Small Business Branding Tips (from the World’s Largest Naming Platform!)

There’s intense competition in every niche of business, and in recent years, this competition has only gotten more vicious and organized. That’s why although the mortality rate for startups is surging, big companies keep getting stronger and bigger, most of them using software, such as counseling scheduling software to help them grow.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of startups fail in their first year of launching, 45% fail within five years, 65% within ten years, and 25% live up to fifteen years.

And yes, the COVID pandemic didn’t make things any easier for businesses seeing that 4.3 million businesses were launched in 2020, and more than 2.81 million startups have already made their way into the market in Q1 and Q2 of 2021.

So, if your brand must rise above the flood of generic businesses and fierce competition in the market, you’ll need to know how to build a successful brand. The following small business branding tips will help.

Why Branding is Critical to Your Business

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True, the global economy is still recovering from COVID. But despite the fact that experts estimate it’d take some time for the economy to attain its pre-pandemic status, entrepreneurs aren’t slowing down.  

The competition is getting fiercer, and branding your business is the most effective way your startup can adapt to current customer trends and preferences like:

• A strong desire for digital companies and services like e-commerce, remote working, online entertainment, telemedicine, and delivery services 
• Increased focus on health, well-being, and the environment 
• Distrust toward brands that engage in humiliating, damaging, and unethical activities
• Attraction to brands with a unique identity
• Admiration for businesses that take a stand on social and cultural problems

Customers are willing to pay 17% more to well-branded businesses that give outstanding products and customer service. So, make sure you invest time and effort in creating a strong brand.

3 Strong Small Business Branding Tips 

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1. Begin by Knowing Your Target Customers 

Developing a strong brand identity only happens when you have a strong customer base. Many business owners believe that branding is just concerned with marketing. But, no matter how hard you try to promote your business, it’s the customers who will propel it to success.

And the best approach to building a brand that customers will happily engage with is to involve them in your product development process and the creation and implementation of your brand’s policies.

All of this, however, is only possible if you have a thorough understanding of who your target customers are, their needs, how they react to your products and services, how they perceive your competitor’s brand and product, and what they truly desire.

And the best way to gather all this information about your target audience is to conduct a survey and evaluate the results. 

2. Build a Vibrant Brand Identity

Every business has an identity, and the identity of your brand comprises what it says, your values, how you portray your product, and how you want people to feel when they engage with it.

Essentially, your brand’s identity is your company’s personality as well as a promise to your audience. And if your brand is to remain competitive, its identity must be examined and changed regularly to ensure that it’s delivering on the company’s fundamental promises.

So on the topic of small business branding tips, ensure you keep an eye on your company’s success using Google Analytics, customer surveys, reviews, and social media dialogues. Doing this would reveal how people talk about and engage with your brand and would also assist you in identifying and focusing on particular areas that require development.

3. Give Your Business the Perfect Brand Name

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A powerful brand name will distinguish your company by effectively conveying your brand’s identity, purpose, vision, and ambitions. Coca-Cola, Beyond Meat, Apple, Tesla, and Gucci are just a few examples of companies whose creative brand names will continue to distinguish them.

Now that you’ve acquired vital information about your consumers and established a strong brand identity, it’s time to unleash your creative side and look for unique words that satisfy your company’s naming needs.

We understand that coming up with the perfect brand name can be tough, but it doesn’t have to be that way because enlisting a team to help you in the naming process can make brainstorming easier.

So, inform your team about your brand and urge them to be creative when brainstorming. Allow your team to use dictionaries, thesauruses, and any other resources that’ll assist them in creating the most fascinating and engaging names possible.

Remember that the objective here is to produce a list of names relevant to your company’s needs and that appeal to customers.

If you don’t have a team, and coming up with a list of names sounds like a difficult and time-consuming task, don’t worry because using a powerful business name generator can help you find the best name for your company.

Watch Your Business’s Growth

On the topic of small business branding tips, here’s one word of advice: don’t make the same error most entrepreneurs make by developing their business too quickly. Because by doing that, you risk losing sight of your finances, overvaluing sales, making fatal mistakes, not hiring the appropriate people, not growing your customer service, and losing the quality of your brand.

However, when the time comes for your brand to grow and expand, make sure you have a clear scope and focus for your business and a complete understanding of your new product, service, and target consumers, as well as your old products and their target customers. 

When an entrepreneur grows their business too quickly without devoting time to research, strategy, and planning, the company’s finances would be stretched too thin. If considerable caution isn’t taken, the business may fail.

Interested in reading about more small business branding tips? Here are seven things that make customers love your brand.

 

Author Bio

This article was written by Grant Polachek, Head of Branding at Inc 500 company Squadhelp.com, the world’s #1 naming platform, with 30,000+ customers from early-stage startups across the globe to the largest corporations including Nestle, Philips, Hilton, Pepsi, and AutoNation.