Visual Branding on the Cheap

Visual branding is nothing new. Big business has been doing it forever. Think Starbucks, Victoria's Secret, an Apple Store, every restaurant chain, and a bizillion other examples. The common thread, of course, is each place evokes a certain feeling, experience that is an extension of the brand.

But you don't need a mega budget and downtown designers to adapt the concept to your business. If you have a physical location, be it retail storefront or office or mobile office van, have you really maxed out the look and feel to reflect your brand? No doubt you have a logo with specified color scheme -- does it show in your physical space? Paint is cheap. So is vinyl wall lettering, cool lighting (try Ikea), and so many other brand elements.

I did a project where I turned a former mailroom into a "quiet lounge" for employees who had stressful jobs. We painted the walls a calming soft green (a lighter version from the logo), installed very cool and inexpensive wall sconces from Ikea, bought a couple of comfy chairs on clearance from Pottery Barn, a wall clock, floor plant and leaning magazine rack from Walmart, a wall fountain online and installed laminate wood flooring. VERY low cost, looked like a spa retreat, employees loved it and visiting customers, too. All done with local painters and a handyman.

I know, I know, you're saying, but I'm not a designer and I can't afford to hire one. Maybe not, but you know your brand, the experience you're looking to create and at least can conjure up some broad, high level ideas. Then look around you. Use your phone to snap quick pictures of ideas of spaces you like as you come across them (note, be discreet here -- I've been tossed out of a few places with my iPhone snapping self in big box stores and big corporate buildings that thought I was a competitive spy). But you get the idea. Also, look through magazines. Inspiration is all around you. Maybe you can get creative and exchange services with a creative client or vendor. Enlist a design student who needs work for his/her portfolio- great talent at a fraction of an agency's price. Or if you've got the bucks to spend on a pro, by all means.

Just know that the details count in creating a great customer experience and your visual brand is speaking loud and clear. Do your customers like what it's saying?

Warning for the Technophobic SMB: Engage or Be Left Behind

This post is for the 40+, techno-phobic small business owner or nonprofit director. If that’s you, read on.

Lets begin with a quick story. It’s the early 80’s, and computers had not yet taken over our car dashboards. So odds are pretty good that one of your ‘circle of five’ most important Rolodex contacts -- along with your doctor, lawyer and trusted tailor -- was your mechanic. And if you happened to live in Los Angeles and drove a German engineered car, that mechanic might have been my dad. Great at his craft, he used his hands and talent to build a successful auto repair business that provided a nice middle class existence for our family and helped pay for my marketing degree. I’m eternally grateful.

The problem came toward the end of his business life when technology invaded the workings of our autos. He, then a 50-something technophobe, refused to acknowledge the signs of change around him, and more importantly, refused to adapt. Slowly at first, then more rapidly with each ensuing year, he watched his client base and revenue drop. Lucky for him, he was nearing retirement.

Now let’s fast forward to 2010 and you. If you’re still reading, I assume you fit the profile of 40+, techno-phobic small business or nonprofit director. Maybe you’re resistant to digital marketing. Heaven forbid you still don’t have a website. Perhaps your tech blockage is all things social media, after all, isn’t it just teenagers and celebrities out there on Facebook and tweeting their every move?

To you I say, in a caring yet firm way, wake up! Get engaged. Or be left behind. Need I state the obvious that this lesson is all around us in big businesses and smaller fish.

Its not a matter of if your business will suffer. It’s only a matter of when.

So where do you begin? Well, almost anywhere is better than inertia. Personally, I recommend LinkedIn as a simple launchpad for the uninitiated business person. It will yield at least three immediate results:

1. After you enroll (it's free) and you create your basic profile (will take you less than an hour), you will have put the first stake in the heart of leaving your technophobic ways behind. That's a major mojo booster.
2. After you next invite several business colleagues to connect to you, you'll see it's simply the old school notion of networking your Rolodex, only online, on steroids.
3. Finally, search for a few of your top customers or clients. Odds are they're already there. You'll learn info about them you didn't know, which in turn will very likely get your idea engine cranking about how you can use these new insights to provide better service, ways you can help them connect to others you know, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Still hesitant? Grab your teenager, your 20-something niece, your tech savvy neighbor -- someone to log in with you and walk you through. You'll open up a whole new, exciting world to help grow your business.

The Customer is Queen

It's long been known by big and small business alike that it's cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one. But the gap between what we know and what we do is often wide. As many small businesses struggle in this challenging economy to stay afloat, one tool to help ensure you weather the storm and indeed to position your company more competitively is to be the best in delivering great customer service. Whatever that looks like in your world, B2B or B2C. And positioning, of course, is a key component of branding.

Apparently women business owners have honed in on this fact, however they're not taking full advantage of customer loyalty programs nor do most have formal customer service strategies.

In a recent Forbes Insights/Key4Women Customer Service Survey of women business owners conducted by Key Bank, the survey found that many women business owners polled said customer service was a higher priority for their business than cost containment, sales prospecting, or increasing productivity as they worked to survive the recession. Only customer retention beat out customer service as a top priority. Looking ahead to 2011, customer service dropped behind prospecting and sales and customer retention, but still 1/3 of the responding business owners said customer service would remain their top priority.

So what are some simple steps you can take, regardless of whether you're a woman owned enterprise or not? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• 
  Leverage social media to be a better listener. Chances are some subsets of your customers are active on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites? Much of the buzz about business use of social media focuses on how to monetize its use, overlooking the fact that these sites are first and foremost great feedback channels. Your customers are talking - are you listening? Ask them how you can improve service- you may be surprised at the answers you get.
  
• You can never say ‘thank you’ too much. From old school handwritten thank you notes to email campaigns using providers like Constant Contact, when was the last time you said ‘thank you’ to your most loyal customers, no strings attached?
  
• Identify one small change to how you deliver your goods or services that would have a big impact in service delivery. For example, if yours is a retail location, could you put coffee service out in a.m. like one daycare center does for busy parents? Or the chiropractor that gives every client a chilled bottle of water as they exit? If yours is a service business, could you highlight a client of the month on your website? These small adds are very inexpensive if not free, yet can make a difference in your brand’s stickiness.

The possibilities are endless. The point is whatever you can do to up the ante on customer service helps you to keep your existing customers and ensure more brand loyalty.

If It Ain't Authentic, It Ain't You

I'm a fan of NPR's Terri Gross.

I love to laugh just as much as the next person, but have never been much of a fan of comedian Joan Rivers.

However, after hearing Terri's interview with Ms. Rivers today on Fresh Air, I have a newfound respect for Ms. Rivers as a great example of an authentic personal brand. Not that Joan cares if I like her comedy or not. But as a brand, one cannot deny she personifies branding rule #1: you must be authentic.

The interview starts with a clip Gross plays from the new documentary on Rivers, A Piece of Work (so aptly named - I mean that in a nice way). In the clip, Rivers is responding to a heckler in the audience who, let's just say, would have killed the comedic momentum of a lesser talent. Yet Rivers in her true in-your-face-tell-it-like-I-see-it-style (venom, cursing and all) not only handles him with aplomb, but finds a way to use the situation to reinforce her unique point of view (POV) with the audience, the Rivers brand proposition that says, "I'm Joan Rivers. I make people laugh and find the humor in everyday life, including the tragic, tough stuff."

You're not Joan Rivers. And it's probably safe to say you're not likely to have the kind of global reach with your personal brand that she does. But you do have a sphere of influence and the opportunity to leverage personal branding to more fully realize your goals, whatever they may be. So what lessons can you take from Joan Rivers for brand development? At least 3 things:

• Lesson #1: Define your unique POV. If you can't already clearly articulate what makes you unique, this may take some time, soul searching and work. But you've got to start here.
• Lesson #2: Define your value proposition (VP). What benefit will someone get from engaging with you? Joan has many roles - comedian, entrepreneur, TV host, etc. As funny lady, Joan's value prop is "Invest $100 (or whatever the ticket price) for one of my live shows and I guarantee you'll forget your cares and laugh for a few hours."
• Lesson #3: When you've finished #1 and #2, take the authenticity test. Do your POV and VP pass the smell test? Are they really a true reflection of You, Inc., or are you describing a figment of your imagination?

The great news is there's only one YOU in the universe. Your job is to reflect it back in the universe authentically.

Why Branding Edge

Your brand. Like a mirror, it reflects back to the world your reputation, positioning, value proposition, customer experience and service offering. This is true whether you’re an individual contributor, a sole proprietor or a large company. The funny thing about your brand is that you either define it intentionally or it’s defined for you by default. What I know for sure is that there’s no in-between.

As a marketing professional, I've come into contact with so many small to midsized for-profit and nonprofit organizations, inspired by big company branding and PR efforts yet frustrated in how to apply big enterprise ideas to their own needs.

So Branding Edge is my outlet to help.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'll share what I know from 20+ years experience observing and executing brand development for several companies big, small and startup, across numerous industries. The focus of this blog is to distill and translate big company branding tips, thoughts and trends for smaller organization relevancy.

To paraphrase "The Chairman" on Iron Chef, "let the branding begin!"