Branding is not something you do once you've 'made it.' The businesses that make it are usually the ones that invested in brand earlier — because brand makes every dollar of marketing spend afterwards work harder.
What brand actually does for a small business
- It makes you easier to choose
- It justifies higher pricing
- It compounds marketing spend
- It attracts better hires
- It builds defensibility
The five components of a working brand system
- Positioning — the one sentence that explains why a buyer should choose you
- Verbal identity — voice, tone, vocabulary
- Visual identity — logo, color, type, photography
- Application — website, social, packaging, signage, invoices
- Brand guide — the document a new hire can use without asking you