Small businesses with small marketing budgets have a dilemma in this arena. We all want our brands "out there", we all want our brands recognized and related to by our audience of customers, potential customers and let's face it even our competition! Developing a brand is more than a fantastic graphic. Is the graphic important? YES! Absolutely, it's very important, having a logo that catches the eye and creates interest for it's audience is imperative. The BEST logo's however will not make your business successful.
Case in point:
Zune - GREAT logo - catchy, simple and in fact was a great product - but despite it's outstanding logo and millions of marketing dollars, the product failed. The reasons Zune failed can be argued all day but the reality is that a great graphic won't pay the bills.
Here is a great example of why a GREAT logo is imperative... the idea behind this is fantastic - however I a pretty confident it doesn't do what the designer intended...Okay - that was funny - but the point remains the same... a great logo is imperative to your brand.
Your brand however is more than your logo. Your brand is about the feelings, emotions and physical reactions that your audience has when presented with your brand. I will provide an example that is near and dear to me, I grew up just north of Baltimore, Maryland. A very popular cookie there are "Bergers", to this VERY day, when I visit down there, I will occasionally see them in a convenience store and I have a very emotional reaction. I emote excitement, joy, desire... I can rarely pass them up when I see them.
They look delicious don't they? The Bergers story can be found here. But the short version is that this started as a small family owned operation in Baltimore, still to this day they are only available in the Baltimore/Washington area yet in 2012 had annual sales of 2.5 Million! How is that possible you might wonder and you may also wonder what are the possibilities if they were to expand? I don't know the answer to that but tend to believe that in their case, regional is where it's at... because their brand won't incite the same emotional reaction in Virginia Beach as it does in Baltimore.
As a small business with small marketing dollars - how do you create a brand that drives an emotional reaction? You are your brand... the Bergers brand was about George and Henry Berger... it was about their bakery, their recipe and the experience of putting one of these delicious (yet horrifically fattening) cookies in your mouth and enjoying every single moment.
Your logo, your collateral will tell people about your brand but YOU as the individual have to build your brand, your personality, your business acumen, your networking, your professionalism, your charisma and maybe even your bad jokes... you become your brand and your brand becomes you. When that happens your brand takes on a personality and a life of its own creating an emotional experience for the audience.
What have you done to create an emotional experience for your audience today? If you would like to learn more, please contact us at The Epicenter.
Gina is a results-oriented business professional with over 14 years in the marketing, customer service, consumer affairs, sales and pharmaceutical industries working with Fortune 100 and 500 companies. Learn more about her on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/ginablevins/ and visit www.epicenterus.com
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