Bigger companies with large advertising budget can easily roll-out major advertising and brand-building campaigns for their company. So how can smaller businesses, with a much lower advertising budget, compete with the bigger companies? There are way of doing so, and here are a few tips on how to building a fantastic brand on a budget.
Branding: Create a eye-catching & memorable logo
Does your Business logo catch the eye? When it comes to branding your small business, a strong logo that is instantly recognisable is a must! This is why many design agencies can typically charge thousands of pounds just to create one. But good designs are always expensive and nor should any be. This is why Instant Print offer such great prices on logo designs, ranging from as low as £45. We can Design the perfect logo for your business to make you stand out from Competitors, anywhere you go, so there’s no need to waste all your advertising budget on a logo alone!
Find your "Tone of Voice"
Having an eye-catching and memorable logo is vital to any small business trying to make customers remember your name, but it is not the only way to promote yourself. A very important aspect of any brand is the way you write and talk about your company. Marketing and advertising agencies call this your ‘tone of voice’.
Once again, you could easily pay several thousand pounds for an agency to develop the voice of your brand, but you don’t necessarily need to do this at all. You may well need some help or advice which we can provide, but this is a great method as you can do at least some of the work yourself.
To start, simply picture your target audience. Who are they? What do they like? What sort of language will they relate to? Then you can look at some of your competitors and see which way they talk to their audience, see what works for them and use this to your advantage. But don’t Copy! Once you’ve established this, try to describe your business and what it does in a way that fits your audience, and make sure you catch their eye.
When you find your voice, it is important that you stick to your methods. Make sure you are sending out the same consistent message throughout your entire branding, including your website, emails posters and flyers. If your message is familiar to your customer, and different to your competitors, you’re well on your way to building a powerful and memorable brand.
Social media is Extremely Important
Social media is a popular and extremely powerful tool for small businesses to build awareness for themselves. A lot of small businesses base their entire advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. And why shouldn’t they do so? These platforms are mainly free, most of your customers are already using these social media platforms, especially Facebook and its a great and simple way to engage with customers.
There are ways you can pay for a sponsored ad which can promote your likes, your website or a direct post to get more exposure, and these have worked for us on the past. But its important for small companies not to
focus on sponsored ad and instead focus on posting relevant and engaging content to grow their page organically. Its simple, get your friends to like and promote your page, link your page to relevant groups and other companies around you, share relevant content, host some competitions and give users a reason to like and promote your company, but most importantly engage with your customers and be there to help them with any queries. The more effort you put into your social media pages, the more you will get back from them.
Not tech-savvy? Then you can get in touch with us and we can set up your social Media platforms for you as well as give you direct advice on how to promote your page and engage with customers.
Stand for Something and have a Clear Vision
What do you want your customers to know you for? Your business cannot be everything to everyone, it’s as simple as that! So it’s important to focus on what a customer thinks it’s special about you. Find out what makes people us your business over competitors and rave about it to your advantage.
When you picture Burger King you immediately think of burgers, and maybe get a little hungry. When you picture New Look you think of nice affordable, fashionable clothing. Even locally when you think of Uluru, you think of fine Australian dining. These businesses may well have spent a lot of money crafting and refining their carefully positioned brands. But at the heart of their success is a lesson any small business can learn from: stand for something.
But Most Importantly.....Make your customers feel loved
Thee most important part of growing a small business is to leave a customer happy. Have you ever went to a restaurant after someone told you the food is bad?
You simply cannot put a price on great customer service. Make customers remember you for the right reasons and if your achieve that, the customers will do the advertising for you. Word of mouth will spread the news of your company, good company reviews can boost your company to the top. Remember one bad review is equal to ten good reviews. So its important to leave the right impression, and why not, after all, customer service advertising is free!
Get in contact or call in to one of our stores for help and assistance for your small business.
