For the past several months, I’ve been researching a topic I personally think most  small businesses overlook.  Branding..

What is branding?

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA) branding is ..”a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or groups of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers”.

What is branding to me?

Branding to me is not only the look and feel of your website but also the total representation  of your business.  Often I see small businesses take what they can afford either by templates, stock images, or personal taste, without thinking about the long term effects of what your potential customers perception. This hodge podge of colors, designs, text and layout “cheapens” the overall purpose of your business and can  leave a bad first impression. Sometimes these  free methods such as Myspace,  can make your branding inconsistent and unclear. The  core of branding to me is  consistency – not only on your personal website but also how you represent yourself on any social media, blog  or print publication.

Branding is not just thinking about a name and your favorite colors and graphics… it’s an entire marketing strategy to “capture” the potential customer’s attention.  It is a process that takes careful planning.  Here are some steps I use when defining a brand.

Step 1. What are your competitors doing? Do they all focus on the same thing? How can you make convey you are “different”?  For example: in the world of the web with .com, .biz, .org, .net, .us, etc…. often times you can think of a great name… but your competitor is already doing the same thing with your name! When you pick your name for your website, make sure you check to see if it’s reserved by anyone else in various extensions. If possible, purchase those extensions for your own security.  Look to see how you could differentiate yourself from the competition. Competitive research should be the first priority when developing your own brand and business.

Step 2. What are keywords you want your customers to remember you by?  High quality, best value, organic, affordable.  Write a list down of the different words you would use to describe your business.   This will give you focus and help you develop our niche not only to distinguish yourself from your competition but also define your keywords online.

Step 3: What’s your name?   Joe’s barbar shop isn’t that memorable… but Great Hair by Joe has a bit more flare. Write a list of all the different names you would consider and look at it in a few days. What you think might be good at the time can sound  silly  a few days later.

Step 4:  Do you have a missions statement? With using your keywords and your name write a mission statement  to help you define what is your business and what is your reason for being.

Step 5:  What are key phrases? Using your mission statement, define several key phrases or slogans you can use throughout the text and content of your marketing materials. Pay close attention to the words you chose that they are consistent with your mission statement.  Pick 1 primary phrase for your slogan.

Step 6:  Pick a color pallet.  Strong and bold, sensitive, professional, caring?  Colors can convey emotions. For example:

RED: energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

Orange: joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.

Yellow: joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.

Green: growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility

Blue: trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.

Purple: power, nobility, luxury, and ambition

White: light, goodness, innocence, purity, perfection

Black: power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery

Step 7: What’s your style?  Do you want to appear neat and tidy, creative, fun, modern, antique, etc?  Search on the web for different styles of websites. Look to see what elements you like and don’t like. I often look at monstertemplates.com to inspire me for different design styles.

Step 8: Develop a logo. Finally, once you’ve identified all of the key elements, share them with your logo designer or design a logo yourself. Keep in mind the different variations of your logo such as black/white… large/small.

Step 9:  Get feedback. Sometimes what you think may look good, others have a different perception. Ask your friends and family for feedback.  Most importantly, ask them if your ideas leave a lasting impression.

Step 10: Put it all into action and create your business. Now that you have a strong foundation,  creating a web presents will be easier and more effective to your potential customers.

My Brand:

When I decided to “rebrand” my previous business Gopher Girl Virtual Assistance,  there were several reasons why. Gopher Girl was originally branded as a virtual assistant business. Hence: the “gopher” name. Although I attempted to incorporate web design into these services, it still maintained the “assistant” image on the web.

When I completed the same exercise above, I wanted to focus on very key elements. As a web development firm catering towards small business, I wanted to target the very core of what I do.

• Foundation – the foundation of every business is a website!
• Growth – helping businesses grow though my services
• Organic – Organic SEO, organic
• Seeds – idea seeds, starting out, new business
• Clear – clear navigation, clear information, clear designs
• Fresh look, fresh design

Although I am still in the process of developing my primary website, this method of  analysis has been incredibly worthwhile for my short and long term goal of my business.

Kimberly at greenseedwebdesign.com