“I want to go on that one!” As a kid, I loved going to the Six Flags Great America theme park. Six Flags did a great job of brand marketing at the time… and nothing beat the “Ragin’ Cajun” ride!

Brand Marketing Tips For Small Business Branding. Image Copyright SFGAmWorld.

For those who aren’t familiar, the Ragin’ Cajun was basically an oversized washing machine that would spin around faster and faster until the floor dropped out. You’d get a few laughs with your buddies while plastered to the wall with your feet off the ground. Then the floor would rise back up and the spinning would slow. It’s kind of funny how your small business branding has a lot in common with the Ragin’ Cajun! Who would’ve guessed small business branding and brand marketing can take lessons from a theme park ride?

Your brand marketing needs to tell a story about your business. Your small business marketing needs to provide customers with an irresistible siren’s calling that promotes your small business branding as unique. But just like the Ragin’ Cajun, don’t go overboard with your brand marketing. Not every customer will love your small business branding. And you certainly don’t want to make customers queasy with brand marketing that doesn’t live up to your promise or doesn’t fit with your small business marketing.

Five Tips For Turning Your Small Business Branding Into A Brand Marketing Superstar

1. Keep Your Brand Marketing Promise
If your small business branding is focused on innovative, high-quality, environmentally-friendly products or services… make sure you consistently live up to that brand strategy. Any small business marketing activity by your company that does not adhere to your brand marketing promise will degrade customer confidence and your credibility. Not living up to your brand promise is like a green energy farm tearing down the Amazon rain forest to build a plant. Your actions must match the mission of your small business branding and play into your SWOT analysis.

2. Be The Best You Can Be
It’s not just an adaptation of the U.S. Army’s “Be All You Can Be” brand marketing tagline. Strive to become the very best at what you do and tell customers in your small business marketing. Go guns blazing to become the best company. To produce the best products and services. To provide the best company culture for employees. And to provide the best customer support. Unfortunately, in today’s mass-produced slop fest, “good” is becoming a rarity, let alone excellent. Your quality and excellence will shine through in your brand marketing and endear customers to your brand strategy and website brand.

3. Make A Bold Statement
Shout it out loud and clear who you are and what your brand marketing and small business branding stands for. Be different! People crave unique experiences. Find a small business marketing angle other companies and competitors are failing to exploit and use that angle as a cornerstone to your brand strategy. Mold the consumer buying process around your signature brand marketing. Think about how the Ragin’ Cajun ride provided visitors with a truly fun and unique sensory experience. Do the same with your small business branding and small business marketing.

4. Create A Flexible, But Unified Brand Strategy
Work with your small business marketing firm to ensure that every piece of your small business branding, whether it’s marketing collateral materials, an e-mail, a brochure, product packaging or your website retain a consistent and visually-unified brand marketing image and brand strategy. That means, using a standard color palette, fonts, formats and writing style. It’s a fundamental component of successful brand strategy and solid small business marketing.

5. Keep Your Brand Marketing Relevant
Your brand strategy must be able to adapt to new markets, demographics, advertising media, technology, customers – you name it! Work to become an intelligent and proactive steward of your small business branding. Change your small business marketing and brand marketing materials when necessary. Your brand marketing must evolve with your business to remain relevant.

Level with us! Did you enjoy this article on small business branding? Have questions or concerns about brand strategy? Leave us a comment. We’d like to hear from you! Thank you for reading!

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Brand marketing is everywhere. But, just what is it? What makes small business branding memorable, remarkable and likable? And what does small business branding have to do with Hollywood legend Steve McQueen?

3 Small Business Branding Lessons Inspired By Actor Steve McQueen.

Small Business Branding Lessons Inspired By Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen was masterful at brand marketing and branding himself. Let’s take a cue from Steve and use the following three small business branding lessons to create a brand experience that plays into the deeper, emotional needs of customers.

“I’ve spent too much of my life feeling insecure. I still have nightmares about being poor, of everything I own just vanishing away.” – Steve McQueen

1. Your small business branding must revolve around a basic desire that is rooted in the emotional needs of your customers.

People buy to fulfill an emotional want or need. The desire to be loved. The white-hot burning want of greed. A yearning for approval and acceptance. These are all innate human desires that can and should be used in emotional selling to create a successful image of your small business branding. Donald Trump, whether you like him or hate him, has expertly crafted his brand marketing around success and wealth… it dovetails nicely into the inner desires of potential business partners and creates a powerful and motivating brand experience.

“When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it.” – Steve McQueen

2. Your small business branding must have a compelling story and sense of purpose.

Give your customers a shining beacon of hope, something that strikes a nerve, or an idea that transcends the everyday. Harley-Davidson does this well. You’re not buying a motorcycle, you’re buying a Harley! Harley is a brand marketing image, a storied history, even a unique rumble of the tailpipes. Use your small business branding to build your own story. Give customers something to believe in and become a part of your brand experience. People naturally want to become a part of something greater. Small business branding that creates a rich story feeds this desire.

“I’m out of the Midwest. It was a good place to come from. It gives you a sense of right or wrong and fairness…” – Steve McQueen

3. Your small business branding must embody a central theme or guiding principal for all business operations—from marketing and advertising, to product development and customer service.

A strong brand experience provides reassurances for customers that their needs will be met, or that you will make it right. I remember about fifteen years ago, there was a joke floating around that Nordstrom department stores had such impeccable customer service, a Nordstrom manager gave a customer a refund on his set of used car tires – even though Nordstrom’s doesn’t sell car tires! Now that’s clever brand marketing.

Hey you! Yeah, you! Talk to us, we don’t bite! We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a comment below if you enjoyed this article on small business branding lessons from Steve McQueen. Yes, you can also leave a comment if you didn’t like it. Help us start up a discussion, share this article or subscribe to our feed. Thank you for reading!

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Your small business website should form an online extension of your brand. But what exactly is your website brand? And why is your website brand so important to your small business branding?

We grow up hearing it constantly, “don’t judge a book by its cover!” Although many of us like to think we can hold our initial reactions about other people at bay — the truth is, we all make snap decisions based upon our first impressions. It’s an inherent part of human nature.

Your Website Brand Image, Like Your Shoes, Says A Lot About You

What Is A Website Brand?

In today’s marketing lingo, the concept of online self presentment is referred to as your website brand or brand identity. Companies like Microsoft, Nike, Cocoa-Cola, and Harley-Davidson spend millions each year perfecting their website brand… precisely engineering how customers see their company online. But you don’t need a massive small business branding budget to reap the benefits of a strong website brand image.

An Engaging Website Brand Is A Powerful Tool

Deft business owners have learned that a strong website brand and website brand image can influence the consumer buying process and are effective means to increase profits, prescreen new business, attract higher-caliber customers, and encourage repeat purchases. It’s simple. The average website visitor needs only 4-seconds to judge your level of quality, professionalism, honesty and success. Therefore it’s imperative you’re sending the right non-verbal cues with a memorable website brand.

A Poor Website Brand Can Sink Your Small Business

Sadly, many small business owners are looking for shortcuts to save time and money. They fail to realize that a poor website brand image can not only hurt them, but seriously damage their reputation. The point can’t be stressed enough… Just because your neighbor’s kid can cobble together some free clip art graphics, does not mean they have the requisite marketing and graphic design skills to craft a website brand. Think about how a shoddy website will destroy your professional image. Combine your website brand with other branding basics for small business to create a sharp, professional image.

Customers Respect A Sharp Dressed Website Brand

You wouldn’t dare walk into an important business meeting wearing a purple and green polyester suit! So don’t even think about putting such a garish monstrosity on the web. Your website brand is not a testing ground for crazy color schemes and marketing. Successful web design companies know what works and what doesn’t for your industry. Listen to their recommendations for effective website brand building and online marketing.

Templates Will Send Your Business To The Graveyard

Small businesses that stick to using website templates from design mills (think sweatshops for low-wage graphic designers) can’t possibly create a unique website brand. You’ll end up looking and sounding like every other small business that opted for a cheap template. Your website brand should force prospects to think differently about your company, to see what you want them to see.

Website Brand Value

Your website brand is a vital component of your small business marketing and branding. With appropriate use of graphics, typography, color, and content, your website will project a high-level of quality, professionalism, honesty and success. Helping you to define your business, create a strong website brand and help you attract more customers and convert more sales.

Hello. Is this thing on? We’d like to talk with you. Leave us a comment on what you liked, didn’t like, or need more information about online branding. We love questions, too! Be sure to sign up for our RSS feed or e-mail updates. Thanks for reading!

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Imagine what it would be like if you can control other people’s minds—and you have the power to motivate, influence consumer buying behavior and persuade people to agree to practically anything you propose. If you have the power to shape someone’s reality?

The Truth Is… You Can!

It all boils down to perception. You wouldn’t show up to an important business meeting wearing mismatched socks and a shirt full of holes—you wouldn’t look very professional or competent. So don’t do it to your business. Quite simply, the image you create of your business for prospects is their reality.

The following three components should form a launching point for developing your small business branding and marketing direction for your small business.

A Bullet-Proof Business Logo

In the blink of an eye, your sale can be made or lost because of the credibility and professionalism of your small business logo. A professional marketing firm can help you identify the core beliefs and mission of your business, and translate those intangibles into a compelling visual service mark. Resulting in a logo that effectively plays upon the subconscious to create positive mental associations and persuade people to see your business the way you want them to see it.

Matching Marketing Collateral Material

Imagine trying to play poker with a deck of cards where each card had its own completely different suit… it’s impossible! The consistency of your sales message is vital to promoting a strong, healthy, unified business image. The look and feel of your business cards, letterhead, envelopes, product packaging, brochures and website should all maintain a standard look, as dictated by your brand, website brand and logo. That means visual elements such as fonts, colors and layouts should be standardized. If you laid out each of the above pieces on a table, visually, each piece should compliment each other.

A High-Impact Website

You simply can’t afford not to have a website for your business (Do I Need A Small Business Website?). With over one-billion people now using the internet, it’s too big of an opportunity to pass up. Even the smallest businesses can effectively use the internet to promote their products and services, attract new business, tap into new markets, and compete with the big dogs. With such widespread adoption of the internet, to many customers, you simply aren’t real to them if you don’t have a website. They expect to find you online! And if you do have a website, but it’s dying a slow, painful death, now’s the time to consider a website redesign.

Your overall, business image, or brand, speaks volumes about your level of commitment, dependability, quality of service, and overall value. That’s why it is absolutely mission critical your logo, marketing collateral and website send the right message about you and your business. Your customers will repay you in additional sales and loyalty, thanks to the confidence and comfort they receive from a consistent and carefully scripted brand image.

We’d like to hear from you! If you loved or loathed this article on small business branding basics, leave a comment below. Help us start up a discussion. We’d be more than happy to answer your questions and engage in civil debate. Thanks for reading!

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