Small Business Solutions

Branding

What is Branding for Your Business?

When you think of soup, what first comes to mind? Campbell’s, Chunky? Then, what images come to mind? For Campbell’s, perhaps you recall the white and red label? For Chunky soup, perhaps the red label and large spoon come to mind? Do you get that warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of your tummy?

This is what branding is all about: Creating an emotional connection with consumers or clients while instilling confidence in a quality product. When performed correctly, branding can enable you to provide a higher price than your competition, but be prepared to “deliver”.

Branding Your Business

You not only brand your products, but you also brand your company. You create a reputation online, hopefully, that stands for something and gets talked about. Once people are talking about you, your product and your company, this can grow like a virus!

Branding involves creating a “personality” reflecting your company.  It is creating the perception to your clients that you have the only solution and the resources to back it up.  Once this is created, clients will be happy to pay a premium to have you deliver your product or service.

Branding has many aspects, domain name, company name, logo design, website design and more. The idea here is to create a theme that in the future is recognized and associated with you. This is where you better do some homework.

Branding and Colors

Psychologically, colors make a difference. Studies have proven that the eye sees the color red faster than any other color. This is precisely why red colored cars are statistically ticketed for speeding more than any other color. Call your auto insurance company and we believe they will concur. In marketing, many headlines are in red for this very reason.

There is a psychological aspect within ever part of an advertisement. It may be the action verbs chosen, the colors or the symbols, but each aspect works together to grab attention and create an association with the company that produced it.

Domain Names

Choosing a domain name can be a bit more difficult than you think. Yes, the company name is often the first option, but many times it is already taken or been issued. Don’t despair. For the search engines and traffic, a domain name reflecting your product or service might be a better solution.

You must consider what people sit down to do when they are searching for a particular item. What is it that you do? What are the terms or “keywords” that you type into Google or Yahoo to bring you what you need? When you think along these lines, more possibilities into choosing and effective domain name will likely come to you.

Small Business Solutions has years of effective keyword research and tools to help you in this important endeavor. If you already have a domain name, we can help you brand it effectively. If not, we can assist in its birth and help you grow it into what you envision – perhaps a household name!

Logo Design

Likely the most effective tool of branding your company is the logo. Many times logo design is viewed as a quick & simple task not requiring much thought. But, consider how long Microsoft has used the very same logo. They no longer even need to use the word “Microsoft”, we simply recognize the symbol of their logo and know it to be Microsoft.

Your logo will be representing you and your company. In-depth thought into the symbols used, colors, shape, etc. should be a given. SBS logo design is guaranteed to deliver your vision to your clients or simply help brand you in a superior way.

Regardless of where your logo is created, you should be interviewed and a connection made between your vision and your logo. You should be provided with more than one option, until you are satisfied with the result as you will likely use that logo for years into the future.

Lastly, don’t think merely of the Net. Your logo should be delivered in multiple formats and sizes and look good onscreen as well as on paper.

Web Design

The next evolution in your branding is to carry the theme of your logo into your web design. In most circumstances, custom premium web design should be included in your business and marketing plans.

Sure, you could get by on a website template that comes close to your logo. But, in the future, customization will be required and likely entail yanking out that template altogether and beginning anew. Setting up a customized premium web design that will grow with your business is a smart idea from the beginning.

The domain name, logo and design of your website should fit seamlessly. Your visitors should be able to access the information easily and with as few mouse clicks as possible. Images should be crisp and clear, yet optimized for speed when produced in the visitor’s browser.

Search Engine Optimization

The “code” behind the website is nearly as important as the look and feel of your site. Yes, a website should be fluid and friendly. But, branding also includes optimizing words within the content of your site to tell the major search engines exactly what you are there to deliver.

As mentioned elsewhere, SEO can be quite technical. Search Engine Optimization requires a good bit of web development knowledge and training. It is not something to be taken lightly for a variety of reasons.

Solid SEO development can make or break a website’s future success. When done correctly, SEO can deliver a huge amount of visitors to your site. Then, your logo and web design should take over from there. But, without good SEO, it doesn’t matter what you have to offer if no one can search the Net to find it. Effective SEO is how people find you!

Learn More about Marketing:

Introduction | Branding | Social Networking | SEM | Marketing Terms | SEO Terms