This is a two part series.  The first part of this article will focus on clarifying what branding is and start you off on creating the basis for branding your business. In the second part I will present how to use the information you gathered from this article, to start branding your business successfully.

Before you can avoid making a mistake, you need to identify what the problem is. The biggest downfall with developing power business branding is the myths that people believe branding is all about. The big corporations clearly understand what branding is all about. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t. This article will help clear up some of the myths that can get in the way of good branding.

Myth: Your logo is your brand

Many people misunderstand that the graphical logo attached to their company name and their marketing pieces isn’t their brand. Hours upon hours are spent playing with swirls, lines, creative letter placement for company names – in an effort to create a brand. But in doing so, you aren’t creating a brand at all. You’re merely creating a logo.

What you need to get a clear grip on is that your logo helps create and reinforce brand awareness. It should allow your brand to be instantly recognized by those familiar with it. But it certainly isn’t your brand. Your logo shouldn’t even be flirting around with your brain until AFTER you’ve developed your branding plan.

Myth: Branding is a buzzword or fad created by advertising and marketing gurus.

No it isn’t. However, many such agencies will tell you that the outcome of the combined effects of visual elements in the marketing materials – makes up your brand. Such agencies are in business to create and publish logos, letterhead, business cards, branded envelopes, brochures, websites, and other professionally designed items. In their world the word “brand” is a synonym with graphical image… which is in fact, just your logo.

Myth: Branding is putting your logo on business stationary and forms of communication to get “face time” with your customers.

Nope - that’s not branding either. Although it is a part of the process, this activity is called advertising or marketing - using a logo that is meant to support your business brand. These are brand building campaigns, but this activity is not your brand itself.

So What is a Business Brand Then?

Small businesses can easily avoid the mistakes associated with the myths mentioned earlier by simply understanding what branding truly is and then creating their company brand accordingly.

Your business brand is your image. It’s how your business is perceived by your customers. An effective brand tells the world who you are, what you do, and how you do it. It establishes your relevance to and credibility with, your prospective customers.

Branding is all about relationships.

A personal focus on customers has long been the strength of small business owners. Relationships are what give us the ability to attract new customers and increase the frequency of business from existing customers.

Creating, nurturing and sustaining relationships are where the entrepreneur can outshine most big competitors - because it’s a natural part of our business to create a special bond with our customers. Branding begins by building trust with our targeted audience. Making and keeping promises create trust, and active brand management provides the vehicle for communicating this trust.

To turn this relationship building strength into a valuable asset, effort must be given to actively manage the brand of your company.

Taking a Closer Look at Developing Your Brand

With so many myths and misunderstandings about branding, how does a small business owner go about making their brand dominate their niche?

Once you get a handle on the fact that branding is all about building a trusting relationship with your customers, the next steps involve solidifying in your mind and in the minds of your business team what image you want to portray to your customers.

Remember I said earlier that your brand needs to say who you are, what you do, and how you do it. It needs to do all these things at the same your establishing trust with your customers. So it is absolutely essential that you have a firm grasp of who you are, what you do, and how you do it.

You may have figured these things out while developing a mission statement or when you were clarifying your business philosophy. If so – kudos to you, then developing your brand will be much easier on you. If you haven’t done any of those things, then get a handle on these important pieces of your business by answering a few business questions. These will help you define you and your company.

WHO is your target audience? Dig all the way down to the very core of your niche. Are your customers digi-scrap hobbyists? People with tons of photos but no interest in personally scrapping them? Fellow digi-artists? The audience for our DSD-Pro business includes small business owners, entrepreneurs, (and serious hobbyists) who are looking for ways to create or improve their digi-art based scrapbooking businesses.

WHY does your business exist? I mean besides for the purpose of making a profit. Making a profit is the byproduct of how you choose to achieve that profit. So what is it that you do and why do you do it? At DSD-Pro we “provide information, products, and services to people who wish to make money with digi-scrapping activities - to fill a void in quality resources for professionals in our industry.”

WHAT things are important to your target audience? To answer this one, put yourself in their shoes and look specifically at their wants and needs. Don’t focus on the features of your products – look at what needs and wants your audience has expressed. Using DSD-Pro as an example again our list would include:

• it’s important to our audience to receive thorough explanations of business concepts and practices - and how they relate to the digi-scrap industry
• readily available materials presented in readers-ease, rather than in legal-ease text
• to have a place to turn to for expressing their concerns about the industry, a place for making suggestions and pushing forward change, a place to ask questions of their peers

HOW do you go about filling the wants, needs, and these things of importance for your target market? While answering this one focus in on the benefits you are providing more than the specific product or service line up. For example we fill the customers’ needs by:

• Offering avenues for our customers to communicate with peers that have various levels of experience
• Creating an atmosphere to learn and teach others about concepts and practices relevant to digital scrapbooking businesses
• Providing products and services to help our customers run successful digi-art, scrapbooking companies

The items I’ve written above do not represent an inclusive list for DSD-Pro. These are simply short examples to help get you started with your brainstorming.

While you are working on the answers to these questions and pondering how they may be applied to branding your business, I’m going to run off and get ready to post the second part of this series. In the second part, I’ll show you how to use this information to work wonders for your business and help in the making of a memorable brand.

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