Statistics show 59% of shoppers prefer to buy from brands they trust. While 21% say they purchased a new product because it was from a brand they liked. Building a strong business brand is not a luxury for small and medium enterprises; it’s a necessity.
For SMEs, this trust does not come from flashy ads or massive budgets but from employing SME branding tips and a solid small business branding strategy.
SMEs stand for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. They refer to businesses that fall between micro enterprises and large corporations. They usually have limited resources and are often niche-focused, yet are the backbone of the economy in many countries like Nigeria..
Brand building for SMEs is crucial because it enables you to stand out in the market despite competition. As a small business owner, you can build loyal customers and sometimes hold a candle to big brands.
The challenge is that many small businesses struggle with building their brand. Lots of them do not have a clear brand identity (who they are and their core values), many others spread inconsistent messages across social platforms, and others can not connect their brands with the right target audience.
As a small business owner, it is sometimes challenging to build a strong brand for your business due to a low budget and scarce resources. Employing a solid brand strategy for SMEs becomes overwhelming, thus making you unsure of where to start.
However, in this guide, we’ll explore seven(7) powerful tips you need to build a solid brand for your small business.
What is Business Branding For SMEs?
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Building a solid business brand for your small business requires a lot more than the product videos you post on TikTok or other social media, or just the logo you have managed to get. Think about business branding as the personality of your business; it includes your voice, tone, and overall experience your audience has while interacting with your business.
Just as parties in Nigeria are synonymous with the signature party jollof rice, when people hear about your business, what do they feel? What comes to their mind?
Working on these perceptions is working on your business brand, which goes a long way to improve your overall sales and business growth.
Seven (7) Essential Tips For Building a Strong Business Brand For Small Businesses
Here are seven (7) essential tips that will make your brand stand out in the crowded marketplace;
- Research Your Audience
- Define Your Brand Identity
- Build an Online Presence
- Tell a Compelling Brand Story
- Maintain Consistency Across your content and visuals
- Leverage Content Marketing
- Collaborate and Network
Tip 1: Researching Your Audience
One of the most neglected but critical aspects of branding is audience research. Despite the emphasis on understanding your target audience, some small businesses choose to create their personas based on their assumptions and not facts.
Conducting thorough audience research will greatly benefit your branding strategy because you’ll tailor your content to your specific audience. While developing your brand message, you’ll also be able to understand how they feel and the best approach to appeal to them.
Several tools can help you make detailed audience research, and they include: Google Analytics, Statista, SurveyMonkey, etc. You could also use surveys and questionnaires in online forms or in-person queries.
When you neglect audience research, it can be difficult to get a loyal customer base; even worse is that you risk investing your limited resources into branding efforts without measurable yield.
Tip 2: Define Your Brand Identity and Value
Some small businesses overlook an important step before launching their business, and that is developing their core brand identity and values.
This is more than the logo, the catchy business name, or the quality of your products. It is who your business is. It is what you stand for, the value you bring to the market, and how you want your audience to see you. Due to the rush to launch and get their businesses out there, some small brands just do this vaguely.
Without a clear identity, customers will find it hard to connect or trust your business. The reason is that this is a foundational step that should guide your marketing efforts and other business branding processes. 81% of customers need to trust brands to consider buying from them.
A vague brand identity makes it difficult for your customers to trust you, as they can’t understand what you have to offer them and why they should choose you instead of your competitors.
Before launching your brand, or even if your brand is live already, start today. Define your mission, values, and identify your target audience. Create a unique value proposition and tailor your branding efforts to align with your brand identity and values.
Tip 3: Build an Online Presence
At one time, having an online presence was optional, but now it is essential. If, as a small business, you’re still lacking when it comes to building your online presence, then you’re leaving money on the table, which a solid brand can fetch you.
Having a digital presence involves everything from your website design to your social media presence, content marketing, and digital advertising.
You could also build your online presence by promoting your business on your personal social media pages. Having your executives or other staff talk about your brand positively on their social media helps boost audience trust and generally impacts your brand perception.
82% of people are more likely to trust a company whose high-ranking executives actively use social media.
Not actively building your online presence can limit your brand visibility. Ensure you prioritize building a professional and user-friendly website, and also invest in digital marketing strategies like SEO and content marketing.
Tip 4: Tell a Compelling Brand Story
Most consumers are not just looking for products and services; they’re looking for brands they relate to. You should not just focus on selling your products; also include crafting stories that are personal to your brand in your content.
Include storytelling in your content strategy to make your brand feel personal and relatable to your audience. In case you’re wondering what kind of stories you should put out there, your brand mission, the purpose of your brand, and even behind-the-scenes of your business processes are things that can make your audience trust you.
Customers shop from brands they know, like, and trust. A well-crafted brand story can do all this for your brand. It builds an emotional connection with your audience and makes you remain top of mind and connected to your audience. Ensure that the stories are authentic and are in line with your target audience’s values and beliefs, which you found out through audience research.
Tip 5: Maintain Consistency Across Your Contents and Visuals
The first impressions people have of your business most time are visual. Even when they walk into your physical office, they still get to see the visual impression.
When these elements are solid, they create a strong business brand identity, making you a recognizable brand.
Maintaining consistency across your social media visuals, in your time and style of messaging, and even in your typography, all add together to make your audience love you.
Inconsistency in your SME business branding weakens your customers’ trust in the professionalism of your business.
To avoid this, you can develop a brand style guide that shows guidelines for imagery and graphics as well as a color palette for your designs and content.
Tip 6: Leverage Content Marketing
Content Marketing for small businesses is a broad field that concerns everything about the content you create for your SME.
It ranges from adding a blog section to your website to including a video marketing strategy, as well as employing SEO best practices to promote your brand awareness and perception.
Most brands employ email marketing by using newsletters to reach their audience. This feels more personal and helps improve the audience-brand relationship.
Being in someone’s DM feels more personal than them randomly coming across your posts on their feed. Email marketing is also covered in content marketing for your business.
As a small business that wants to build a solid brand for their business, investing in content marketing for your business will greatly improve your business’s personality.
Tip 7: Collaborate and Network
Invest in working with other businesses in the same industry as yours or other industries. Ensure you attend networking events like trade fairs and other community programs, as this would help keep your small business top of mind with other business people who can refer your brand to others.
You can’t scale your business brand by just running it alone and inside your bedroom or office space. Holding hands with other SMEs can open doors to opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to reach on your own.
Sponsoring a school program or participating in other community-led programs can make people see your brand as supportive and approachable, which greatly impacts your business personality.
More people are likely to know, like, and trust you.
Conclusion
For SMEs, branding your business is the difference between blending in and standing out in the market; improving your brand is crucial for its success. By employing these tips above, you’re sure on your way to building a solid brand that your audience will know, like, and trust.
