Our culture is getting more marketing savvy everyday. We can't help it, what with the near 24/7 bombardment of advertising and messages that we're exposed to. It's just not possible to give our full attention to every single message that comes across to us.

So how does a small business get heard? One way is to have a solid, professional brand identity. For smaller businesses, the establishing of a successful brand identity often falls toward the bottom of the priority list. Mostly because they can be kind of a pain, and even worse, they come with a price tag.

I saw Jay Lipe speak at a small biz convention in Minneapolis earlier this spring, and he's got a new book coming out in September called Stand Out from the Crowd: Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity. He's published an excerpt on his blog that addresses this very topic.

He has three very good examples of what can tarnish your brand identity:

• A poorly designed website that takes too long to load, and is difficult to navigate.
• A sub-par logo and brochures and business cards that lack professionalism.
• Front-line employees like receptionists or customer service reps who lack good service skills.

Jay's right when he says that if any potential customers get any sense of doubt about your business's ability to execute, they won't hesitate to look elsewhere.

Don’t undermine all of your company’s other efforts by shooting yourself in the foot with a slapdash company identity. If you forsake developing a truly professional and consistent brand identity for your company, your buyers will:

• Experience doubt about your company.
• Be confused about what you do.
• Fail to understand how your company helps them.
• Be indecisive about doing business with you.
• Distrust what your company says.
• Perceive a gulf between what your company says it does, and what it does.

In short, the very foundation for any company’s marketing effort lies in first establishing a standout identity. With one in place, your company will earn trust faster, benefit from more positive word-of-mouth, enjoy more frequent referrals, attract larger numbers of buyers, craft a more professional image, grow awareness faster and motivate buyers to take action more quickly.

Make an effort to shore up the lapses in professionalism in your identity. Your website needs to read and navigate well. Your marketing materials need to be professional in voice and appearance. It will be a non-trivial outlay of time and money, but one that your customers will definitely notice.

---
Smart Marketing