10 Ways Building a Strong Brand Boosts Your Small Business Revenue
Building a strong brand is essential for small businesses looking to increase their revenue. With ever-growing competition, more noise, and the influx of AI, I am going to make a bold statement.
Building a brand is a requirement for any small business that wants to grow beyond a side hustle or end the feast or famine cycle.
Trust is the new currency. You need to give people a reason to consider working with you over the competition. Your ideal customers need to identify with your values. Your business needs to be memorable for the right reasons. Your brand is like a secret weapon to win the game of business.
Below, I reveal the 10 Ways that building a brand can make you more money in your business.
Let’s go.
Your brand and your visual identity elevate your business. Here is why:
It helps you attract and speak to the people that need your services or products -
Messaging is so important. Let’s not beat a dead horse, but this can not be said enough. Developing your tone and style is a key part of your brand. Have engaging messaging that invites customers to build trust and get to know your business. This results in messaging that converts more leads to customers.
It helps you to identify your best clients -
Your products and services are NOT meant for everyone. The process of developing your brand allows you to zero in on one specific customer. That specific customer will shout your accolades from the rooftops and refer you to others.
Through research, testing, and decision-making you get to create a product or service to solve a problem for a particular person or audience! Match your customers’ expectations with the perception your brand builds. If you want to charge high prices, you need to show and create high value, high quality, or exclusivity. Not only in the quality of the actual products but how it’s presented and represented with visual aids. This is your brand, logo, packaging, and the tone of your messaging.
It attracts customers -
Unprofessional and poorly done logos and visual identities don’t give your company value. Would you give more initial trust to a business that looks put together well or one that looks like a train wreck in all of its marketing? Who would you pick up the phone and call to help you with your problem? A DIY disaster will cost you customers and hurt your business.
It makes you memorable -
You remember the people who walk into the room causing everyone to turn. Whether it’s because of their grace and ease or because they are wearing a bold color. The same is true with a business. You want to do business with companies you admire. Don’t be generic or a copycat, and don’t use templates unless you can make them look truly your own. Attention is the new currency, find a way to grab it.
It helps you be consistent -
Consistency in your visual appearance, your branding is how a business is remembered. Let people get to know you and feel stability. That’s how you’ll build trust. Your brand colors, fonts, logo, spacing and formatting, style of photography, and style of icons should all be repeated throughout your marketing. Be consistent in how you talk about your business and services. Confusion will kill your sales.
It create great interactions with current and past clients -
People want fair, honest, and positive treatment. Customers want their problems solved. Building your reputation becomes part of your brand. The perception of your business will glow if your customers love to work with you. They will refer others. This creates loyalty.
It allows you to charge more for your services or products -
Here’s an example to illustrate what I mean by this. Would you pay more for a Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Bugatti, or Lamborghini? They are all part of the same umbrella and even share some of the same parts. Yet, that Volkswagen applies to a vastly different buyer than a Bugatti. Owning a $2.6 Million dollar Bugatti may be your dream, but you’d never want to spend $2.6 million on a Volkswagen even if it could break land speed records and had a gorgeous leather interior.
It builds a community of advocates -
When people respect your brand, it becomes the topic of conversation. Even if everyone does not become a client, building a community that supports your mission is valuable. It will improve your bottom line. This doesn’t even have to be on a large scale. People talking in your circle or community is where it all starts. This can be challenging to get going but it’s worth the effort.
It builds partnerships and collaborations -
Productive partnerships and collaborations lead to more revenue for your business. Your product or service could be the key to getting more leads to your partner or vice versa. To be effective and strong partnerships your brand needs to complement your partners in some way. Identifying those ways is key and will create the most benefit.
Stop Competing on Price -
Shopping on Amazon is a great example of why branding is important. With hundreds of very similar products on Amazon, shopping there can be challenging and overwhelming. They all look similar and none of them stick out. Sellers are putting up unbranded products and basically selling off-price or how well they can write a description of the features. Branding will help you show your value in other ways. For example, great customer service, your respect for the environment, or how your business supports your family, the community, or a worthwhile cause.
That’s the list! Branding is powerful, more emotionally powerful than most non-marketers realize. I want you to harness that power!
I do not suggest you go down the road of building a brand by yourself with Google and YouTube as your partners. Yes, research and learn from them; but hiring or consulting with a professional is your best route to success. Denying the power of branding is like pretending the sun doesn’t rise and set every day.
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Written by: Heather Marine
Heather Marine is a professionally trained graphic designer and the owner of Elephant Mountain Creative, a marketing agency focused on small businesses and entrepreneurs. She has supported small businesses for over 17 years with strategy, branding, website development, and design.