I came across 
a thought-provoking article the other day by George Torok, a marketer on why Small Businesses shouldn’t be worrying about branding. I thought it was inspiring (and worth sharing here) because I’d been thinking of the branding issue in the light of Social Media Marketing, the questions I get from small businesses, and the fact that there are so many differences between Small Businesses and large corporations in terms of what they can do and how effectively they can do it.
If you’re a small to medium sized business you have probably been worrying about how to build your brand. You may have been told by Branding Consultants, branding agencies, even some designers that:
“Branding is essential to succeed…” “Branding comes first…” “You must have a brand…” “We can help you build a/your brand…”
In the “new” Social Media world, building your brand, protecting your brand, finding out what people are saying about your brand and talking about your brand to others are what Social Media practitioners advise (and you’ll find some references to that on this site too). Social Media now allows marketers to do “brand monitoring” – more easily, though with a little more trepidation as to what they might find.
That’s fine, but as a small business is branding where you should focus?
Branding costs a huge amount of money – something many small businesses simply don’t have. Success isn’t immediate – or even guaranteed… if your first branding efforts fail, you have to try again until you succeed.
But perhaps, as a small business you don’t need to worry about branding at all.
World Class Brands
Let’s think about the some of the most well known brands for a minute. Brands like Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Microsoft, McDonalds, American Express, BMW and even Ford which, though it’s in trouble right now, is still one of the world’s best known brands. You can probably think of others.
Without exception all these brands:
- Spend millions of dollars on advertising and mass marketing
- Enjoy a high degree of celebrity or high profile endorsements
- Have millions of consumers
- Are very well established
All this comes at a high price. And none of it came overnight.
Unless you can repeat their success it’s best not to waste time trying.
Is Personal Branding Different?
OK, what about personal branding? Isn’t it different? Well, yes and no.
Some of the most well known include:
- Sir Richard Branson
- Oprah Winfrey
- Donald Trump
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Martha Stewart
Again, what’s common to them all?
- Decades of promotion (all are published and are known world-wide)
- Multi-media exposure to millions of consumers
- Frequent hits to their public facing sites
- A story of personal loss. tragedy and obstacles in reaching their goals
And, perhaps what’s even more central is that their strong personal brands are actually a by-product of everything else they did. They didn’t set out to create a brand, they set out to do something else and their personal brands evolved out of this.
Unless you have the resources they have, you won’t be able to develop your personal brand in the same way.
Which, again means you could be wasting your time. Instead – why not focus on what makes you different from your competitors?
Focus on Relationships
- Instead of focusing on branding, small businesses should focus on building relationships.
- Relationships help you focus on your customers
- Relationships are personal and individual
- Building relationships takes time, commitment, but very little money
- Relationships help you make your client feel valued
- Relationships put your client first and enable you to go the extra mile for them
- Relationships are what set you apart from the competition
- Relationships make the sky the limit
As a Small Business, Relationships Are Your Competitive Edge
Large corporations can’t build personal relationships. Small businesses can.
While many Social Media practitioners are urging big corporations to build personal relationships, with customers, the simple fact is, in most cases they can’t. Large corporations are too big and too bureaucratic and too impersonal. They are made up of thousands of employees, many layers and often silos of information. That’s why large corporations rely on branding. Branding puts the large company front and centre and focuses attention on them, whether by recognition of their logo or their advertising campaigns.
Branding also unites employees of the large corporation under one identity.
Last, but by no means least, large companies can also afford the cost, the time and the patience it takes to build and maintain their brand.
As a small business it’s unlikely you are going to be able to compete with a well developed brand unless you have the same level of resources. So focus on what makes you different from your competition, and your strategic advantage… your personal relationships with your clients.
More on how to build relationships later.
What do you think? Should Small Businesses focus on branding and how does this benefit them?
Are you a small business? Share your thoughts.
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Nicky
Great post – BUT- it reveals one of the misconceptions about branding.
Brands exist in the minds of customers (they are the same as reputation) – and really in the final analysis can only be built by positive experiences with the product or service.
The brand is built by your customers experience of you.
So every business needs to be concerned about their brand just as anyone is concerned about their reputation
Building personal relationships is part of building the brand and not a separate activity.
Hence my concept of customer intimacy branding – engaged customers, empowered employees.
Thank you
Hi Walter,
In terms of awareness there are brands I recognize instantly, but have no relationship with.
Thanks for this comment….
Brands exist in the minds of customers, yes, however for large companies those brands are built at considerable expense. It’s necessary for them to keep building them because that’s the way they are recognized…and they can’t actually build what I would call a personal relationship with a customer. Further, you don’t have to have a relationship with a brand to be aware of it
Now for small businesses, I would almost say the brand can evolve out of the relationship. So when, for example a customer thinks of great service they think of a particular company they enjoy dealing with who gives them great service (to your point about experiences).
My point (and the point of the article) isn’t that small businesses shouldn’t be concerned about their brand per se, but that when it comes to competition, competing with the big brands with “branding” is like fighting a losing battle. They don’t have the same resources. So, where should they focus the resources they do have? Rather than sinking millions of dollars into brand building as their main concern (the way branding is currently done) the suggestion is they play to their strengths – which is that they can build much closer relationships with their customers. If a small business knows their customers by name and goes that much further to put their customers first it means more than recognizing a brand logo or similar. When I get great service from a small business I don’t tend to think of their brand, but I do think of the great service and it’ s that which makes me trust them, use them and refer them. I suppose you could say their brand is developing out of that relationship… but perhaps it’s by default?
Going by what I see and experience of many big and well recognized brands, I don’t feel they are yet at the point where the customer experience has a lot of impact on them – with a few exceptions. If they were, customer service would vastly improve.
The problem with small buisiness and branding is that the small business owners get seduced by the “branding clergy” into focussing on logos, color schemes and fonts. When “branding” beomes the goal and reason for decisions they bcome like zombies.
When times are tough small business needs to focus on building relationships first. The brand will follow as a byproduct.
The strongest brands in the world – Nike, Coke, McDonalds, Microsoft – lack the relationship element.
Small business should focus on relationships because they know what that means. Branding is wrapped up in too much mystique and farce.
George Torok
Co-author of Secrets of Power Marketing
George – thanks for commenting. I enjoyed your article. I think more small businesses need to be aware of their options – if only to relieve the pressure to focus on branding.
Large companies have to focus on their brands, (once built they have no choice) however small businesses can focus on relationships and let the brand develop out of the relationships.
Hi, good article, your’s is another one of the many Blogs i’ve visited since getting involved with alphainventions.com.
Nicky
Interesting post…but you seem to be focussing too heavily on the issue of small business vs big business. The reality is that most small businesses compete against other small businesses, and one way that they can create a real edge is by branding themselves better. This is all about creating a unique story about why they are different from their competitors, and it’s here that they can emphasise the personal relationship they can offer their customers.
All small businesses build personal relationships, but only the best add the magic of branding to this mix.
@Justin: Thanks for commenting. True, small businesses compete with other SB, however I think most businesses would love to be recognized in the same way a Coke, Pepsi, GE or other well known brand is.
In the minds of their customers (where the brand has to stick), until they’ve had enough experience/relationship with the small business the big brands generally rule.
Small businesses can grab market share (particularly in economic downturns), but big businesses often set the market. If a SB sells computers, for example they are competing with the likes of Dell or HP, not the local computer shop down the road.
It’s not that small businesses shouldn’t brand themselves better. It’s that if the focus is on logos, bylines or branding as the end rather than the means they can get unnecessarily caught up in it when they don’t have to.
Having said that, extending the relationships they’ve already established into their story which becomes part of their brand can only be in their favour. The difference is they begin with the relationship and hopefully continue to do so with the brand as an enabler.