What is branding? Your business branding is your business identity! In this short video tip we’ll have a look at small business branding and what is important to consider to grow your own brand.

One of the most important things in regards to your branding is consistency!
The more consistent you are with your branding, the more familiarity you will create, the more trust people will have and the more sales you will make. Sounds easy, right?

Please post a link to your own website below so we can check out your brand! Shameless self promotion:-)!
Also, what is your top branding tip?

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Franziska: Hi!

Christo: Hi! Welcome to another small business marketing tip. Today, we are going to look at…

Franziska: Branding. What is branding? Well, your branding is basically your business identity. So, it’s basically your business personality. How do you want your business to be perceived and what personality, what characteristics do you want it to have? So, you need to really think about when you think in terms of your branding and when you work with a graphic designer for example. They are going to ask you how do you want your brand to look and feel, what do you want it to portray, how do you want it to be perceived. So that’s pretty much what branding is.

Christo: Yeah, and when you think of the importance of branding, so why is it so important? Well, when you think about how we remember stuff as people, a lot or our memories, visual memories, we remember stuff because we see things and we remember it. Like a logo and we do a lot of familiarity which builds trust because we recognize these. If you want… Yes, look at that, if you are covering the actual name of these products, who would be able to guess what it is? Of course, everybody would be able to.

Franziska: And it’s not that we advertise Coca-Cola but they have really managed to even own the colour. So, Coca-Cola pretty much owns that colour, the colour red. And without seeing the brand name, that colour even just tells you what it is. They really managed to create that personality.

Christo: Yes. The color, the colour of the drink, the colour combination, and even the shape of the bottle. So, this brings out familiarity. So we know when we buy a Coca-Cola, we’re going to get a Coca-Cola, we’re not getting any kind of drink that it turns out to be petrol or something like that. We know we’re going to get what we’ve asked for, what we’ve pulled out. So there’s trust there with lots more business owners when we’re starting out. We don’t have that familiarity in the mass market. People don’t know if they’re going to get the right thing when they buy from you. But these kind of bigger brands, the trust is there because people recognize, especially this one, Basic Bananas here.

Franziska: And Dole, you know.

Christo: And Dole.

Franziska: Dole is quite familiar.

Christo: A few banana brand and products here. And so what happens is even when we think about us as humans we recognize people, we recognize like, “I remember a face but I can’t remember the person’s name.” All of the time you recognize a lot of things. So with your branding, it is not just a name, as Franziska is saying, we recognize this because of the colour, we recognize because of that visual that we have and we know that’s a trustworthy product. So that’s why we need to make sure we do have that kind of consistency in our delivery.

Franziska: And that’s a really good one. You also, you need consistency, you also need to pick your branding colours. Again, if you are with a graphic designer, he or she will help you choose your colours. Our colours are yellow. This is a little bit of an older banana so it doesn’t really have our branding color but our color is yellow and black because the writing is black and yellow. And you can see that everywhere, on our letterhead, on our business card and brochure. The logo is always the same and I had to design it the other day to put the logo on a yellow background so the yellow was white suddenly and it just didn’t fit. I had to say, “Look, that’s not our brand.” I know it’s really a small little detail but it makes a huge difference. So you need to pick your colors and you need to pick the font that you used. Coca-Cola always uses the same font and all these brands too. And then you need to make sure you have brand consistency as crystal. So you need to make sure your logo and your color are the same on each application. It can be on your website, on your brochure, on a logo, yeah, on a business card, it has to be the same. It has to be consistent.

Christo: Yeah, that’s right. And so once we are consistent, the reason we need to be consistent is so is that familiarity in the market, so that the ever growing body becomes familiar with your branding. If they see your branding popping up all over the place and they remember it, then they get that familiarity with stimulates trust. So then they will likely to buy from you. Look at this chart as an example. It could be known by anyone, and probably is but by putting a little logo on them…

Franziska: A CK. What’s CK?

Christo: A little CK, that’s all it means and you’ll pay more for it because it has that consistency in the branding. It’s a 70’s product because we know it’s something reliable. So if your business wants to get that brand recognition, we need to get, as Franziska said, consistency getting it out there and we get that recognition, people would start to build trust.

Nice. So what about you? Tell us about branding. Any tips or tricks that you might have and feel free to post something that you’ve recognized or any funny interesting stories or funny stories you had with branding recognition or any brands that you think are awesome. Post away down the bottom!

Franziska: You can even post your own brand right now because it’s a really good exercise actually for you to get out there and get all these viewers to see you brand. So feel free to post away. Self-promotion.

Christo: That’s right! Go for it.

Franziska: If you like this video, please share it on your social media networks. You can share it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google Plus. You can even like the video below. And also, please leave us a comment below just so you help us spread the love. And share it with your friends and family. Thank you so much.

Christo: Yes, and if you would like more marketing tips and tricks for small business, go to BasicBananas.com and leave your name and e-mail address and we will definitely send you some cool stuff.