5 super valuable and inexpensive brand things you can do right now for your small business:

When it comes to supporting your business, there are a few things that I would always find necessary from brand evolution to brand strategy. Here is a great list of five things you should do when nurturing your brand and understanding your target market.

1. Audit your brand:

If you’re like me your brand style will evolve and change over time. In fact, it’s actually quite natural for your brand to not look how it did 12 months ago. 

Before you go and change anything at all it’s wise to do a brand audit of all the content across every channel you have in your business (such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Emails, Website...etc. The types of questions you should ask yourself about your brand:

  • Who are you trying to speak to? Who’s the ideal audience?

  • Does the visual look appeal to this audience?

  • What’s your mission and purpose? Is this clear to the audience?

  • How does your logo show up online? Make sure everything isn't blurry and that all your posts for socials are sized accordingly. 

  • How are you utilizing fonts across all channels? Keep your fonts consistent and make sure they are legible. Also, consider using fonts that reflect more on what your business is about. 

  • How many colours are you utilizing and do they work well together?

Analyze what you like about your brand and what you don’t. A brand audit will be a mixture of assessing the tangible aspects of your brand but also the visual aspects. Make a list of all these things, collect imagery, screenshots and write down why you want to change them or why you should keep them.

2. Audit your competitors: 

Similar to auditing your own brand it’s always good to check in with your competitors on a regular basis and see what they are doing in their brand. 

Perhaps they have changed the look of their identity, or they may have launched a new product offering. They could be posting more consistently on social media or across new channels. Start by taking screenshots and keeping them in a folder or even a document. You can even try using Pinterest boards for this but make sure you set it to secret 

Understanding your competitors is a great way to gain more clarity into your own brand and audiences. Plus, it’s great to see how your brand stacks up against your competitors across a variety of different ways.

 
 

3. Create customer personas:

Brand personas are incredibly handy documents that can help you understand the audience that you are trying to do business with. Often businesses will likely have a variety of audiences that appeal to them or that they wish to speak to. 

For larger corporations, creating personas often happens within the marketing team or digital team and sometimes even in conjunction with specific agencies that will conduct research into the customer segments.

4. Make a list of ways you can service your customers better:

Your branding is so much more than just your logo. It’s a combination of everything you do in your business to connect you to your desired audience. Your branding has the potential to set you apart from your competitors or, if not done correctly, have you copying them 

Using your newly created customer personas, write down a list of simple things you can do to tweak your brand in a way that gives you the lead in solving your potential client's problems and gets them engaging with your content

I find it easy to group them into segments across your marketing channels to keep it clear.

  • Website: Re-develop your contact form on your contact page to ask easier questions so you can screen inquiries faster – this will allow you to ask the right questions and service these inquiries faster.

  • Social: start by sharing 1 free tip every week that will be of value to your audience – this will position your brand with an authority, giving value to your audience about a problem they want to solve and how your business can do that for them

5. Start creating a brand strategy:

Many small businesses overlook the importance of having a brand strategy. Let me tell you, they are not just for larger businesses with multiple teams and huge budgets. No matter what size your business is, a good brand strategy is not only highly valuable but is a key ingredient in success. 

 
 

It will allow you to create a clear direction and a plan for your business. As you grow and bring on new team members, the strategy document will make sure everyone is aligned to the business message and also the business goals. It's also a great way to onboard!

Here are some key elements to include when designing your strategy:

  • Define who your company is, what you do and how you do it

  • Create a mission statement and a vision statement

  • Write a list of values that are important to your brand

  • Include a list of specific offerings and pricing

  • Document your colour palette, fonts and imagery choices

  • Include some do’s and don’t for the way your business communicates. For example, We use these words. We don’t use these words.

Stuck in your brand? Struggling to make sense of how your brand thinks, speaks, acts and looks? We help businesses by taking you through a thorough brand audit to gain clarity on who you are, what you do and why your customers should care. Get in touch with us!

Rachel Ward