How to Brand Your Small Business Like the Pros

When it comes to the world of marketing and branding, it can be challenging to understand what you can do to help your brand stand out from the competition. That said, the right branding tactics and strategies can help you succeed, while the wrong approach can leave you stranded, begging your customers to give you a chance. Below, we’re looking at a few leading examples of branding to help you optimize your brand for today’s digital landscape. This is How You Brand Your Small Business Like the Pros. 

When it comes to grabbing consumer attention, there’s no quicker way than by hitting them right in the heartstrings. And that’s precisely what the insurance provider did when they introduced their infamous mascot, the Geico Gecko. Sporting large human-like eyes, a charming English accent, and a bit of cheeky humor and wit, the Geico Gecko is known for making the company seem more friendly and approachable than other insurance providers.

In other words, using a loveable, personified animal as a brand mascot is almost guaranteed to get people to stop and pay attention. And Geico isn’t the only company that’s used this tactic. Coca-Cola has its polar bear family. Kraft Peanut Butter has its teddy bear duo. And Froot Loops has its loveable Toucan Sam. Animals are fun, familiar and engaging, and when used appropriately, they can be a great way to help you get your brand message in front of the right people!

No matter where you live in the world, I’m sure you’ve seen the FedEx logo at one point or another in your life. And if you have, you may have noticed the company’s crafty use of an arrow symbol in their logo, hidden right in between the letter E and X, which helps to imply that they’re a company that gets things from one place to the next. Similarly, the Swiss chocolatier Toblerone also has a hidden image of a bear in their logo. In contrast, Tostitos has a hidden picture of two individuals holding a tortilla chip above a bowl of salsa hidden in its logo. 

It’s this type of crafty marketing tactic that can help your branding stand out from the competition while also ensuring that you use an eye-catching logo design. So while you’re creating your branding and logos, see if you can get a bit creative and incorporate some hidden images into your imagery. Not only does this make the logo more memorable, but it also creates a fun and interesting fact about your business!

Who hasn’t seen Nike’s Swoosh logo? Almost everywhere you go, you can find somebody wearing either a pair of shoes, a shirt, a sweater, or a hat bearing this logo! 

But why is Nike’s logo so well-known today? It’s because Nike has worked tirelessly to create a brand and logo that’s about so much more than just a luxury pair of shoes or sports apparel; their brand is a lifestyle and the checkmark logo, as well as their tagline, “Just do it!” are explicitly designed for ambitious people who like getting things done. The logo itself stands for the sense of accomplishment an individual gets when they conquer a fear, beat their record, or achieve a big life goal, and finally get to check it off of their list! So aside from simply trying to sell a brand and its products or services, take the time to think about how your brand can connect with people on a more personal level.

Now that you have an idea of what it takes to brand your small business like the pros, I’m going to give you 3 actionable steps to consider when branding your business. The first question you need to ask yourself is 1) What is your mission? 2) What is it about your brand that is memorable? 3) What can you do that none of your competitors are doing? Now, there might be just one simple thing that checks all the boxes, similar to Nike’s Swoosh combined with their tagline “Just Do It.” or, you might need a few pieces to complete the puzzle. Hopefully you’ll have a better idea of what you’re looking for after reading the rest of this blog.

As a small business owner, it’s likely that you know what your mission is, generally. It’s to solve a problem either by providing a specific service or product to your target demographic. But when it comes to branding, “mission” means something different. When branding your small business like the pros, your mission is to figure out how to convey a unique and memorable message to your audience through your brand. Before a brand upgrade, you need to know what you want that message to be, who you want that message to reach, and how it’s going to reach them. Nike’s message is “Just Do It.”, they’re reaching athletes, and it’s through a logo; simple, yet powerful. Here at Momentum, our mission is to be seen as the Philadelphia Marketing Agency that helps small local businesses gain digital momentum. For us, we needed something more than a catchy tagline and a fancy logo. We needed to build a community of small business owners that trust us and we do so by providing tons of useful information at no cost.

The goal of every business is to be top-of-mind. You want your business to spread by word of mouth and you want it to spread rapidly. The way you accomplish this is by being memorable. One way to be memorable is by being the best service provider in your industry but in today’s world, there are so many incredible businesses that that won’t suffice. You’ll need to do something to separate yourself, like Geico. They have a friendly little gecko that everyone knows, and I mean everyone. At Momentum, we try our best to be memorable by again, providing small businesses with endless free resources. Our goal is for small business owners to say “Hm, I wonder if the Momentum site has any answers for me!”. So think, what could you be doing that makes you memorable? Maybe you send birthday cards to your customers or deliver free merchandise in return for their business.

Once you have branding guidelines, a mission, and something that makes you memorable, you need to do something that your competitors are not. Sure, you could provide free resources, have a great mascot, or send birthday cards. But chances are, one of your competitors are doing something similar. So now it’s time to level up. You have your mission, there’s something memorable about your business, but now you need something unique, something that captures new customers, rather than keeps existing ones. As a digital marketing agency, we’ve achieved this by offering a service none of our competitors offer. We offer 3D Virtual Tours through our company Momentum 360.

Finally, you should have a pretty good idea of what it takes to brand your small business like the pros. Remember to reconsider the mission of your rebranding, think about how you can be memorable, and when you have all of the pieces in place, remember to separate your company with something unique. That might be a service, a brand new product, or something else that not many in your industry are doing. If you have any questions along the way, Momentum is here to help! Feel free to give us a call or schedule a demo. We’re here to help you gain digital momentum.