Branding is not only applicable to large companies, even though everyone is talking about Google, Apple, or Coca-Cola, the small businesses around you are always more important.
By building a great brand for your small business, you may get considerable financial returns in the years to come. But if you've done it wrong, you will probably end up paying higher prices for rebranding.

1. Define your brand identity

The brand is not just a trademark to put on your website, your brand is the identity of the company, where showcases your company's value and mission. The brand distinguishes you from your competitors and conveys a unique story through the brand image.

Before you start, try to think about a few questions:

• If I have to describe my company in three words, what would they be?
• What do I want to be famous for in the marketplace?
• What are the company's core value and mission?
• What does my business do for the world?

The clearer understanding you have, the more you can grab your customers' attention.

2. Know your customers.

This might sound easy, but it is a mistake often made by many small businesses. It's essential to spend some time understanding your customers: who are they? How old are they? What kind of income source and education level do they have? Are they men or women? Where are they from? What services are they looking for? What is the most important thing for them? When and why do they need your product or service?

3. Define your brand

Once you know well your customers, the next step can be very easy. All you need to do is to make your products or services great. Do your research and understand what benefits your product or service can bring to the customers, and why do you want to do this?

4.1 New brand

When you already have an active business but you are thinking of step into another new field, it may be more efficient to build a new brand, either for that part of the business or for the new idea you are trying to convey to your audience.

In this way, you may keep your current revenue active and keep your core characteristics unchanged, while launching a whole new brand that targets a diverse audience.

Take the example of Coca-Cola, they are not creating another beverage giant to against their competitors, they targeted in another direction and they made Sprite and Fanta, which also acquired huge followers.

4.2 Rebrand

But when it happens that you are changing the business purpose, or even its core value and mission, or maybe it looks old after several years and you want to update it, but the essential product or service has not changed. In this case, you can consider rebrand it, give it a fresh new look, attracts new audiences by adding trendy aspects in it.

Airbnb, for example, rebranded in 2014 by using the altered version of letter A as a symbol and adopted a new red to convey the feeling of happiness and love. Their business has not changed, but the rebranding gained much more exposure and customers for them.

The best way to build a brand is to consult a professional brand agency. It would be nice to work with professionals. They will bring you what I said until now. If not, then be careful.

For the small business owner, always consider your budget and communicate with your partner, this will help your partner to provide a suitable design solution for you. Surely if you have enough budget, it's always mind-free to choose a large brand agency. But if you have a limited budget, hiring students, freelancers, or small design studios can be a good option. Among them, students are the cheapest but with the least experience. Balancing cost and quality, a freelancer or a small design studio is a good choice, often a small and compact team is always also efficient and agile. With them, your investment will bring generous returns for you.

5. What are the contents of the design proposal?

• Logo (colored, black and white, layout, slogan)
• Business card and letterhead
• Brand guidelines (brand color palette, font, pattern, tone of voice, mascot, etc.)
• Website o Landing page
• Social media marketing materials

According to your business, you may also need other derivatives, such as flyers, banners, stationeries, packaging, etc. In any of these cases, you need to use your brand correctly following the brand guidelines. A brand guideline is an instructional material that tells you how to showcase your brand and how it should appear on various channels. The brand is very important to any business, especially for small ones. For building your audience, an accurate, easily recognizable, and consistent brand image is the key.

6. Final step - Brand promotion

After everything is ready, you can start to promote your business. Small businesses have the opportunity to build many online and offline communities, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, your website blog, or other social media. If you are a local store or restaurant, Google Business is a good choice for your customers to easily find you.

The promotion of small businesses can be troublesome. But you can always focus on a few key communities. Working with professional agencies is the easiest way to ensure that your brand project runs smoothly. Working with some creatives that are experienced also in the marketing and analytics is even better, they will have a holistic view of the overall design and marketing strategy, the design solution they provided will usually more strategic, data-oriented, and SEO-friendly.