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No matter
how small or new your home business, it´s never too
soon to start thinking about your brand image.
Brand
image?
You may
think that brand image is something that matters for consumer
products like Coke or Chevrolet. What does it have to do with
a small - maybe one person - real world or internet business
operating off a kitchen table or out of a spare bedroom?
Pretty
much everything.
About
the time my brothers and I hit high school, my mother came
up with a new catch phrase.
¨Remember
who you are and what you stand for,¨ she would tell us
as we would head out the door.
Good advice
for a teenager.
Good advice
for a business.
Your brand
image is what your company means in the customer´s mind
- what it can, and cannot, do for them.
It´s
who you are and what you stand for, as understood by your
customers.
Especially
for a small business, it´s critically important that
that image be razor sharp and crystal clear in customers´minds.
You can´t
do everything. You can´t even do a lot of things. If
you are lucky, you can do one or two things really, really
well.
You want
potential customers to think of you - and think of you first
- when they need someone to do those one or two things.
So eliminate
from your image, from how you present yourself, all those
things you don´t do. Present for the customer´s
consideration only those things you do do, and do especially
well.
But that´s
only the start. The next key is consistency - staying on message.
There´s
a tremendous temptation for a small business to wander in
the way it presents itself, testing out a new marketing proposition,
or marketing a little bit in a lot of different places.
Huge mistake.
You need
to be one thing, and to be that one thing over and over and
over again - to the point of numbing repetition.
Whatever
it is that makes your products or services unique and worth
having, you need to pound that message home relentlessly,
so that those who really do need what you offer clearly understand
that you are the solution to that particular problem.
You also
need to pick where and how you are going to deliver that message,
and to achieve a presence in that forum that makes you seem
both familiar and formidable.
That doesn´t
mean that you close your ears to what customers want, or that
you refuse to let your business evolve into something different
and better.
It does
mean that you must recognize the necessity for choice. You
can´t be all things to all people, and any new opportunity
you pursue must come at the cost of what you´ve done
before.
As you
develop your brand image, you need to focus on it in every
aspect of your business. It´s not just advertising or
marketing materials, it´s what other businesses you
associate with, where you advertise, how you look, how you
provide customer service, and so on. Every aspect of your
business needs to reinforce the brand image you want to present.
For example,
if your business is to provide customization services for
Harley Davidson choppers, stapling your business card to a
bulletin board at a biker bar might be a good association.
If your business is interior design for the country club set,
that might not be an association that helps build an image
consistent with the brand you want to build.
On the
other hand, Laura Ashley style letterhead could be a big mistake
for the guy making a living painting death´s head logos
on choppers, but might be just the right brand-enhancing touch
for some interior decorators.
So here
are the act upon questions: with regard to your business,
who are you and what do you stand for? What problem do your
customers see you solving better than any of their alternatives?
How can you better communicate to the world what you do and
what you stand for?
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