Branding for a small business is just as important as for a large multinational. Getting a brand right can mean great future success. Knowing your audience is crucial as a brand will only resonate with customers if you understand what it is they want, need and will relate to. Who will be your target market? Without this information, you cannot create an effective brand.

With your research done, you can now focus on tailoring your design, sales and marketing. You may need the help of a Brand Innovation Agency. Developing a brand identity, brand logo and effectively using all communication channels might benefit from the help of a professional.

If at first you don’t succeed, then learn from the failure and adapt your brand ideas. Think big if you’re a small business. If you believe in your brand as much as the big players, then you will have the confidence to see your plan through. Remember that your brand or logo will quite often be the first thing that customers will see and therefore their first impressions of your services.

Consistency is also important. A set of brand guidelines will be useful to decide on colour and fonts. Once decided, stick with it as this is what needs to appear consistently on things like staff uniform, advertisements and marketing campaigns.

Choose a name carefully too as you don’t want to risk damaging a great looking campaign with a bad name. Branding is not simply a logo, but needs to embrace the whole ethos of your business. For help with creating a business identity try http://www.lightbulbinnovation.com/

Try not to over complicate things. You don’t need to add 6 colours or fussy graphics as simple, clear and concise elements are more likely to be remembered. It will also pay to do some research as you don’t want to land yourself in any legal trouble if your brand is too similar to another company. On the same point, it is equally as important to make sure that no-one else is developing a brand that looks like it could have been stolen from your original ideas.