Branding disasters you need to avoid

Your branding efforts are all part of your overall marketing and SEO strategies and play just as vital a role in the success of a small business than just about anything else. While having a definite branding plan in place is always beneficial, it can be a difficult thing to pull of if you are not doing it right. Here are some branding pitfalls and disasters you need to avoid:

• Perhaps the major disaster any small business makes with regard to their branding is not knowing exactly who their customers are and where you need to go to find them. If you try and be everything to everyone, you will fail. Know your niche and what you need to do to reach them and drive them to your business.
• Your branding efforts, your advertising, marketing and SEO strategies must be ongoing and relentless. All of the major brands you see out there right now once started off just like you. They knew where their customers were and they relentlessly marketed to them. Act like a major brand and you will become a major brand.
• It is all about the customer and all about how you are going to solve their problem. You must continually engage them and drive them to you. Make your customers feel like they are part of the family, like they are part of something bigger than themselves, like they are part of something special. Do that, and they will return and they will bring their friends.
• Keep your employees in the loop and make them fanatics about your brand. They need to believe in what they do everyday and that is on your shoulders to make sure that happens. When your employees can get the word out all across their social media channels, then everyone, especially your employees and customers, win.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer