Importance of Brand Marketing For Small Business Owners

By Steve McMains

Did you ever consider the fact why you buy an expensive branded product though you could easily get a non-branded product with similar or better functionality for much less!

This is often the magic of the brand name of a company that people believe and fall in love with. You do not always have the opportunity to test a product before buying. What do you do in this situation? You look for peer reviews of that product to find out which brand will serve your purpose better. This mostly happens when you are thinking about buying an expensive product.

So, how do companies respond to these issues when the prospective consumer does not have an opportunity to test a product before buying it? If there is a doubt in the prospective customer about the performance of the product, the chances of a sale is reduced. As a business owner, you cannot always expect that the prospective customer would have a chance to test it from other users. And even if he or she has the opportunity, this may also reduce the chances of another sale as the existing customer may not have a favorable opinion for your product.

And this is a big reason why most of the big business owners spend a lot of money in branding and brand loyalty development. Another important reason is that, once you develop a brand name, it works across different product range under the same brand and this boosts overall market presence and loyalty.

But how does a small business owner respond to similar problems? Do you think a small business owner should invest time energy and money in branding or brand loyalty development! Do these branding exercises have enough potential to payoff!

As far as my experience goes, investing into a proper and proactive brand development is must for any business owner - irrespective of business volume or reach. In any situation, your target market would naturally develop an opinion about your products and this may transform into your brand identity in near future. If you are not proactive in brand development, you will soon loose all controls over your brand's overall development. As the business owner, this may turn out to be a big risk.

A lot of people say that branding exercises would cost a lot of money and most of the small business owners do not have enough to invest in such brand development exercises. However, I believe that a good strategy should not always be very expensive. And if the ROI is not good, you must discontinue following the strategy as it had been a poor strategy.

The expenditure of a branding strategy mainly depends on the volume and position of the target market that you want to reach. Big brands that sell directly to the mass, needs to reach a huge space in the shortest possible time and thus their expenditure is huge (and so is their return on investment). But as a small business owner, you normally do not have a huge market to target. I would rather say, as a small business owner you have the opportunity to be more specific about the target market. This also offers you the opportunity to offer selection specific message for better conversion.

Think about brand marketing - it will payoff in the long run.

Steve is a media professional and writes for different online publications on media and advertising industry. For more information on branding strategy he recommends you to visit http://www.brandweek.com/