008 Branding 101 for Small Business

Branding 101 for Small Business Welcome to Season 1, Episode 8,
Branding 101 for Small Business, of Web and BeyondCast. What
is Branding? Why Should Small Business owners care? That's the goal
of this episode. (If you’re reading this in a podcast
directory/app, please visit http://webandbeyondcast.com/008 for
clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this
cast.) To help answer this question, I have with me today, Reggie
Holmes, the owner and Creative Director at Enthuse Creative, a
branding and design studio based in the Washington DC metropolitan
area. Enthuse Creative specializes in brand strategy, design and
management for services-oriented startups, small businesses and
professional organizations. Reggie brings 9+ years of strategic
thinking and creative talent to the plate for his clients,
developing award-winning visual solutions for print and digital
media. If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to
leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the
post), or feel free to contact me here about any other questions or
comments. So, Reggie, tell us what brought you to branding,
strategy and design? What attracted you to this profession? I have
always been interested in design, ever since I was a young child. I
can remember when I used to design logos and apparel for fictional
sports franchises. I have a Fine Arts degree and I appreciate fine
art disciplines like drawing and painting, but I am most drawn to
commercial art, lines, shapes and how they work with type and text
to communicate concepts and ideas. This was solidified for me
during a computer graphics class my senior year in high school. I
like that design is more geared toward communication than
expression. It affects our everyday lives in so many ways, from
signage and advertising to almost everything we read each day on
paper or screens. What is branding? How should Small Business
approach the concept in terms of practicality for their business?
Ergo, why should they care? Your brand is in many respects your
business’ most valuable asset. Branding is the cumulative entities,
identities, expressions and extensions - all the “touchpoints” that
make up that brand. It is all the elements inherent to your
business or organization that help distinguish it from anything
else. Branding can be thought of in terms of addition (+) and
multiplication (x) You are adding individual elements but they will
have multiplied effect as they reinforce your brand identity and
message across the many platforms/media channels that we have
available to us today. Studies show that the average consumer is
exposed to up to 10,000 brand messages a day. And as marketers are
presented with more and more channels to reach their customers,
that number is growing rapidly. Source: “Why Your Customers’
Attention is the Scarcest Resource in 2017” What are the components
of a Small Business Brand? Visual Elements (logo, colors, marketing
collateral, website, app, signage, retail/point-of-sale) Verbal
Elements (tagline, web copy, voicemail/phone greeting, customer
service) Tangible v. Intangible (tone, online tech support or phone
number, price or no-price) --- Promise/Proposition (identify what
brand represents, values, goals) Promote (highlight and reinforce
positive qualities) Position (identity strengths/ target
audience/demographic/differentiate) Provide (information/context)
For the solo entrepreneur, you yourself are the brand, especially
early in the beginning while you build. There ought to be harmony
and not a disconnection between what you project personally and
what your business projects. Everything will create a story that is
uniquely yours, language, characters and narrative, therefore it
must all be connected and congruous. How can a startup business
owner with little to no budget start out branding so that when they
are ready to, say, hire you,