Memorable or Forgettable? Adding Personality to Your Small Business Branding
One of the most exciting — but daunting — aspects of starting a small business is creating your brand identity. Your small business branding is an opportunity to personalize your brand and decide what kind of image you’d like it to project. Some of the primary branding elements you’d need to decide on are:
- Brand identity. This pertains to your name, logo, and any visual elements.
- Brand positioning. Which segment of the market do you fit into?
- Brand image. Are you producing a product for the masses? If so, your brand needs to feel accessible. If your product is high-end, it needs to exude a premium, aspirational feel.
- Brand communication. What is your brand’s tone of voice?
All of these elements tie back to one primary, human aspect: personality. This is an intangible that could be the difference between your brand going unnoticed or being admired.
Brand personality is why McDonald’s feels like a happy place, why a Red Bull YouTube ad makes one feel ready for high-octane adventure, and why a Toyota advertisement feels safe, trusted, and familiar.
While your small business isn’t a globally recognized brand (yet!), there’s no reason why you can’t give it a consistent personality that people will resonate with. If you’re not sure how, we’ve put together some pointers for you.
Related: 6 digital marketing strategy ideas to refresh your brand
Create your branding strategy
Before you get into a heated debate with your team about whether your signature color is going to be Baby Blue or Teal, take a step back and begin crafting your branding strategy. This will be the blueprint for how your business is perceived and should include:
- Your mission (what your business actually does)
- Your vision (a more ambitious picture of where you want your business to end up)
- Your positioning statement (defining your place in the market)
- Key words which describe the personality and characteristics of your brand, product or service
- Tone of voice (is your brand 100% professional, 100% casual, or somewhere in between?)
- Visual elements (here, you will decide on the look and feel — it’s also the right time to have that Baby Blue vs Teal debate)
Your small business branding will be cohesive, clear, and more effective with a solid strategy in place.
Now for the exciting bit.
The strategy is the first, and therefore toughest, part of the puzzle. Once it’s done, filling in the remaining pieces gets easier.
Social Media: Brand Awareness and Highly Visual
Social media is an excellent way to increase brand awareness but also to showcase a more human side of your business. With your strategy close by, try these steps:
- Cover photos and logo. Ensure that your cover photos and logo are consistent across every social media platform you choose to use.
- Company description. Take time to craft a punchy, bite-sized version of what your company does and is about. People on social media don’t have plenty of time — keep it short and sweet.
- Real people. Leverage the talented team members you have on board. Ask them to provide insights into the business / their roles. Profile them. Capture them working their magic behind the scenes.
- Promotional vs entertaining/insightful. Aim for a balance of promotional posts and posts that people can derive some benefit from.
SMS Messaging: Wide Reach and High Open Rate
While it may not strike you as the trendiest channel on which to reach your customers, SMS is certainly one of the most effective. With an open rate of over 90%, SMS messages are much likelier to be read than emails. And while 160 characters may seem limiting, it’s a simple way to send out memorable marketing messages in just a few words. Don’t be afraid to add some emotion to these messages, either — texting is fundamentally personal.
Just as receiving a text from a friend or family member sets your phone abuzz and creates a sense of urgency, the same is true for SMS messages sent from businesses. It’s a great way to improve the perception of your brand.
Take a look at these SMS marketing tips and tactics.
WhatsApp Business: The Next Level of Customer Convenience
Last year, WhatsApp introduced its Business app. This is a must for giving your small business branding a boost as the app makes it possible to create a personalized business profile. It’s also an incredibly convenient way for customers to communicate with your business using a chat app they’re already familiar with. The app includes several customizable messaging features which can be created to reflect your brand’s tone of voice:
- Automated messages such as a greeting message
- Quick replies to answer common questions
While a line or two of text and a selection of emojis may seem trivial in the greater scheme of things, these simple interactions can instantly make your brand more inviting. Likewise, overly formal replies or robotic, poorly written messages can be a turnoff.
For larger businesses with higher messaging volumes, the WhatsApp Business API offers even more advanced features for personalized, easy engagement with customers.
Humor is Human
There is great power in brands being able to make people smile. Too often, companies are afraid to occasionally step away from their corporate image to elicit a more emotional response. While this tactic won’t work for all brands or in every scenario, there’s always a way to make people smile.
A Nod to Nostalgia
Another instant way to provoke an emotional response from your audience — and to help your brand stand out — is through nostalgia. The concept is universally appealing: everyone likes to look back on the way things were. There is also often an opportunity to bring it back to your brand’s offering in a much more palatable, less spammy way.
- Computer software company? Consider harking back to the processing power of the typical computer 20 years ago.
- Bakery? Ask your followers to share their favorite family recipes.
- Bank? Here you can get really clever and show how far you’ve come. Share a picture of people standing in a bank queue and mention how lovely it is that in 2019, chat banking with your business on WhatsApp takes all the effort out of managing your finances.
Whether it’s via your email marketing, social media pages, blogs, interactions in store with staff members, or any other channel, there are always opportunities to elevate your small business branding and remind your customers that they’re ultimately dealing with people, not just another business.
Without compromising the quality of the products you make or the services you deliver, looking out for ways to inject some personality into your brand can go a long way toward building customer loyalty.
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