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

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?

• READ MORE

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.

• READ MORE

In my last post, I discussed how to get the golden touch by producing a DICEE product or service. This advice was at the 2,000-foot level. Now I’d like to take you up 48,000 feet and provide a higher-level view of innovation by discussing the business of ice.

Ice 1.0. Did you know that there used to be an ice harvesting business in New England during the late 1800s and early 1900s? It involved “Bubba” and “Junior” cutting blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds. This was no cottage industry—in 1900, people harvested 10,000,000 tons.

• READ MORE

This may surprise you, but “Guy’s Golden Touch” is not “whatever Guy touches turns to gold.” If only that were true. Instead, Guy’s Golden Touch is “whatever is gold, Guy touches.” The concept is that something that’s gold is easy to brand and sell, so the task is simple: find or create something gold.

This recommendation may impress you for a second but probably not much longer. It’s really a duh-ism as in “Duh, of course I should create something great. I had to read this blog post to learn this?” What I need to do is take you from this 50,000 foot strategic view right down to a 2,000 feet tactical view.

For this, I invoke the acronym DICEE. It stands for deep, intelligent, complete, elegant, and emotive. These are the five salient qualities of stuff that’s made of gold.

• READ MORE

Marketing Materials are an art. I mean sure it COULD be just a print out ~ color copied at kinkos… stuck in a folder… with someone’s business card haphazardly inserted… We get tons of those in the mail and at conventions. They are no fun! So when asked to discuss Marketing Materials, i decided it was more fun to SHOW you some of the fun ones that have found their way across my desk… If there’s one thing about creating marketing materials i think is critical, it would have to be – BRAND IT TO EVERY LAST DETAIL! Seriously. Stand out. Take whatever it is that makes your branding unique, what jumps out about your product, best use of your service, whatever it is ~ and take it all the way! But make sure it looks good, not a hair out of place. Because your attention to detail from the handwriting on the envelopes, to the state of the materials/products you are sending all say a lot about you, and your company.

So on the next page, you will get the cliff notes version in pictures of some of the many marketing materials i’ve received, all noteworthy in their own way! Enjoy! And I hope to add yours to the list soon!

• READ MORE