Hey Square Readers,
As weโre getting into reading Worth Every Penny by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck, letโs get deeper into the material. Last week we talked about the basics, the authorsโ framework and definition of a Boutique business.
Now, letโs dive into the first main section of the book: Branding.
Benefits of Branding
โYour identity is how you look, and your brand is how people feel about you.โ
โHereโs the bottom line: you canโt build a strong brand on a weak identity.โ
First, letโs talk about what branding actually is. Your branding is the total perception your customers have about you. Your logo and color scheme are part of your Visual Identity, which is only one part of your branding. Your brand is essentially your reputation.
Overall, having a well defined brand is incredibly important to any business, but especially a Boutique one. The authors write, โWithout a remarkable brand, a boutique business is nothingโฆ If people donโt know what youโre about, [or] if your business looks different every time they see you โฆ they canโt rely on you for a spectacular, one-of-a-kind experience every timeโฆ To charge what youโre worth, itโs essential to carefully craft and manage your reputation for being the best at what you doโฆ Your brand lays the foundation for attracting the right clients and increasing the results of your marketing efforts. Your fantastic, reliable brand will put you ahead of the competitionโฆ and justify the premium prices that make yours a healthy boutique business.โ
Branding Yourself
So how do you actually go about defining, establishing, and maintaining your brand?
Customer Perception
The authors suggest stepping into the mind of one of your best customers who loves and is devoted to your business. They suggest writing down what those customers think and feel about your business, what it means to them, the reasons they keep coming back, and more. Feel free to ask some of them to get the real answer! You can also add in your own ideas of what you would want your customers to feel.
Create Consistent Standards
The foundation of your brand is setting and keeping up certain standards, and consistency is key. Every bit of your brand and visual identity should be the same everywhere, including logo, fonts, color choices, website, even down to the cleanliness and orderliness of your shop or physical space if you have one. It all needs to stay the same everywhere they show up, every single time. Failing to meet expectations even once can lose a customer.
They write, โA strong brand creates consistency and a feeling of trust among your customers. It creates immediate recognition of your businessโฆ Even the slightest change to a logo creates inconsistencies in identity and brand. It creates a disconnect with customers and prospectsโฆ Customers wonโt recognize you and all the goodness you offerโthe experience, the service, the customization, and the relationshipโif your identity is marginalized, scattered, or conflicted. Your identity is the glue that holds your brand together.โ
Make Rules
Make sure that youโre setting standards for yourself, your employees, and your brand, and maintaining them no matter what. The authors recommend writing down your identity standards into a style guide for easy reference and training. They even offer a guide through their website.
Beyond just your identity, make rules about what your business does and does not do. These can be around where you advertise, what you wonโt sell, how often to clean, and more. Having rules like this can make it virtually automatic to maintain your reputation, stay within your niche, and not do anything that could compromise any of that. Then do what you can to monitor and enforce these brand standards.
In our next discussion thread, weโll talk about Section 2: Products, Services, and Customer Experience.
Weโd love to hear your answer in the comments:
- How do you define your brand and what makes your business unique?
- What are your brand standards and what rules can you have to maintain them?
- Take a hard look at all of your branding elements. What can you fix to be more consistent?
Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We canโt wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Donโt forget to:
Happy reading,
Pesso
This is definitely an important topic. Iโm always surprised how many new businesses either donโt think about the importance of consistent branding, or donโt want to spend the money, time and effort involved up-front. Charles and I have always been true believers in Guerilla Marketing, and creating our brand was one of the first things we did. We havenโt regretted that one bit.
I loved that you mentioned the importance of fonts, colors and logo. I was so happy when I saw that Square Online finally allowed us to upload custom fonts and set those to be used consistently throughout our website. Before they were even available to the non-Apple world, we had chosen Copperplate and Cochin which didnโt exist at first on Windows computers and even in Squareโs font list. So custom fonts were a great addition allowing us to further standardize our brand online. The same goes for the scrolling banner, which we found to be the perfect place to put our slogan and draw attention to it. We have that slogan for a reason, you know!
One of the best inadvertent decisions we made was to have our logo only say โPiperโsโ and not โPiperโs Cafeโ or anything too specific. When we made the post-lockdown decision to rebrand into an ice cream shop exclusively, it was such an easy move to modify our logo to add โIce Cream Barโ below the logo. And we still have that flexibility one day if we lose our minds and decide to only sell horse saddles, or something equally weird. Our initial logo still is a perfect base for any modifications!
Also, I love the โmake rules about your identityโ statement. Iโll admit that we lost sight of this one a few years into business. We did this by trying to be everything to everyone. Being an ice cream shop is hard enough, but being an ice cream shop that serves locally-sourced, homemade food that even ketos and vegans and gluten-free folks and on and on and onโฆโฆ. Well, I can tell you that was wholly unsustainable. Re-branding back to our roots โ the ice cream shop whose slogan is โItโs time for something differentโ was the best decision we ever made. We have focus and we donโt allow ourselves to be distracted by the next shiny new trend that comes along. Besides, when you have 100,000+ flavor blends of lactose-free soft serve, and over 2 billion (you read that right!) unique products that we can make from our ingredient list, who cares about trends! I certainly donโt. Ha.
One more thing then Iโll shut up. When we rebranded the best decision we made was to engage the services of a local marketing company. Even if we had spent twice what they charged us, it would have been worth every penny. Their media contacts gave us exposure that we never could have gotten on our own, and much of that is still paying dividends since as we all know the internet never forgets. People are still asking me about this or that TV spot that I did a few years ago, one that they just found today. Priceless.
@Pesso I definitely have tips for finding a great, reputable local marketing company. Thatโs where networking is invaluable! Make the effort to find your local business council or similar group. In our case, we had two โ the Covington Business Council and the now-defunct MainStrasse Village Association.
The owners of the marketing company that we used were part of the latter โ the MSVA. He had been involved for a number of years when Piperโs opened and had been President as well as held other positions. His wife had been working for other marketing firms and wanted to start her own with a hyper-local focus. She actually leased one of our small starter office spaces when she was first starting out, and we established a great relationship that way.
Anyway, being part of a business group can be invaluable, even for people like me who hate mixers and parties and basically any place where lots of people gather for small talk, which I also detest. Ha. The point of those groups is to connect us with other entrepreneurs and hopefully find common ground for working together to help both businesses. Of course, itโs always good to ask for references of similar local businesses to ours and then to actually verify and talk to those references. Remember that just because they are local does not mean that they are good at what they do.
Lastly, ignore all unsolicited emails, phone calls, etc, from marketing companies and โexperts,โ especially the national ones UNLESS yours is a national company. The market you are in is the market that matters and only people who live, work and breathe in that market can truly understand that market.
As far as Piperโs Saddleshop, donโt hold your breath! LOL. However, after I posted that reply I did get an inquiry from a new mixed-use development that is going up the next county over on the riverfront. They would like to explore opening a Piperโs and so I guess itโs time for me to consider whether or not Iโm in the mood for a second location, or a franchising opportunity, or not! Just when I thought it was safe to seriously consider retirement!
When we designed our logo we wanted something clean, simple and hopefully would stick in peoples mind. We went with a simple pink bow and our name in teal. Itโs so simple, but I think stays with you. We are in no way big like Nike or Apple, but our customers know the bow logo.
One other thing I would highly suggest is to register/trademark your logo.
