10] Self Promotion As small business owners, we need to juggle a lot of elements and everything we do is to let potential customers know who we are and what we do. This activity takes a lot of self promotion - holding events, posting online and engaging with customers face-to-face at networking events and directly through email campaigns. It can sometimes be very difficult to come up with promotion ideas but there are loads of tools out there to help prompt you. In order to b

9] Market Position If you imagine that your product/service is for sale in a store, on a shelf, which products would you be next to the luxury items, or the cheap and practical items. A good way to look at it would be to create an inspiration board of the products that you're attracted to and see if you can emulate them in their perceived quality. I, for example, am drawn to Benefit makeup - they have a quirky sense of humour that really appeal to me, they also have a strong

8] What's in a name? Perhaps you're thinking this should be point number 1? A name is important but it's not what it is but more how it's used. The key to creating a memorable brand is consistency, we've already discussed the importance of consistency back in blog number 5 – and same applies with your business name. No matter what you choose: your name, a name that sums up what you do or something abstract – the name needs to feature consistently across all customer-facing pl

7] Being a small business owner – how do you get new clients? You may be small but you're MIGHTY! It's a common misconception that branding is only effective and important for the large businesses. It might be that we, as consumers, notice it more in brands like Coka Cola and the other big brands but we have something the big, established brands don't have - flexibility! There's a real freedom in being able to grow and pivot our business and our own personal growth and reflec

Do you really need a website or is it just an expensive trend?

5 - What is so important about consistency? Branding is about making an emotional connection with your customers and communicating a certain expectation of how you work and deliver your product/service. When we are face-to-face with our potential clients we need to be consistent in our messaging about what we do and how we do it to engender trust, the same applies to our visual communication and is so easy to achieve! This message needs to be consistent from everything you sa

4 - How does tone-of-voice effect perception? It may feel like your logo is the representation of your business but a logo is only one part of your entire brand. When every part of your brand is planned out properly, it forms a strong, cohesive brand and gives the impression of a confident business that knows itself inside and out and that confidence engenders trust from your customers. How would you feel if you received an email or letter from your bank and the message was f

3 ] what impression does the font used in your logo impress upon to potential clients? Similarly to colour, fonts give an impression and when used together with your brand colour palette can either emphasise and strengthen the impression you make or be confusing if the two things don't align. Like colour, font has a historical background that also is based on technical advancement in the world of the printing press and technological advancement in computing. Once example i

The first in a series of the benefits of branding your business so you can grow your business and attract the intended customers.

2 ] what colour selection will be used to emphasise your brand and help to attract your ideal client? Colour psychology works in tandem with your selected font in order to give potential customers a first impression of your business and what'll it be like to work together. The two things should work in harmony to strengthen that impression. We have been trained, as consumers, to recognise the clues as whether a brand is trustworthy, expensive, luxurious, friendly… It also s