Although the economy is recovering (according to economic experts at least), small business owners can’t help but notice that they must work harder than ever for each and every sale. This makes branding and marketing more important, especially for small businesses who are often pitted against much more established large corporations. This leads many owners to ask, “What is my company’s brand message?” Indeed, your success or failure may depend on the answer to the following question: What are customers perceiving when they interact with your business? There has never been a better time to ask this question or to find your own personal answer.

Sending a Clear Message

One of the biggest mistakes that a small business can make is trying to be everything to everyone. In order to send a clear brand message, you must first decide who you really are as a business. What is your persona? What makes you different from other businesses in your industry? If you look at some of the most iconic businesses on the globe, they send a clear message about what makes them different. Once you decide what makes you different, your entire brand, including your logo design, should be focused around this.

If you send a confusing or muddled message, your potential customers will not know what to expect from your business. This will leave them susceptible to the competition. Your marketing message defines what makes you different from every other brand that they encounter.

“All About Me”

What makes some brand messages appealing to the customer while others hold no draw at all? The answer may lie in what—or, rather, who—your brand it about. One of the key elements of a successful brand message is that it shows customers what they will get from your company or products—as opposed to what you are offering. This may seem like a confusing distinction, but it really comes down to pronouns. Instead of telling customers what you will give them, tell them how they will benefit. Everyone likes to deal with a company that is “all about me.”

Time for Branding?

If you think that marketing can handle your brand message for you, think again. Your marketing doesn’t really tell your customers what your brand message is; that’s a task for your brand and logo design. Your brand, logo design, and other visual elements should send a clear message about what customers can expect from you. Your marketing should supplement this by offering details, such as cost and features. If you have a strong brand with a strong brand message, what you are offering will be clear.

A brand message is one of the most important “products” that your company can offer, and the only way to offer it is through a professionally created logo design and brand. If you want to give your company the advantage of a brand that customers can’t say no to, talk to a professional logo design today. Give your company the advantage that it deserves.

Domino’s recently unleashed a new marketing push. While this is nothing new for major corporations, the content is somewhat unusual. In a national commercial, the president of the company admits that the pizza simply isn’t as good as the competition. Clips are shown of unhappy customers comparing the product quality and taste to ‘cardboard’ and ‘ketchup’. The answer, according to Domino’s, has been completely redesigning their pizza from the crust up to taste better and include higher quality ingredients.

However, the marketing isn’t limited to a few well placed television spots. Domino’s also has dedicated an entire website to their pizza turnaround where consumers can leave comments about the new product. The brand also has been featured heavily on television shows from The Colbert Report to CBS’s Early Show.

How does this fit with the Domino’s brand? There are several aspects of this new marketing scheme that are downright revolutionary. First, Domino’s is completely changing their brand with this new campaign. The fact is, few Domino’s customers order this pizza because of its taste alone. On the contrary, many are attracted to its low price—one of the lowest in the pizza delivery field, with pizzas available for as little as five dollars—and the speed of delivery. In fact, Domino’s has spent the better part of a decade selling their half-hour delivery time as a major reason to call their number. People who want speed and low cost order from Domino’s; those who want a high quality pizza instead choose one of the company’s competitors.

However, value is one of the most potent brand values a company can claim, and this means far more than low price. To the new consumer, value means reasonable quality at a reasonable price. Domino’s can never be the true low price leader when supermarket freezers are full of low quality pizzas at half the price and fast food joints on almost every corner offer one dollar hamburgers. This company needs to offer something worth picking up the phone, and this new pizza is designed to do exactly that. This offers a powerful message to businesses everywhere: that price wars alone do not make a brand. In fact, as we have seen with Domino’s, low price can destroy a brand by reducing the quality of the product as more and more corners are cut.

It should be noted that Domino’s is not just branching out in marketing content, but in marketing method as well. While they are retaining old methods of advertising, such as television commercials, they are also hitting digital media and social networking hard. You can interact with the Domino’s Pizza Turnaround on Facebook, Twitter, and the company website. The television placement on The Colbert Report was particularly revolutionary, with the host cracking jokes and generally making a fool of the company while also clearly enjoying the product. This came across as authentic, which shows how important nontraditional marketing can be for companies of all sizes.

Only time will tell if this campaign can revive the Domino’s brand, or whether the new pizza is truly worth all of the fuss. However, Domino’s deserves serious kudos for stepping outside the box when it comes to marketing—no pun intended.

What does Tiger Woods have to do with small business branding? He is an example of how a powerful brand can be taken out by a single incongruency. However, as we shall see, there is still hope for the Tiger Woods brand—and any brand, including one tailored to a small business—if the audience and the future of the brand are both taken into consideration. Here are a few lessons we can all learn from Tiger Woods—off the golf green, that is.

1. Be the brand. Just last year, Tiger Woods was a classic all-American brand. Squeaky clean with a beautiful wife and family, notoriously well behaved, this young man was everything that Americans love: stylish, polite, and successful because of hard work and talent. While this brand was to take a sharp downward turn, there is no denying its power. Tiger was number five on the Forbes Celebrity 100, the highest paid athlete on the globe, and the spokesman of brands ranging from Nike to Accenture.

2. Don’t contradict yourself. The recent news about Tiger Woods is huge news because it is so conflicting with his brand. If his brand hadn’t been in large part centered on clean living, none of the tabloid reports of philandering and marital strife would have been unsurprising and unremarkable. People expect a certain amount of misbehavior from sports stars; if Tiger Woods’ brand hadn’t focused on clean living, there would be no contradiction. Knowing that his behavior could diminish his brand, a more successful choice would have been to either rebrand or choose other, less controversial activities.

3. Know your audience. Tiger Woods’ clean image resonated with the upper middle class audience that makes up the fan base of professional golf. However, it is unlikely that the people most likely to be offended by his actions—namely, married women—were a big part of his audience in the first place. The remainder of the audience may be willing to overlook the current headlines and buy into a brand that doesn’t include clean living as one of its central promises. While his actions have diminished his brand, there is still hope for Tiger Woods.

4. Rebrand when necessary. Obviously, the time for Tiger Woods to rebrand is yesterday, although today will have to do. The Tiger Woods brand, which is currently diminished, will have to be reshaped and renovated to accommodate current behavior. A new focus on excellence in sports complete with a championship or two, or otherwise a decadent lifestyle reminiscent of the Hilton daughters are two possibilities. With celebrities as with small businesses, sometimes brands have to be rebuilt from the foundation up.

The same way sports superstars such as Kobe Bryant and A-Rod have managed to overcome very public branding challenges, Tiger Woods can do it as well. The same rule applies to small businesses. It’s important to maintain your brand at all costs; when this fails, rebrand to accommodate the changes and challenges of your times.

With many small businesses in the USA struggling to maintain a strong brand through the current recession, many fail to pay attention to the future of their business beyond mere survival. However, with economic indicators pointing toward at least a partial recovery in the coming year, there is no better time to begin planning your post recession brand. Here are four strategies that will make your company shine in 2010.

1. Sharpen your brand. Is your brand ready for the new customer? Now is the time to modify your brand to meet the needs of your market as it will behave coming out of the recession. If you have been focusing on offering lower prices, decelerate and begin thinking about what sets you apart from the competition. Focus on communicating this through your products, your service, your marketing strategy, and your logo design. As spending power grows, so will your customers’ options. Give them a good reason to keep coming back.

2. Focus on your core products. This is an important part of sharpening your brand in the US, important enough to deserve its own mention. While diversifying is a good recession strategy, don’t diminish your post recession brand by neglecting core products. Find ways to innovate within these categories and always offer a fresher, more comprehensive choice than your competitors. Communicate with customers about what makes your core products superior to the competition. In most cases, a large percentage customers are coming to your store for this one thing; don’t make that a frustrating experience.

3. Be different. In this market and in the one to follow, creating a clear and obvious line between your business and your competitors is essential. You can choose to communicate this difference through innovative marketing, social networking, and/or your logo design and other physical aspects. Again, you should know what sets you apart from every other business in your field, and so should your customers. Otherwise, there is no reason not to shop elsewhere.

4. Engage employees. Many small business owners underestimate the power of their employees to make or break their brand. The people who staff your locations and answer your phones are as important as your logo design and your products. This year, take steps to familiarise employees with your brand and inspire them to truly buy into it. Use ‘we’ language and attitudes instead of ‘me’ counterparts. This motivated sales force will be far more likely to make the shopping experience a pleasant and well branded one.

Post recession economies have a unique set of rules, but they are not so much a set of restrictions as a clearly marked map to success. By getting a head start on preparing your brand for a new, recovering economy, you will be head and shoulders above your competition. While many are tempted to let their brand slide during confusing changes, being a forward thinker in this case means keeping your brand identity and logo design presentation strong while giving customers something to believe in.

Brand integration is a subject that many business owners talk about, but few feel they really control. This is because it is a rather abstract idea. However, you can gauge your brand integration by asking yourself the following five questions.

1. Do I have a professionally designed logo and brand? The first step to brand integration is having a brand that is strong enough to be the basis of your business. You will need to have not just a professional logo design—although this is very important—but values, a personality, and even a promise. These ideas will form the basis of your brand integration.

2. Do your products and services fall within the scope of your brand? If your brand promises a certain type of goods, do not offer anything that is not overtly and obviously in line with this. Doing so weakens your brand by implying that your brand promise is at least a little disingenuous. While some items seem fun or like they would be an ‘easy sell’, they will hurt your business over the long run is they end up undermining your viability but damaging your brand image.

3. Do your physical locations and materials match your brand? This is not just about fonts and color schemes, either. Your displays, stationary, and even your shopping bags need to be recognizable parts of your brand. This will make your business feel more professional and also help customers take the crucial first step of associating your brand with your actual brick and mortar location.

4. Does employee behavior reflect your brand? You must interact with everyone you meet in a way that is integrated with your brand identity. Dress and appearance suddenly become very important because they are communicating the details that set you apart from the competition. If you haven’t already, it is time to begin implementing employee policies about how phones should be answered as well as how and when customers should be interacted with. This may seem like micromanaging, but it is in actuality an essential part of creating a consistent brand experience that is identifiable with your overall brand. Retail giants such as Macy’s train employees to wear certain clothing and use certain phrases in their customer interactions; your company must have similar training in order to get the same brand integration.

5. Does your customer experience match your brand promise? This is the last and often most important part of brand integration. Your brand promise gives customers an idea of what to expect when interacting with your company. Because your customer usually is initiating contact with your company based on this promise, breaking it will only disappoint and annoy them. Make sure your customers entire experience with your company is congruent with your brand promise, and you will have achieved complete brand integration.

Do these questions seem difficult to answer? If so, your brand likely needs more fine tuning. If you find yourself answering no to any of these questions, it is time to talk to a branding consultant about how you can improve your brand integration.

Can you believe another decade is already over? An old year has passed to a new one, which is sure to bring its own news and trends. While there is no way to tell the future with 100% accuracy, we are predicting that these five trends will be huge in branding over the course of this year.

1. Value is in. Although the United States and the rest of the world show hopeful signs of pulling out of the current economic slump, the recession is far from over. Because the flow of customers is slowing to a trickle as credit card balances inch ever higher, it is easy to predict that businesses will use value more and more to lure in the reluctant consumers. This can be done either by lowering prices or adding more features; either way, you can bet that value will be a key selling point in 2010.

2. Honest is the new black. With 2009 wracked by numerous corporate scandals, much of the public has lost confidence in businesses of all sizes. Creating an image of honesty and transparency will be more important than ever. Many customers will be willing to spend more and drive further just to feel that they are dealing with honest people. If you can convincingly market yourself as the choice with integrity, you may find that 2010 is your best year ever.

3. Philanthropy becomes an essential. The public is more aware than ever about social and environmental issues. While it used to be admirable for a business to contribute either time or money to a charity, it is quickly becoming more mandatory. 2010 will be the year that businesses who don’t make a point of caring about others in a very public way see their competitors surpass them.

4. Online and offline merge. People increasingly rely on digital sources for information and products, but they still need that personal touch. For this reason, we predict that 2010 will be the year that businesses begin marketing hybrid services that offer the best of both worlds. For instance, many spas will switch to online appointment services that allow customers to peruse services and prices without making a commitment. Most people are comfortable enough with the internet to see online conveniences as a benefit; best of all, these often save money for the business as well.

5. There’s no room for failure. …at least not when it comes to branding. More than ever, it will be crucial for businesses of every size to have a cohesive, professionally designed brand with compelling visual details. No longer can you leave your brand at the door, either. Branding will have to be extended to every aspect of the company. More than ever, the quality and extent of branding will affect a small business’s chances of success.

These are mere predictions, but they are based on years of watching trends. While the coming year is likely to bring a whole new set of news and scandal, these trends are strong enough to maintain momentum in almost any economic climate.

Many people focus on the visual aspects of a brand to the detriment of other important areas. While branding your business through logo design and marketing are both important—for many customers, they are your business’s first impression—it is important to brand through your customer experience as well. Here are the five major areas of customer experience along with ways you can use them to extend your brand.

1. Image. This is often your customer’s first interaction with your business. How is your business viewed in the community? If you make the attempt to reach out to the media and to tell others about your business, you can take control over your public image, even without an expensive and time consuming marketing campaign. Your visual materials used in marketing will also contribute to this image. If your business is more established, your image will also be shaped by the reports of people who have been customers in the past.

2. First Impression. Your customers’ first impression will certainly be dominated by your brand, especially visual aspects of your brand. Therefore, having a professional brand complete with a professional logo design is crucial to this step. Another part of your business’s first impression is the physical appearance of your location prior to the moment the customer steps through the door. If you have an e-business, this first impression is instead your landing page. This is a crucial juncture, because the customer at this point has very little investment in doing business with your company. Your brand and your location’s appearance must engage the customer in such a way that they are encouraged to take the next step—through your door.

3. Interaction. Once the customer has walked into your location or entered your website, they begin interacting with your brand. Every interaction from browsing through the moment they walk out the door will be a brand interaction. At this point, it is important that your employees and all media offer an experience that is pleasing to the customer and congruent with the branding that led them to interact with you in the first place.

4. Emotional Product. Your customer’s emotions at this point are very important. Are they feeling relieved? Healthy? Philanthropic? Smarter? Annoyed? It’s important to identify the emotion that you want to convey in the very earliest stages of branding, then set up the customer experience so it invokes that feeling.

5. Buzz. After a customer interacts with your business and receives the emotional product, they will be likely to discuss this experience with others, to the benefit or detriment of your business. Generally, the more emotional the experience, the more likely a person is to share it with others. For this reason, your brand and your business in general should invoke strong positive feelings and avoid creating negative ones at all costs. If many customers are having strongly positive experiences with your company, the talk will become a force of its own. This positive buzz will contribute to someone else’s image of your business, beginning the cycle of customer experience once again.

Does your business have a mission statement? While this may seem rather unnecessary when compared to many other, more visible elements of a brand, writing one can help you define your brand and your purpose in a way that nothing else can replace. In fact, having a mission statement and sticking to it can make all the difference in a competitive market. Here are a few ideas that can get you started on a mission statement that is perfect for your business.

1. Reflect. The first step is to think not just about the mission statement, but about your business in general. What makes your company different from other companies? What makes you different from other business owners? Think not just in terms of products, but of values and attitudes—the things that will set you apart as a brand. You may want to look at other business’s mission statements, but don’t copy them. This is 100% about you and your business.

2. Keep it simple. One paragraph is sufficient; if you can’t say your mission in a few sentences, you need to hone it more and focus on the few aspects that are the most relevant to you. Keep in mind that that being overly detailed or long winded will detract from the main ideas while limiting your growth in ways that cannot at the present be foreseen.

3. Focus on the timeless. Account for change in your products and customers. For instance, if you own a coffee shop, you may someday want to offer other hot beverages. This makes ‘coffee’ an inappropriate and restrictive word in your mission statement, even if it is your current number one product. Instead, think of the type of experience you are trying to offer and the problems you are solving in your customers’ lives. This type of information is likely to withstand the test of time and stay with you through years of success.

4. Ask for feedback. Ask friends and family whether they think your mission statement is clear and concise. Be sure to also include people who have worked with your company and are aware of your unique business culture, as they will be able to give feedback as to whether your statement really fits others’ perceptions of your company. However, take all advice with a grain of salt.

5. Display it prominently. Your mission statement should fit your brand, so make it as visible as any other brand element. Once you are sure that you have a mission statement that works, post it prominently in your locations and on your company website where customers and employees can see it.

A good mission statement is not just a piece of paper that will collect dust in a corner of your office; it is a well thought out masterpiece that defines your entire business, past, present, and future. It is an idea for employees and customers to identify with, and an easy answer when you get the inevitable questions about what you do for a living.

Branding is a delicate process, one that no small business owner should undergo without the guidance of a branding consultant. However, even with expert advice available to all, there are certain mistakes that keep popping up in businesses big and small. Here are five branding strategies that virtually guarantee failure for your business and your brand.

Rebranding for the sake of rebranding. Change can seem like a good idea, but this is not always the case. If you have a brand that is recognized and loved by the majority of your customers, resist the urge to change it unless there is a clear and compelling reason to do so. Rebranding is expensive, and undoing your rebranding when it fails miserably is even more so. On the other hand, if your brand is failing to inspire your target market, it may be to time to make some changes. A branding consultant will be able to help you identify what, if anything, you should change. Read about five reasons to rebrand.

Micro-marketing. Often, a branding move that kills small businesses is treating one product in a way that is separate from or incongruent with the overall brand. Many businesses launch a new product with gusto and a marketing campaign separate from the general branding and marketing. However, it is important to make sure your product marketing matches your overall marketing, and that your product’s brand works as a part of your business’s brand.

Forgetting the call to action. It is not enough to promote your products and your business. No branding campaign is complete without a call to action. Don’t just tell customers what is great about your products or services; tell the public how badly they need them and how they can become the next proud owners. A call to action is most effective if it is part of your overall branding and not just a phrase at the end of your advertisements.

Entertaining without advising. Many ad campaigns are brilliantly funny and highly successful. This often leads small business owners to think that they too should use humor in their marketing. While humor definitely makes an advertisement more effective and memorable, you have to make sure that this humor matches your brand without detracting from your product. In other words, offer information first and entertainment second.

Being generic. The test of good marketing and branding is whether you could remove any single element and still have the message be recognizable as belonging to your small business. Don’t think you can slap a logo on something and automatically be well branded; you have to make every word and every image a seamless part of your overall identity. This is difficult for the amateur, but second nature for branding professionals, which is why almost all successful companies consult them.

Are you committing any of these branding crimes? Luckily, there is hope. Consult a branding consultant today and get the direction you need to rocket your brand and your company to success.

All around us, businesses, charities, and even cities are rebranding themselves to improve their public image and economic standing. This makes many small business owners wonder if they too need a compelling new brand. Here are the five top reasons to completely overhaul your brand.

Your customer base has changed. Maybe you started out marketing to young men, but have found that young women are the shoppers who seem to need your products the most. In other cases, a demographic itself might change and need a different image to attract and entice them. Whatever the reason, rebranding is a great way to make sure your logo is speaking to the audience that you need to draw in. If your brand doesn’t match your customers, your business will suffer as a result.

You have a dated look. Some brands are simply too trendy to withstand the test of time. Whether the font is too old fashioned or the color choice screaming of a different decade, this can have a huge negative impact on your business, especially if you are in an industry where style is important. This is an unfortunate situation, but one that can be corrected. Rebranding can take the best elements of your existing brand and repackage them in a way that will draw in the modern consumer and that of the future as well.

Your product line has changed. This may not always require rebranding, but often it does. If you started out selling one product but have found that another is a better profit builder, it makes sense to modify your line. However, this may require a different brand as well as a different marketing strategy. Making this change can keep your business viable and amplify your sales even further.

You have moved location. This is another key reason to rebrand. If your brand resonates within a certain area, and then you change areas, you will need to reevaluate it to decide if it can be just as successful in its new location. Often, this requires only a few superficial location, although a substantial overhaul may be in order if your brand or your logo centered on your location.

You have expanded your business. Whether you are now operating in several different locations or offering more products, it’s time to evaluate your logo and your branding. Many businesses don’t successfully make the transition between a single location and a larger small business, and branding may be part of these growing pains. A brand that was good enough for a small company often doesn’t have the elements it takes to be competitive on a much wider basis.

Whenever there are major changes in your company, it’s time to reevaluate your brand. This doesn’t always mean rebranding completely, but rather tweaking a few elements or changing a logo to reflect the business’s new aspects. Brands communicate key information about your company to your customers and community, so it only makes sense that as your brand should evolve as your company does.