Don’t Brand Your Small Business Website, Position It.

December 28, 2005 on 11:21 pm | In Positioning | 18 Comments

There’s been a bit of talk in the blogosphere lately about small business branding and the idea that the owner’s personality is an integral part of a small business brand ["it's not we, it's me"].

While I don’t necessarily disagree with the comments in these posts, I must confess to getting the heebie-jeebies every time I hear the words “small business” and “brand” in the same sentence. It’s normally associated with amorphous marketing chatter about “building your online brand” and “leveraging brand equity”.

Beware of “Branding” B.S.

The problem that I have with the term “branding” is that it connotes strong images of corporatized, awareness-based marketing.

To “brand” a product or service is to literally imprint your mark on it. Brands started as a way to differentiate items that are (to the naked eye anyway) rather similar (e.g. horses).

By imprinting your brand into the mind of Mr. Consumer, the hope is that, at the time of the purchase decision, your awareness-building will pay off and you’ll be more likely to get the sale.

That’s great, but the branding paradigm just does not apply to most small business lead generation situations.

Unless you’re marketing a mass-market service, and/or have deep pockets and a penchant for spending sprees, then you should be spending every marketing dollar and every ounce of psychic bandwidth generating actual qualified sales leads, not building awareness.

Far too many websites fail because they’re all about eye candy and not enough about effective selling.

Don’t Brand. Postition.

If your primary marketing challenge is online lead generation, then you should think of the Internet as a one-on-one, direct marketing medium, not a branding medium.

*** Sidebar ***

DIRECT MARKETING: Marketing that aims to elicit a “direct response” from individuals viewing your website [e.g. a newsletter signup, an email enquiry, an order].

MASS MARKETING: Simultaneous standardized marketing to, a very large target market through mass media. [online, this model might be followed by the likes of Google, Odeo, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Amazon]

*** End Sidebar ***

If the Internet is a direct response medium, then rather than creating fuzzy feelings with diffuse branding efforts, my advice is to focus your energies on effectively positioning your business in the mind of potential clients.

That means answering the question, “Why should I give my business to you, when with one click of a mouse button, or by flipping open the Yellow Pages I can find 10 other providers who offer the same service?”

If you can answer that question in a compelling way, you’ll generate top-quality enquiries and sales leads. And you can do this whether you’re a household name on the Internet, or your website went live only last week.

18 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Will, I couldn’t agree more with you about the “branding BS”. I find so many people want to talk about their brand when they aren’t even doing marketing 101. (Not to mention everyone seems to have a different definition of what branding is.)
I believe the best way to build your brand is to do consistent and effective marketing and deliver excellent products and service. Your brand will then take care of itself.
Charles

Comment by Charles — August 25, 2006 #
Great article, very valuable suggestions indeed. Thanks.

Comment by Mattg — January 16, 2007 #
I agree with Charles-valuable insight. In many ways, I sense your face and your personality shape or become the brand of your business. Returning website visitors and customers measure only quantitative success. It’s wise to remind yourself other kinds of success exist. I write about some ideas on my blog.

Comment by Liara Covert — March 24, 2007 #
Do you own a local business? If you do, then your business absolutely must have a website if you\’re hoping to remain competitive in your marketplace. Many business owners don\’t realize this. They think, ?sure, if you\’re doing business online like Amazon or eBay then obviously you need a website. Because times have changed, and the way people get information has changed, too. Radically.

Comment by small business websites — October 22, 2008 #
This is interesting post. I am agree with Charles. according to me that brand identity is a very effective for marketing. It shows your position and excellent services and product which you are serving. Good topic.. Thanks for post…

Comment by Web Design Los Angeles — January 2, 2009 #
I agree, branding is very important!

Comment by David — January 15, 2009 #
You can brand anyway you want, but if you don’t utilize AdWords and Webmaster Tools not of that will matter. The Google Monster rules all.

Comment by FLIR B50 — February 5, 2009 #
Great article, I am starting up new site and I was gonna focus on getting my site up in SERPs, but after reading I think going the route of branding my product is a better method!

Comment by Adam — February 17, 2009 #
I believe the best way to build your brand is to do consistent and effective marketing and deliver excellent products and service.

Comment by mortga — March 10, 2009 #
My goodness, FINALLY someone who has his marketing terminology right. Thank you for this post. I shall refer others to it, because some folks with limited marketing knowledge and lots of babble have been creating viral confusion about some well, rather basic marketing concepts.

Comment by Rose from FineCraftGuild dot com — March 30, 2009 #
Marketing is the main key to make your business good. Branding helps though. Anyway nice article. Thanks.

Comment by Jenifer — May 31, 2009 #
Position and Branding, seemed of no difference, but changed my outlook after reading the post… good read.

Comment by how to get rid of pimple — July 10, 2009 #
Interesting, never hear this before but don’t assume that just because you agree with.

Comment by MacPress — October 10, 2009 #
Will,
Great post. In my opinion, at a small business level, branding is such a small factor it’s not the optimal approach to growth. We’re talking small business here.
Online lead generation for small business is better served through effective keyword targeting, SEO, PPC, etc.
You can include your brand in this, but the brand establishing phase comes later (medium, large businesses).
Small businesses need customers and revenue more than brand recognition.

Comment by Duncan — December 11, 2009 #
For small businesses, i think lead generation, SEO, and possibly PPC would be the most important factors. Once a business is established, then branding is next on the list.

Comment by Orange County Website Design — March 31, 2010 #
I agree with Charles-valuable insight. In many ways, I sense your face and your personality shape or become the brand of your business. Returning website visitors and customers measure only quantitative success. It’s wise to remind yourself other kinds of success exist. I write about some ideas on my blog.

Comment by turban — May 5, 2010 #
You can brand anyway you want, but if you don’t utilize AdWords and Webmaster Tools not of that will matter. The Google Monster rules all.

good

Comment by Axle — May 10, 2010 #
I totally agree Wil. It’s more about positioning your products/service than it is about branding, especially when it comes to lead generation. It amazes me how many websites do not clearly state what it is they specifically do and their unique selling proposition.

Comment by b2b lead generation — January 13, 2011 #