Brand Building tips for Startups & Small Businesses
How to build a brand without spending a lot of money?
First things first – “there is a difference between marketing and brand building”.
People often mix the two just because both of them lead to the same output, i.e. more sales, revenue and popularity but by nature, both these practices differ. Marketing comprises of activities that make people (consumers) aware your brand, product or service, whereas, Brand Building comprises of activities that make ‘your existing customers and new potential customers’ develop trust and faith in your product or service.
It is a myth that Brand Building takes a lot of money as investment. I say that if you do things wisely you can build your brand strong without spending much cash. It only takes more time to build big brands with less money which is absolutely fine if you are a startup. Being a startup business you have to save every nickle you can.
Customer is God
- Think Quality – even in the hardest of times never give up on your committment to quality product or service. Your customers should never feel cheated on quality; you are a startup and you cannot afford to shove people off your product. The very first customers you get will be your best marketers and refer your brand to their kins and friends.
- Best Customer Support – give the best of the support you can give to a customer. Remember, a person seeking your support is in a trouble and its your duty to help him at that time. Help him and you have won a friend for yourself (your newly started business). A friend who’ll not only be a loyal customer forever but will also believe and trust in your brand and will make his friends believe as well.
- Personalised Communication – if possible take your relation with a customer very personally. That of course does not mean you start inviting all your customers to your birthdays but make sure they remember you when they need a product or a service like yours. Make a phone call to that person if you have his/her number otherwise a personalised email would also do the job.
- Let consumers speak – give them a platform to speak out. A simple Feedback or Contact Us form on your website can work out wonders if used effectively. Use Social Networking platforms like Facebook and Orkut to build a community of your brand’s fans. Be open to rants and raves and take action on whatever
- Appreciate Feedback – if someone leaves a feedback whether positive or negative appreciate it and more than that, show appreciation for that person who did so. Call him, email him or reward him to be thankful, after all that person out of no where helped you with his opinion about your product. At times brands end-up paying a hefty sums for surveys but then the surveyed people know it’s a survey. An unwanted feedback from a stranger who used your service or a product is the most precious because that person gave it out of free will and he wants you to do better. Another friend you cant afford to loose.
Treating the customers like a precious asset is the best practice to build your brand because the brand is for them not for your business.
Marketing is for your business, Brand is for your consumers.
Charity begins at home – internal brand building is a ‘Must-Do’
Nothing equals ‘having your team or employees believe in the true potential of your brand’ because then they don’t work for you; they work with you.
From the very beginning let a quality culture prevail in your team. If the overall productivity of a team leads to a quality product that helps you make you a better brand. Make the team feel good about their achievments and never hesitate to offer them a chance to contribute to BIG decisions.
Follow this as a Mantra (especially if you are a Dot Com business):
NEVER
- allow any spelling errors or grammatical errors to appear on your website (marketing/sales collateral for other businesses).
- do a hasty job with the design, layout or styles – be patient while finalising designs; good things take time to be built. (presentations and plans for other businesses).
- adopt an unprofessional approach with quality check – never let a buggy code go LIVE or else your brand rating falls everytime an error pops up at customer’s end. And resolve all bugs as soon as they’re found after going LIVE. (a faulty product for other businesses)
- give out the wrong message about your brand – no need to shout that you’re No.1 because if you really are then people would know that already and would believe so as well. And if you’re No.2 then no need to announce that too because there’s no fun doing business with the No.2 guys.
ALWAYS
- brand your outgoing communication
- brand your deliverables, presentations, code, reports etc.
- document your learning, experience and experiments
- share your accomplishments with the team
- do a quality check before delivering
Evaluate where you stand
This means that you should do a periodic check on your brand ratings or what people think about your brand. One way is to do market surveys but that would cost dear. Another way of evaluating your brand is to track your brand on the Internet. You’ve realised it or not but Internet is today’s medium where it only takes a few key-presses and mouse-clicks to express your opinion.
Online Tools to track your brand
- Google Alerts – Set an alert for your brand name to receive daily/weekly alerts on email. Google will send you links to blogs, articles and webpages where your brand is being talked about.
- Yahoo Pipes – It is a service which enables people to create a news feed for themselves using other feeds from the web. You can use it’s search to see if anyone reads stuff about you.
- Google Blog Search – Find what is being written about your brand in the blogosphere.
I’ll be happy to take your feedback and comments on this one.
The curry is Hot!
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Good one !!!