Imagine your business without branding.
You feel you are invisible.
To turn this into Visibility, you need to go through branding.
Branding is the crux of your small business that defines you in front of the world.
But how you are going to present is a challenging duty.
But need to perform.
And for that, you need to invest.
Now, assume you don’t have enough to invest. You are afraid the amount will be high or exceed your budget.
Well, it can be, but don’t worry. This blog gives specific ways to do branding on a budget.
On the other hand, for a more relaxed approach, you can outsource your small business branding project to Creatix9 US.
Our branding services deal with these regularly and excel in what we do, especially in branding projects.
Contact us.
Let’s start!
Describe your brand identity
Before you do that, you need to do in-depth research about your clients.
– What does their market segmentation include: age, income, interests, needs, behavior, personality traits, or location?
– What industry do I belong to?
– How many rivals do I have?
– How can you interact with your clients?
This question needs answers, and you need to implement the solutions to these questions.
You can research your client’s needs and interests by occasionally interacting with them on social media channels, or you can use a free tool like TypeForm to get suggestions about your company.
You can check rivals’ posts to understand their techniques for gaining clients’ trust, compare their strategies, and detect where you are lacking.
When you release how your clients view your brand, you become strong enough to choose which things you want them to keep liking about you and which things you want to change.
Determine your brand visuals
Your brand visuals are your fonts, colors, logo, and any other imagery that displays your business, such as stock pictures, business photos, or any visual style you use in your branding that no one else uses.
Decide colors, fonts, and logos that your audience likes or matches their preferences.
When you understand your client’s likes, dislikes, traits, and behaviors, you work on the psychological part of how these fonts, colors, and other imagery can connect with your audience’s likes and dislikes while showing what your business delivers.
This is a brainstorming session with lots of effort from multiple artists, branding experts, and marketers.
Pick a font that shows what your brand does. For example, if you are a real estate agent, serif fonts show classic and professionalism.
Or if a children’s toys manufacturer, sense serif gives a casual and modern look.
Then, you can work on colors like blur or white, which gives a professional and formal look, while orange provides a casual and contemporary look. Here, you must learn color psychology to choose a color that best matches your industry and client preferences and behaviors.
The logo is a small yet powerful actor in your small business branding. Build a logo using the colors and fonts that define your brand actions and clients’ preferences.
Other brand visuals are the art styles (patterns, icons, or symbols) used in your marketing materials.
Determine your brand language
It is the frame of words, sentences, or phrases you use to refer your product to a brand.
This covers tone, voice, and messaging style—your language while communicating with your clients.
You use unique words, phrases, or sentences when communicating with clients using marketing material.
Word choice and tone are two basic parts of determining your brand language.
Word choice refers to the choice of certain expressive words or vocabulary, while tone is the attitude of the advertisement.
Brand language is the core verbal part of brand identity, covering the brand and the product you trade using taglines, tone, and wording choices.
Your Brand language must be set in a way that is so unique that no one ever imagines to stand out from rivals.
More clarity equals more clients in the brand language.
When you release a brand, you ensure with word that this brand will resolve your queries (anything) with words, taglines, and even product packaging content.
Positive words become assets when firmly associated with your brand.
Take Disney, for example. Through its words, Disney takes an edge position in this verbal brand language with its magic words, as Disney has the most words that are associated with the brand.
Define your brand story
Your values, mission, vision, goals, milestones, and strategies are here. Your brand story is all about these questions: –
– What issue can my brand solve with its service or products?
– Why does my brand want to challenge this problem?
– What is my brand doing now to help resolve the issue?
– What does my brand want to attain in the future to keep working on the solution?
Combine all these questions and their answers into a single story about your brand’s purpose and plans.
Create brand assets and a style guide
Once you’ve established your brand identity, it’s time to ensure consistency. You’ll create brand assets (like logos, images, etc.) and a style guide that outlines how to use them. This helps maintain a cohesive look and feel across all your materials.
Use your style guide and assets to implement your brand identity and story.
Gather your brand assets
Your branding assets are the visuals clients see, such as files and images. By having all of them in a single place, you can easily maintain consistency with your brand’s look and feel.
Examples of brand assets are: –
– Logo can be in various formats, colors, and sizes.
– Business photos or stock photos
– Font or typefaces of your website or app fonts
– Any mascots that have
– Taglines, slogans, or other concise messages used in marketing
– Reports, presentations, and other documents that clients can see
Build your brand style guide
Your brand style guide is equivalent to a manual for your marketing and communications. It outlines the proper usage of your brand’s products. What you should include are:
The logo rules specify how to utilize your logo. The appropriate spacing, colors, and sizes surround it. For instance, avoid stretching or altering the logo’s color scheme.
Brand Colors are the hues that are associated with your company. The codes are in many formats, including PANTONE, print, RGB, and HEX. Our primary color, for instance, is #0077FF.
Typography Guidelines are the typefaces you choose, which are discussed here. It specifies which ones to use for headings and paragraphs, among other things. For headings, use Arial, and for paragraphs, Times New Roman.
Image Guideline applies to the pictures you use. It specifies what images work best for your brand and at what size. For instance, always use brand-related, high-quality photos.
Write a brief paragraph outlining your brand’s core values. For example, we started to make healthy snacks for kids.
Tone and voice tell you how to talk as a brand. It’s like your personality. For example, we’re friendly and helpful, like a good buddy.
Also, it’s acceptable if your style guide isn’t fancy. You can just put it together in a standard document. To make it easily discoverable, keep it with your brand’s products. If you use Canva, you can save your brand style there.
You might also want a content style guide if you write a lot. This guide tells you how to write for your brand, such as what words to use and how to write sentences.
Brand your social media presence
Make your business’s social media look and sound the same across all platforms. This will facilitate the process of creating content and maintaining a unified style.
Write a brief synopsis of your social media style guide. This will help everyone understand your brand.
Choose how your company speaks on social media. Should you sound severe or lighthearted? Put it in writing.
Note any particular grammatical conventions you adhere to, such as the Oxford comma. Also, choose your language regarding topics like gender and ethnicity.
Select the layout for your posts across all platforms. For example, should the link be placed first or last?
Consider the context and style you wish to utilize hashtags and emojis. Specific platforms may require more than others.
Select which images and videos to use, such as ones you have taken yourself or those you have permission to use. Also, determine whether you want to employ any unique designs.
Adhering to these guidelines will assist your company in establishing a unique social media presence. Emojis and hashtags, for instance, are used by Sustainable Energy for All to engage younger audiences. To help you stay true to your style, you can leverage resources like Canva and Buffer.
Conclusion
Feeling lost about making your business stand out? Figuring out branding can be challenging, especially if you’re new to it. But don’t worry! You can learn a lot from how other small businesses do it.
Call Creatix9 US to see how one small business branding is done. We help you understand what steps to take for your brand.
As a small business branding company, we provide the USA’s most affordable corporate branding services.
Our digital branding services cover brochure flyers, packages, banners, and logo design services in the USA.