Branding.

It’s one of those words that is thrown about and uttered by so many, yet is often misunderstood and misinterpreted, especially by small business owners who are focused on running their business, and not on understanding the branding and marketing behind it.

Let’s see if we can pinpoint what branding is – and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not - and walk away with a clearer understanding of how to maximize it to achieve better results and greater success.

Designing a logo and adding your website to the World Wide Web is not branding. Yes, a good logo is important and a well-designed website (with copy that works) is vital, but that is not branding. Yes, they support your brand and yes, they help tell your brand’s story, but they aren’t branding per se.

The ones that determine what your brand is, what it represents, and most importantly, if it succeeds, are the customers you attract to use your products and services. They decide if you are a GO or a NO, they decide if you will be around for the long term or not.

Branding is your promise to your customers. Branding is your mission statement to your potential clients. Branding is the essence of what makes you different from your competitor. Branding is an idea, a mission, an attitude and an internal thought process that must be internalized and honed before it can be put out there and projected.

In order to convey that branding, you will need to employ a strategy that best conveys it and use various “branding techniques” to educate the world about your inner workings.

Branding is something you do between you and yourself, regardless of the audience (sort of like 'finding yourself'), and once that is solidified it can be conveyed to as large an audience as possible via steady and proper tactics.

Small businesses often cannot compete with big businesses in method, but in form their branding can be just as big, if not bigger. In fact, the passion beneath the surface of many small businesses often lends itself to better and more authentic branding.

While Coca Cola and Amazon have a much larger “brand name” than most small businesses can ever dream of, the passion behind them is quite possibly a lot weaker than “Yossi’s Homemade Herring” or “Eli’s Personal Training.” That passion can, and should, be taken advantage of when considering how to attract new customers who appreciate the passion that is lacking in the larger brands.

Large companies have the advantage of recognized trademarks, but small businesses have the advantage when it comes to “making their mark,” especially in their local communities.

Once your branding is established, then you must embark on the long and steady road of communicating that branding via a cohesive branding strategy.

So, how do you create a strategy that works? Ah, the million-dollar question!

Tune in to the next article, as we will tackle that aspect of things and provide some practical strategy and guidance.