Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Branding Belongs in Your Budget

Rob Marsh, Logoworks

Last month, NBC announced that one 30-second television advertisement for next year’s Super Bowl will cost $3 million, up from $2.7 million last year. Of course, that’s small potatoes for many big companies—Coke spends more than $2.5 billion on advertising every year. Google spends $188 million. And Starbucks spends almost $100 million. And that’s just for advertising. These companies spend millions more on packaging, trade promotions, sampling, trials, and more.

When looking at numbers like these, it’s easy to see why many small business owners don’t think they can afford “branding.” In fact, some research suggests that many small businesses budget just $5000 to spend on marketing/branding/advertising for the entire year. That’s less than $420 a month—not a lot compared to what big companies are spending.

What’s a business owner to do?

First, let’s take a step back and understand what we’re talking about. A lot of very smart business people talk about branding and advertising as if they are the same thing. They use the terms interchangeably. Even some advertising professionals make this mistake.

This is wrong.

Advertising can be expensive. And it doesn’t belong in most small company budgets. However, branding is not the same as advertising. It is not the same as marketing.

And branding absolutely belongs in your budget.

Your brand is nothing more or less than the experience your customers have when they use your product or service. Or if they haven’t used your product yet, it’s what they expect to experience. Everything you do to create that experience is branding. Which means virtually everything you do to build and grow your business is a branding activity.

Do you have product packaging? This is branding. Do you (or does someone who works for you) talk to your customers? This is branding. Do your customers get an email from you? Do they visit your website or your store? Do they interact with your product? All of these interactions are brand-building activities—and you can’t afford to not do them.

What does it take to get it right?

First you need to know what your business or product stands for. What is the one idea your customers associate with your product? If you own a bakery, customers might associate you with “all-you-can-eat French toast,” or “free slice,” or even “european-style bread.” Your job as a brander is to re-emphasize this one idea with every interaction you have with your customer. On your invoices and business card, you might include the phrase: “home of the free slice.” You should offer that free slice to every customer who comes in the door. The hold message on the phone should talk about the free slice. Your employees might wear shirts or hats that advertise the free slice.

The next step is consistency. Just as the baker emphasizes (and re-emphasizes) the one thing that helps them stand out, you should also consistently use the same colors, logo, and other visual queues. This helps you customers recognize your product or service. Whether it’s your business card, or your website—the look, feel, and tone of the words should be consistent. (Incidentally, if you need help with the look of anything you use in your business, Logoworks can help.)

None of this needs to cost anything close to a television ad. But they do require some attention on your part—and wisely spending a few dollars to help you customers remember you.

You won’t get the immediate attention you would expect from a Super Bowl ad. But you don’t need that. What branding will do for you is bring your customers back, encourage them to spend more on your product or service, and help you spread the word.

The pay-off can be enormous.

Posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Branding, Design, Graphic Design, Internet, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.