Who you are matters. It matters a lot. Customer recognition and loyalty are particularly important for small businesses – after all, there’s no point being a dynamic, energetic company if people don’t recognise you. So when it comes to marketing and branding, make sure you set your standards!
Tone of voice
Before you think about what you are going to say, you need to think about how you are going to get your key messages across. What tone of voice do you want to use? Being a small company doesn’t mean your personality has to be small but it has to be right! It’s important to think about the impression you want to give – a firm of solicitors will be looking for a different voice to a children’s nursery, for example. Both can be professional and welcoming, but there will be a distinct difference.
Logo
Your logo is – hopefully – one of your most immediately identifiable assets. It’s also a great starting point for the rest of your brand persona, so it’s essential to get this right. A serious question to consider is how you’re going to use it – after all, the days where all a logo had to do was look pretty at the top of headed paper are long gone. You may still need it to do that (on invoices, for instance) but your logo has to work much harder for you now and needs to be flexible. Is there an element that will adapt to being a favicon on internet browser tabs, for example? Does it suit the standard screen and tablet dimensions? Will it look good on your Pinterest page?
Standardisation
Your choice of fonts and colours should reflect the decisions you have made about your personality, tone of voice and logo. You are looking for a quickly recognisable graphic representation of your personality – this is a key opportunity to ensure your graphic design and website design complement each other. Once you have made these decisions, stick to them! Make sure every piece you produce is immediately you, from compliment slips to your online shop. As a small business, it’s easy to find a picture that you like and substitute it for your logo – to think “it won’t matter, people will know it’s us” – but they may not, and even worse, they may think it’s a competitor and go off to investigate…