Individually small business doesn’t have much of a voice in mainstream politics but collectively (over 90,000 have joined the campaign so far) we are a little more noticeable.
When it comes to branding however small businesses are really on their own. Creating a brand, let alone building one, can sound like a mighty expensive task for any small business and something that should left to established firms with deeper pockets.
But branding itself has changed and is no longer the measure of how often your logo is displayed on giant billboards, splashed across TV screens or featured in full page press ads.
Nowadays branding is about owning your space in the market place and that can be as small as the 5 km radius that surrounds your business or as big as the globe itself.
Thanks to our digitally connected world you can now own your niche more cost effectively than ever before.
So let’s explore the six P’s to ‘branding on a budget’ that if implemented could make your small business the market leader in it’s space.
1. Purpose.
For a brand to survive and thrive it has to have purpose and that purpose has to be shared and supported by both the organisation and its customers. Innovative thinker, author and adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation, one of the most highly regarded think tanks in the world, Simon Sinek talks about the Golden Circle – a three ring circle with the outer circle named ‘what’, the inner ‘how’ and the centre ‘why. He says that businesses need to discover the ‘why’ they do what they do and then formulate this into the true meaning of their brand so that it will inspire others.
Jim Collins, author of the best seller Good To Great adds to this theory by stating: “The next wave of enduring great companies will be built not by technical or product visionaries but by social visionaries - those who see their company and how it operates as their ultimate creation and who invent entirely new ways of organizing human effort and creativity.”
So step one is to get together with your team, an outside strategist and a creative agency to delve deep into the heart and soul of your business to uncover the ‘why’ you do what you that can empower others to follow.
2. Positioning.
As a business you need to decide where you are right now and where you want to be in the future. The McDonald’s brand has changed somewhat over the years from just another takeaway, fast food outlet to more of a family restaurant. They identified that Australians were fast becoming the ‘coffee-set’ meeting and socialising at café’s so they introduced their McCafé.
You need to decide what part of the market you want your business to own – we call this ‘creating your space in the market place’. It’s not about being the number one brand for the mass market unless of course you’ve struck gold and have an unlimited marketing budget. It’s about owning your local market – the five kilometres around your store by being the best at what you do, or creating a niche product offering that people can’t easily get elsewhere or identifying an industry ‘performance gap’ and filling it with your service. An eatery in Birkdale, Queensland decided to create a niche by offering authentic English style, fish and chips. They imported the traditional fat fryers and fly in Atlantic Cod, Plaice and Scampi direct from the UK – not to mention the cockels, muscles, mushy peas, traditional pork pies and even deep fried, English Mars Bars also on the menu. Chumpley Wumley’s is not just another fish and chip shop – they’ve created a point of difference that now enables them to franchise into other parts of Queensland and New South Wales.
What do you do differently to others in your field that can set you apart from your competitors?
3. Promise.
In a market that’s increasingly more competitive than ever before it’s vital that you not only identify the single reason why customers would choose your business or product over that of a competitor – but you promote it too through a single tagline called your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
We call this your ‘brand promise’ and it needs to be measurable, memorable and mean something tangible to the customer. As customers we often value our time even more than our money.
Time is really turning out to be money because one who has time has money. If your product or service can save your customers time it can make a big difference in their lives.
Next month we’ll look at the last three ‘P’s to ‘Branding on a Budget’ for small business.
In the meantime, retail small businesses are invited to a special event on Wednesday, September 25 at Event Cinemas, Castle Hill featuring the ‘Retail Miss Fix It’, Nancy Georges. More details at http://www.sydneyhillsbusiness.com.au
