Give your small business that ‘Business Branding Appeal’

You need Business Branding Appeal for your business to be successful.

You have to be able to resonate with your client base and nurture relationships. Developing and nurturing relationships with your customers is a definite ‘must’ and one of the smartest moves you could make as a business owner. Remember relationships do not happen overnight and should be cultivated over a period of time, building up trust, recognition and dependability. The art and science of developing a relationship between your business and your clientele is a major facet to your business branding. A primary objective to gaining business branding appeal is to achieve a solid and trustworthy relationship between your business and your clients as well as a solid recognition of your company, it’s products and its services by potential clients.

Planning
You probably don’t hear this often, but like everything else, successful branding relies on having a structured plan to follow. Successful business branding appeal is more than simply a good logo design or eye-catching advertising; it goes far deeper than that. To have solid business brand recognition you will discover that visual, mental and emotional factors must be considered.

Here are a couple of points worth remembering when considering the overall branding of your business.

• Visual Appeal
  Of course your company should have a professionally designed and recognisable logo which will be the ‘heart’ of your business brand but your products and services needs a level of consistent visibility that makes it recognisable to potential clients and repeat clients. Consider all of the avenues that are available to you. This should include your business branded stationery, your company website, press advertising, marketing brochures, product brochures, product packaging, signage and displays and anything else that a client may see that visually relates to your company. If budget is of concern then utilising many online resources that are now at hand can be a cost effective and rewarding approach. We will assume that you already have your business website but remember to embrace the social media sites and blogs that are specific to your business and trade, online advertising, link referrals and email marketing and advertising too. Using an online multi-faceted approach will certainly assist in building a visable brand for your business, but for it to work effectively you have to be consistent! You should invest time in developing a visual brand guideline for your companies marketing literature as the more consistent your visual brand is represented, then the more impact it will have
• Mental Appeal
  To successfully brand your business you need to know how your clients think. How do they make their purchasing decisions and how does that relate to the product or service that your offer? It really pays to do some good market research and get inside the thought process of your target client base. If you’re not familiar with the thought process involved with the buying decisions of your potential customers, then the chances are you are not going to make any sales or create the business brand they will keep in mind.
• Emotional Appeal
  Being ‘attractive’ to your clients emotions is perhaps the most important part of creating a successful business brand. There’s an old saying that says ‘sell the sizzle not the steak’. What this means is that you really need to shout about the benefits your clients will receive from your product or service. It’s not enough to simply list features, you have to make an emotional connection between your customers and your product or service by listing the benefits. People make purchases for one of two reasons – to either get pleasure or to steer clear of pain. Both of these reactions are based solidly on emotional cues that a smart marketer will know how to leverage for success.

By knowing how to attract the visual, mental and emotional appeal you can be sure of addressing the ‘entire person’ when you are building your business brand. Keep in mind that relationships develop over a period of time and that it will not happen instantly. Building a successful brand for your business is something you should continue to mould, massage and develop in order to build a stronger relationship with current clients and to attract new ones.

Nowadays a company has many routes available to assist in successfully building a strong brand for their business. You don’t need to lock your branding efforts into using just one medium. Throw the net wider and you’ll be surprised with just how many more clients and customers you may attract.

Please contact BlueFlameDesign if you need assistance in designing, building and establishing a professional brand for your small business.