Small Business Branding: The Power of Integration

Let me tell you about two different small businesses. Both have been in business similar amounts of time and yet they have followed two totally different paths.

One business feels integrated. It feels like a "big" business even though it is still only a fledgling. The other feels ad hoc. It feels as if the business owners cobbled together their business on a shoestring and at any moment it may close its doors.

What is the visible difference? Their small business branding.

The integrated business worked with their graphic designer and marketing company from day one. Even though they didn't have the budget to have everything done at once, they started with their business cards.
They had a logo developed, colour palette and font selected, key words defined and marketing message specified. They included their logo on their emails and invoices, and had a Word template done up for their letterhead for their letters sent via PDF attachments. They made sure they had a marketing template that they then used in all of their future work.

The ad hoc business (a graphic/web design agency) has by the look of it have had a number of different designers work on their branding. The letterhead doesn't match the website design, which is different again to the marketing material they send out to promote their business. Their catchphrase or USP varies across all the different mediums. Particularly given the nature of their business, this does not inspire confidence.

One of the most important things any small business can do is to ensure that the branding for its company is 100% integrated. Learn from the big companies and check every document and email that you send out is consistent in terms of style, image, feel, language and approach.

Visual branding: When businesses start up they often are working on a very tight budget and watch any penny carefully. It is false economy not to have a professional branding concept created. Invest up front and you will save money down the track. You don't have to spend a fortune on printing. Just print what you need when you need it, but make sure your design reflects the image of who you want to be on the market.

Make sure your images have consistent colours across all media and reproduce well both in print and electronic media.

Create a "style guide" so you use the same font size and type across your business. Also include guidelines for employees in terms of how they are to create their signature block at the end of letters and emails.

Consider also the decor of your business, the layout of your store or office and how tidy or untidy it is.
Also consider the little things like the cleanliness. A good cleaner is worth their weight in gold to reinforce your professional visual brand.

Word branding: Consistency of word branding is also important. Many small businesses create their own website and brochure content. If you can't afford a copywriter to help you put your business into its best light, then at least pay for a professional editor to check your spelling and grammar. Poor sentence construction costs you customers. People do notice!

As your budget situation improves, pay for a professional copywriter to review or redraft your content. The difference in terms of customer conversions and page ranking on search engines for your website pays for itself.

Your copywriter will work with you to ensure that the feel of your business is reflected in the words you use. Is your business hip and funky, traditional or alternative? What is unique about you and your business? The language used needs to reflect who you are and what you bring to the world.

Each business also has core keywords that need to be reflected in their content. This is not just for search engines, but to also convey the uniqueness of the business. What are your business keywords?

Sound branding: People forget that sound also is part of your business. How do people answer the telephones? How do they put people on hold? What happens when someone is on hold? What sounds can people hear in the background when they ring or visit your business? What tone of voice is used in radio or TV ads? Is the tone consistent with your brand? Your sound branding is often forgotten when considering your overall branding.

Feel of your business: One of the most important parts of integrating your branding is how you make the customers feel. Do you make them feel cared for, important, better for having visited you? What unique feeling are you trying to share with your customers?

It doesn't matter how great everything else is in your business, if your customers don't feel great after visiting you, then you need to go back and relook at what you are doing and how you can improve. After all, your customers have the ultimate power over your business.

About the Author

Ingrid Cliff is a freelance writer and the Chief Word Wizard of Heart Harmony - a writing services studio that helps put your business into words. For a free copy of the "7 Secrets of Compelling Copy & Powerful Words" visit her website http://www.heartharmony.com.au "> www.heartharmony.com.au .

Related posts:

• Who Else Wants To Get Rich Quick & Make Quick Money Online
• Business Planning: Questions about Forecasting
• Should Your Subordinate Be Smarter Than You?
• Open Your Horizons to the Many Forms of Value
• Be More Successful in Testing Value-Enhancing Business Model Innovations

Military Planning Procedure For Your Dental Practice Marketing

With 2008 half-way over, it is time to start planning for 2009. Planning in any business is an essential function that all too many times gets overlooked. Lack of planning leads to playing defense for a whole year and being reactive, not proactive in your success.

Think about it this way: When you go into a dental procedure, you have all your tools laid out on the tray ready to go. Why not start the year with all your marketing tools laid out ready to go, and knowing exactly when you want and need to use them

In my four years as an active duty Marine, I learned time and time again that planning would lead to success. We even had a saying "proper prior planning prevents poor performance," and we were given an acronym, B.A.M.C.I.S., to help plan missions...

B.A.M.C.I.S. pronounced bam-sis has to do with leading Marines on the battlefield and is used to plan for every mission. B.A.M.C.I.S. stands for Begin the planning, Arrange for reconnaissance, Make reconnaissance, Complete the plan, Issue the order, and Supervise. These simple six steps apply to any task or operation you will take on...

Before you start the B.A.M.C.I.S. process, you will need a mission. For the sake of example, your goal or mission is to increase gross revenue by 10 in 2009. Its a little vague, but it will work for our purposes. Now, lets go step by step through the B.A.M.C.I.S. process...

1. Begin the planning: The first step is actually beginning the planning duh. You will approach your goal, and figure out the methods to best accomplish it. In this case, to increase your gross revenues by 10, you can either find new patients, or, you can do more dentistry on your current patients, or a combination of both...

Also, you need to do is take a quick inventory of your available resources like staff, equipment, and old marketing brochures, business cards, etc. This will let you know what you can include in your plan, and will help in the next step...

2. Arrange For Reconnaissance: In the second step you arrange for your information gathering. In the Marines, this may include requesting maps, video surveillance, or even planning another mission to gather information on the terrain and enemy positions...

For your practice, it means taking an information inventory. Do you have production reports and patient reports by month for 2007 and 2008 to date Where do you find marketing results What do you need to do to get those reports Gather as much information on the last 12 months as possible, and then move on to the next step. Check also with local government, competitors, and local media to see what events are coming Wal-mart, parades, dentist down the street retiring...

3. Make Reconnaissance: Now that you have all of your information, you have to sort through it. Figure out your worst month and your best month, what marketing was out those months, and how many new patients resulted from the marketing. What is coming up this next year anniversaries, trade shows, community events This is an information finding step, not a planning step. If there are months where incomplete data was kept, recreate those months in this step...

Create your 2007-08 report with all the numbers you need for 2009. Include production by month, new patient flow, cancelled appointments, average production per patient, new and current, and completed treatment plans. These numbers will all be great when it comes to the next step. Many times your practice management software can pull these numbers just by clicking the mouse a few times...

4. Complete the Plan: Now, apply all of the information you have gathered and create your plan. Take your monthly reports and use them to figure out when to up your marketing. If you know July is slow, pump up the marketing in June. If there is a big anniversary for your practice in the summer, plan a patient event...

Hint: Use reverse planning. If you need patients calling by August 1st, subtract 3 days for mailing, 5 days for fulfillment, and 5 days for printing. If you want calls in your office on August 1st, you need to have the project to the printer by July 14th at the latest. Plan all marketing projects like this. If you need patients on August 1st, July 30th is not the time to start the project...

Dont forget a contingency plan for emergencies... flood, fire, theft, etc. These things happen, and it helps if there is a plan just in case they do...

5. Issue The Order: Have a meeting and lay out your plan to your team. This serves as an "order" for them, to let them know exactly who, what, when, where, and why you are doing this. Make sure to leave out no details. If Jane at the front desk needs to be in charge of postage purchasing, tell her how many stamps you need and when to get them. Lay out the year for them, so there will be no surprises when you announce the need to sign Thanksgiving cards for your patients...

Then, in your daily/weekly huddles, you can lay out what needs to happen that week/day. Who needs to call the marketing company Who is working on the copy for the newsletter, and deadlines for each project This goes back to reverse planning. Give yourself and your team notice of any problems, and what you need to do to get them handled. How do you know when there are problems Check the next step...

Supervise: I cannot stress this enough. Supervising is the most important step to your planning since the plan is useless without implementation. This does not mean just supervising people, but also processes, situations, and external vendors. This allows you to know if things are going according to the plan, as well as when to take action steps to fix a problem. Look over your weekly plan and make sure things are on time, what needs to be ready for next week, and who is in charge of doing what. Do not micro-manage this step. Trust your staff and external vendors to get things done they should be trustworthy, you hired them...

If there is a problem, use another military acronym, OODA Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. As you supervise or observe the implementation of your plan, you will notice problems here and there. Orient yourself to these problems. What needs to be adjusted or changed Make a swift, firm decision, keeping the mission in mind, and acting on that decision. The Marine saying is, the quicker you act, the less time the opposition has to prepare defense...

If you supervise correctly, you will catch all problems early. This makes them easier to solve, and makes certain they have less effect on your mission. Rather than walls, they appear more as speed bumps. There are few problems that prior planning could not resolve...

Planning can and will help your practice run smoother. It is often ignored in business today, and comes to haunt many business owners. If you lay out a proper plan using the information you have gathered over the last year, you will surely create a smoother running practice. Remember, proper prior planning prevents poor performance.


About the Author

James Erickson is the President of

Relaited Links:

• Business Networking And Blog Courtesy-working On A Professional Link Campaign For Blog SEO
• How To Use Cold Calling To Make Business Work
• Internal Dental Marketing - Undone Treatment... Done