will find you before you create everything under the sun and find yourself a year from now making a trip to the recycle bin with all those lovely pamphlets you never needed.

Maria has advised start-ups, solopreneurs, non-profits and even large enterprises on how to craft their brand story to engage, inform and delight customers. Her book, Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget, will be available summer 2010.