Branding, like anything worthwhile, takes time. Nike didn’t become who they are overnight and neither did any other large corporation. It takes time for many reasons.
Branding is part of a larger marketing process. Branding has many aspects to it including company personality, logo, mission statement and all of the intricate features of a comprehensive marketing plan. Because branding is an ongoing process and because it is interwoven with a company’s marketing strategy it is absolutely in your best interests to take is slow when becoming the owner of an already existing business.
Here are a few considerations when becoming the new owner of an old business.
What is the company’s current branding philosophy and image?
To examine this first take a look at your company’s mission statement. This will give you a significant idea about where your business’s current branding image and philosophy reside. Assuming that you’d like to modify the mission statement and company image decide what that mission statement should look like and what steps you can take to integrate the two.
Notice I said integrate and not replace.
Branding is a process and to abruptly switch gears will be like throwing cold water on your current customers. They won’t appreciate it and it’ll take them a long while to warm back up to you.
What is your company’s current marketing plan (and how does branding fit with it)? Marketing is essentially the fuel that runs a business. Without it, you won’t go anywhere. For this reason, it is imperative that branding, as it is a part of your current marketing strategy, be modified slowly and tested often.
For example, if you were to change the business name or logo, that trickles down to every piece of marketing already out there and every piece of marketing in your future. In fact you’d need a full scale marketing strategy in place just to handle the change of either.
Why spend that kind of money and time if the current branding is working well? Instead, if modifying the current branding is one of your business goals, make it a long range goal with many small steps, steps that don’t require large expenditures or complicated strategies to implement. Can you imagine McDonald’s changing their name or Nike changing their logo? Yikes!
As a small business owner your personality is your business personality and it is your strongest asset. Prospects and customers buy products and services from you because they like you, plain and simple. As a new owner of an old business, adding your personality to the mix is as easy as becoming part of the business. Blog, communicate with customers and make your presence known. It’s the best and easiest way to not only keep the business brand alive but to rejuvenate it and make it fresh.
As the new owner of Small Business Branding, I plan on doing just that. Changing the brand that fans have come to know and love just isn’t a good idea, however I can make it fresh and keep it interesting by becoming an active part of the business.
Also I’m excited to announce that we are currently in the process of a site re-design by Ben Bleikamp who recently did the design for Problogger, I’ll be announcing the launch date very soon.
Vera,
Congratulations on buying the site… I agree that it makes good business sense to buy Small Business Branding, however through your last press release and this current post you talk about the new ownership and the design changes you intend to make, whilst saying that new owners must not try to think peripherally.
New design, is quite frankly irrelevant to the average website user, unless underlined by the changes you intend to make in the user experience and the benefits to visitors…
I would love to hear how the website is going to be more financially viable to the new ownership? More importantly, What difference will it make to SMEs that are looking for advice? Will it really take engagement to another level?
Are there any really significant changes that we should be looking forward to, other than design which is, at this point, very peripheral?
You acquired a Brand as well as Business. One of things you must not lose sight of is the fact that although this is a branding blog, this isn’t a rebranding exercise.
Rather, it’s a business assessment and revitalisation drive by a new owner, and the business is where you must inject freshness. How are you going to create a rise in site impressions? There must be something unique and new to achieve this… a new website design does not achieve this.
I’m hoping this strikes up a dialogue about how we can help you achieve this by throwing in our own two pence
Hi there Abraham, it’s great to meet you and I appreciate you taking the time to write.
Yes I agree business owners shouldn’t waste alot of time on thinking peripherally, but at the same time there are things that need to be done.
I have to say that I don’t exactly agree with you that new design is irrelevant, why wouldn’t we do what we can to make a better experience for visitors and make your site more appealing so users stay longer?
As for financially viable, I’ve been working behind the scenes with advertisers and many are curious as to the new advertising positions there will be. New design will open up for more income and more exposure for advertisers.
The biggest change as well is that I wanted the authors to have more exposure on the main page. After all, this site is not about me, but I’m bringing my experience to the table and sharing it here.
As for changes, I didn’t want to take over the site and make a mountain of changes right away, I don’t believe that would be smart business sense. I do believe change IS good so there will be changes, and solid ones too.
As the press release was written, it will bring in more people who are interested in SBB. I intend on creating press releases often as they will draw attention from others online, and I do intend on putting together media kits for offline press exposure.
I agree there must be new changes to take SBB to a bigger level, you may not have seen it, but in the background I’ve been creating guidelines, I’ve encouraged the current writers to write more, and I’ll be introducing new writers to the site as well. I’m also in the process of creating a report that will appeal to SBE’s that includes some of our current writers work.
The one thing you can count on is that I don’t let things stagnate and I have no problem making quick decisions or decisions that will move this site forward.
Design is very important to users they are just not conscience of it’s impact. Imagine how ineffective the Disney site would be had some 10 year old designed it. The experience is everything.
Take my own website for instance. For the last 6 months or so I noticed that 50% of visitors stayed less than 10 sec. So I redesigned it and focused on more content and more areas for the eye to explore. On the first 2 weeks, lengthier visits increased 30%. How a visitor views a site is hinged on design.
People trust sites that are well designed because it evokes professionalism. They appear more stable. I tend to frequent blogs that are well designed, because to me the author is showing that they take what they are doing seriously.
Good design pushes a lot of psychological buttons.
Ed, you’ve made a great point when you say that a well designed site evokes professionalism. It’s pretty simple.
It’s the same with a business, if you’re leaving the same products on the shelves day in and day out, how is anyone going to get excited about your store, or even want to come back.
I think SBB has done very well and Yaro did an exceptional job with it. I’m just looking forward to creating a new experience.
Hi Meg, it’s great to meet you! Thank you for posting, I’m looking forward to it too. 🙂
Congratulations on the site purchase, and good luck with both the re-branding and the new design! I look forward to seeing both.
Congratulations also on the site purchase. You make a great point in your comment that it takes innovation, redesign, and new features/functionality/content to keep people coming back to a site.
But, in a retail environment, I like when they keep the same stuff in the same place. I hate the fact that target moves my shampoo to a different area of the store practically every other time I go there. 🙂
I think that you can take Ed’s comment even a step further and apply the importance of good design to every element of a company that interacts with customers, vendors, and investors.
I wrote an article that was published in our member newsletter yesterday and posted on our blog today that goes into a lot of detail about how important a professional looking and stable brand is to the success of a company and how important good design is to that brand.
If you’re interested, it’s posted on our startup blog at:
http://startup.partnerup.com/2008/04/08/create-a-successful-brand-startups-small-business/
Hi there Steve. I too would like my shampoo bottles to be in the same spot. 🙂
I was thinking more of stores that cater to a smaller market like a boutique, clothing store, and such.
Thanks for the article, I’ll be sure to take a look, stable is always good.