[Infographic] Keys to Branding Your Small Business

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-keys-to-branding-your-small-business-2012-9

Why Your Brand Isn't Trusted

Part of every branding strategy includes establishing and re-enforcing brand essence. Brand essence is a simple one to three word phrase that describes a consumer's emotional connection and lasting impression, or feel, of your brand. It is truly the heart and soul of your brand. A few examples that come to mind are:

Volvo has a brand essence of safety.
Disneyworld has a brand essence of magical family fun
Harley Davidson has a brand essence of non-conformity

By and large, business owners new to the concept of branding and brand essence immediately exclaim that their company's brand essence is "trusted". Every business owner believes their customers trust in their expertise, they trust in the product and that's what they're rooting their brand in.

There's just one problem with that:

Have you ever heard that Chris Rock joke about men who are proud of things they're SUPPOSED to be doing anyway? He says he doesn't understand men who say "I take care of my kids!" "You're SUPPOSED to take care of your kids!", Chris says.

The same is true with "trust".

Your brand essence isn't "trusted" - Customers are SUPPOSED to trust you.

When I go to a new restaurant and place an order, I TRUST that the waitress will actually bring me my food, I TRUST that the food will be decent, I TRUST that the restaurant will be clean, I TRUST that I will get the food that I ordered.

When I go to the cleaners, I TRUST that my clothes will get cleaned, I TRUST that they'll be ready when I'm told they're ready, I TRUST that I'll get the same clothes out that I put in.

If those things do not happen or they don't happen more than once, I'll take my business elsewhere and all businesses know that so every business owner will provide the basic elements of service that keep a customer happy, that's not inspiring TRUST, that's called running a business.

While accurate and consistent service is certainly part of your brand strategy, it is not your brand essence. The reality is, your customers TRUST your competition too.

So, what is your brand essence? What is the visceral response your customers  have to your product or service? Do they get the warm and fuzzies when they see your product? Do they think your product will improve their quality of life? Are they convinced your product has a quality no other product has? Dig deep to find out how your customers are connecting with your product and if you're not sure what your brand essence is, ASK your customers how they are connecting with your product and build from there.

Do you already know what your brand essence is? If so, share it in the comments section! I love comments. :)

Is Your Company's Brand Architecture Built on a Solid Foundation?

As your company evolves you may develop new products, find that your original product does not fare well in specific markets and re-brand it or acquire a product or company and need to merge or dissolve one of the names. In each case, you will need to decide how that new product will be named and do so in a way that does not affect the brand equity you've worked so hard to build.

Brand Architecture is the organizational structure companies use in the implementation products. It is a means for consumers, stockholders and employees to understand the relationship of each new product to the overall company (even though the parent company may not be closely associated with the product at all).

In a nutshell, brand architecture describes how your company's brands relate to one another.


The three types of brand architecture include:

Parent or umbrella (also known as monolithic) brands such as Nabisco, Proctor & Gamble or Apple - stand-alone brands with their own reputations and consumer loyalty. They can be used in conjunction with sub-brands or endorsed brands

Sub-brands or endorsed brands are "endorsed" by a parent brand but have their own identity. Consider Nabisco's products. Nabisco is prominently displayed on all of its cookie and cracker products giving assurances to the consumer that the product will be fresh yet the product names Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Triscuit, Snackwell, etc have their own distinct identities.

Individual product brands are stand-alone brands where the parent brand is given little to no prominence. Consider Unilever's Dove products as an example.

So, what does that all mean?

When creating new products, your company will need to decide the pros and cons of implementing any of the aforementioned brand architectures or your product -  regardless of quality - could suffer. Avoid such flops like Harley-Davidson's mistake of endorsing a wine cooler! There's nothing wrong with Harley Davidson opting to create or acquire a wine cooler; however had Harley Davidson re-evaluated its brand strategy and considered its core demographics, it would have perhaps opted to create the wine cooler as an individual product with its own unique name giving the Harley Davidson name no prominence (instead of slapping it right on the packaging).

What factors should a company consider when deciding which type of brand architecture to use?

In some cases, a company may decide its parent name should be used unilaterally regardless of the product - consider Virgin Airlines, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Trains, Virgin Megastore, etc. In most cases, Virgin acquires  companies and the Virgin name is added alerting consumers that this company will be as innovative and forward thinking as the products Virgin created from scratch. The downside of this approach is diluting the parent company brand name especially if all the new products are in the same market. Consider Special K which adds its name to cereals, protein bars, water and other food products.

As companies evolve and branch off into different markets, it may decide to use a sub-brand as in the case of Apple which later created the MacIntosh brand and later the i-series - iPhone, iTunes, iPad and iPod - in an effort to distance these products from the original computer technology yet still align them with the reputation of innovation. Each brand has its own unique personality yet consumers are always aware that the parent company, Apple/Mac, is the driving force behind the brand and the same brand insistence consumers have for Apple, Inc extends to the i-series yet at the same time, consumers concerned with any perceived complexities of using a Mac computer are still apt to by an i-series product because as a separate brand it is free to build its own identity as "easy to use".

The downside to creating sub-brands is the cost of using company resources to cultivate and market a new product. Each sub-brand needs its own team that a smaller company may not be able to afford.

Individual brands like Unilver's Dove may be a good fit for a company creating a product outside of what it creates for its core demographic. Consider Harley Davidson's white wine coolers. Forget that the Wall Streeter next door owns a Harley and think only of the brand image of the company - blue collar, rough, rugged and rebellious - not a target audience for white wine coolers! Beer maybe but definitely not a white wine cooler. The downside to creating an individual, stand-alone brand, however, is that without the parent brand reputation, your marketing division is forced to create a brand identity from scratch, unable to use the brand equity you've built up over time. In some cases, it's worth it if the brand equity could be negatively affected by the new product's brand image not aligning with the parent brand.

Elevating Your Brand in One Easy Step

Whether service or product-oriented, brands continuously search for the magic formula to elevate themselves from brand awareness to brand insistence. Oftentimes, companies align themselves with celebrities or the newest pop culture craze hoping consumers will raise an approving eyebrow in their direction but in fact, studies continue to show that celebrities tend to have little impact on whether a consumer buys a product. Let's face it, few people honestly believe anyone in a celebrity's tax bracket actually buys the same products and services they do.

Companies that don't hire celebrities sometimes go for "bells and whistles" - adding features and aesthetic accoutrements that may not affect the overall functionality of the product but it at least looks pretty or is "green" or now comes in neon.

What too many companies fail to understand is that what ultimately makes a brand a "must have" is oftentimes not the product itself but rather the experience tied to the product.

With social media as a mainstay in today's society and with it review sites and the immediacy of word of mouth, it is imperative that consumers have a dynamic and positive interaction with brands and those interactions need to be more than transactional they need to be transformational. Consumers want companies to do more than sell a product, they want to know that the product was sold to them after identifying their specific needs and after being sold the product, consumers want remarkable customer service and unexpected follow-up - a call to make sure the product is to their liking, a hand-written note saying Thank You, etc. It is the experience that reinforces a brand in the minds of today's consumer and it is the experience that will prompt them to purchase the product again.

To elevate your brand, don't sell the product, provide an experience.

A few companies have elevated their brand by providing an experience via social media. Consider Dell Computers, on its site it states:  

"Dell uses Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in our products and services, gather real-time feedback and build relationships with customers, partners and other influential people."

Dell's centralized @DellCares account was launched in 2010 after a PR nightmare with an unhappy influential Twitter user. Using engagement and resolution, Dell used its customer service team to publicly address customer issues and solicit feedback and within a year was able to interact with over 10,000 Dell customers, saw a significant decline in negative feedback and converted 35% of its detractors to promoters of Dell products.


Some companies will continue to opt for bells and whistles and the new hot celebrity to promote their product but companies who stay connected with their customer base soliciting feedback and giving them more than they expect will continue to see their relational capital skyrocket.