Big business on a small business budget - Part 2 of 3
Posted on May 13, 2008 at 7:49 pm by Kolgoth">
Kolgoth
This post is the second in a 3-part series about making your small business appear larger than it’s true size. Rather than repeat the introduction, please check out Part 1 of this series. I will reiterate one key point - your ultimate goal is to get the most growth for your dollar. Without further adieu - read on for today’s addition to how you can really give your business a much larger appearance to your potential customers…
The second most important thing you can do to present yourself as much larger than you really are, is branding. This doesn’t have to involve an expensive marketing firm who charges you $1000 for a logo and leaves you with a logo and nothing else… It doesn’t have to involve 5,000 stress balls or other trinkets and trash to be given away at a tradeshow (spoken from personal experience…the mindset of some executives never ceases to amaze me) to people who will just throw it away or toss it into their “Tradeshow Trash” bag. What I’m referring to is branding at it’s core. This goes hand in hand with a quality website as mentioned before; you need to present yourself professionally and that there is SOME structure behind the curtain.
Some of the core elements you need to identify and decide upon are colors, logo design and the overall theme of your image. Do you want something that fits in the technology, automotive or perhaps the healthcare industries? Before running full steam ahead and spending money on expensive marketing firms, make sure you begin thinking about what YOU envision. What images, colors, etc in your mind fit the embodiment of your company? Remember to remain flexible, but it can make the process significantly quicker, easier and potentially cheaper approaching a firm with a few concepts than a blank slate. A lot of money is made “Consulting.” Again, google “basic branding concepts” for a few places to start. Once you’ve got some preliminary ideas, there are several ways you can proceed.
First, give it a whirl yourself! If you’re anything like me, you’re not the designer-du-jour, but you might be able to squeeze out 3 or so rough ideas. Look at some of your successful competitors and although you can’t copy them, you can definitely take a few design queues from their branding efforts. It’s a LOT cheaper to hire a graphic designer to polish your design than to hire a firm to do a complete branding exercise. Again, your goal is 80% “good enough” - save that extra money you save and put it towards a one of the other topics discussed.
The second option is to hire a marketing firm. I’d suggest finding a local company; ask around your network - someone most likely has a recommendation. Work with them similar to how I discussed in Part 1; the topic is different but the methodology is the same.
A tertiary option, one that is oft overlooked, contact your local graphic design college. Most graphic design colleges have classes in quarters rather than semesters, so it’s pretty easy to catch the school towards the end of one when a student has a bit more knowledge under their belt. Ask them if they have any recommendations; perhaps they can put you in contact with a professor who teaches a senior-level class on branding and logo design. If they will, ask the professor if there’s any students they’re aware of that would be interested in some work to further develop their skills and make a few dollars in the process. I’ve seen great success with this tactic - most of the time the skills of a senior graphic design student combined with the concepts you’ve already drawn out in your head can yield phenomenal results at a price no firm can or will match. Agree to let them use the work in their portfolio - they need one for school and for their career - plus it’s additional exposure for your brand!
Whether it’s for print marketing collateral, email & letter templates, business cards, or the design of your website, it’s much harder to establish yourself as a respectable company if you don’t even have a logo. All of the aforementioned pieces require branding be addressed before you’ll see much success and are collectively all required pieces of a successful branding exercise. As I said before - your goal is 80% “good enough.” Once you’ve become successful and need to hire additional resources for your company to grow, you can then worry about spending some of your newly-found extra revenue on that missing 20%. First and foremost though, never forget, a professionally designed and polished logo/brand, not something cooked up in MS Word or MS Paint using the latest Clip Art, will leave a much larger impression on your prospects.
Besides, to be honest, most people probably won’t notice the difference.
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