Small Business Marketing Guide - DIY (do-it-yourself) BRAND MARKETING STRATEGIES to HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

In this Web 2.0, user-generated, Open-Source, social-networking world, it’s so easy to forget that just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. All branding, no matter whether it’s on a billboard, blog, website, or Twitter, should adhere to these simple principles. Here are nine keys to the art of branding.

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Several times a year I get asked the same basic question about how to choose a brand name for your business or a product. The question (or some variation of it) is:

“Is it better to choose a descriptive name, or is it better to make up some unique word that never existed before?”

There are different schools of thought on this question. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each side.

DESCRIPTIVE NAME

A descriptive name is something like “Mary’s Bakery” or “Toledo Plumbing.” Names like these have several advantages:

• Inexpensive to convey what business you are in — You don’t have to spend a lot of money on advertising to establish a brand identity that the public will come to know and recognize for the line of business you are in. With a name like “Smith’s Towing,” for instance, people will know exactly what your company does based on the name alone.

• Easy to think up — You don’t typically need to go through the expense of hiring a brand naming consultant. For a small business on a tight budget, a naming consultant may be out of reach, and the task of thinking up a unique name on your own too daunting. No wonder so many small businesses opt for simplicity, choosing something like “Sally’s Candies” or a similar descriptive name.

• Easier to get found in the search engines – If your business name is Toledo Plumbing, you already have a natural advantage for getting found when someone searches for Toledo plumbing companies.

But of course you have to weigh these advantages against the negatives of using a descriptive name — and there are indeed some downsides.

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We humans are all wired for a great story. We love narrative, it’s how we relate to each other and the world. Over the course of the past 20 years I’ve been involved in naming a lot of new things – from the early days at Wired (more on that in a minute) to Web 2.0, to my current work at Federated Media. And as I review all the  names and brands I’ve been involved in starting or advising, one thing becomes crystal clear to me: the best names are ones that have a great story buried inside.

It’s often said that a brand is a “vessel waiting to be filled.” In other words, you can call a new product or service anything, and after a while, if your product is successful, that brand will come to mean whatever experience it ends up delivering. While I generally agree with the thesis, I’ve found that having a great story is a very good way to jumpstart a new brand, and a great way to help sell it and keep defining it in the long term.

A few examples. Let’s start with the first great name I had the pleasure of being involved with: Wired. I had nothing to do with naming Wired, that came from Louis Rosetto and his partner Jane Metcalfe. When Louis called me before launch, “Wired” was associated – to my mind anyway – with a book chronicling the life and rather sordid death of John Belushi. Being “wired” meant you had done a lot of drugs, and I wasn’t sure it was a great idea to associate anything with that concept.

But Louis and Jane were certain the brand would take off, mainly because they were plugged into a small but growing culture of digital counterculturalists who had appropriated the word to mean “connected to the digital revolution.”

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Yes, if you have a small business, even a one-person shop, you have a brand. Many small business owners don’t think this way, but when you grasp what a brand really is, I think it may become a clearer.

A brand is little more than the collective perception and association of your business in the minds of your market. So, even if only half a dozen people know your business exists, their thoughts about your business make up your brand.

I like to define small business branding as the act of intentionally becoming more knowable, likable and trustable – in a way, much more aligned with how we might think about a personality.

Let’s face it there are certain traits that make one person a more attractive total package than another – so, I’m wondering, could your business stand a brand (personality) upgrade?

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Your brand identity should be the basis for all your communication with your current and potential customers. When you have developed a strong brand identity, you will find it is much easier to stand apart from your competitors and win the hearts and minds of your customers.

There are three key areas that you need to think about when you are developing your brand identity. These are:

1. Who are your Competitors?

Every brand has competitors and you want your key customers to buy your brand over theirs. Therefore, when you are developing your brand strategy you need to have a very good understanding of your competitors and their activities.

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