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Chris, thanks for appearing on the SBOC!

When rebranding, how should small business owners communicate to existing and past customers regarding this effort? Is there anything they should stay away from when rebranding? Any tips or best practices?

~Tori

As a business, how can one get beyond the hump of being able to brand and marketing others, but haven't done it for themselves? Is it suggested that one outsources that job since marketing and design companies can be very critical of their own work and sometimes dissatisfied when coming to the conclusion of their own "look"?

Good Morning .... and thanks for your participation!

I have an interesting situation, one that requires keen brand insight. Hopefully, you can help!

My company was part of a larger family enterprise. Due to an unanticipated family situation (divorce), I lost my interest in the company that I thought I owned. My division was shut down, although it was a successful supplier of creative consumer products for over eight years. After much effort, I eventually regained my patents, copyrights and product line. So now I am rather like an old "start-up."

The problem: in the interim two years, my patents have been infringed upon (I successfully defended them), my industry competition has knocked my products off, and I've had tremendous problems putting together a new manufacturing team on a shoestring. I've had interruptions in deliveries due to my having to take on additional consulting work to keep things moving ahead.

The good news: my customers still love me and my niche luxury product line, I still have a very good reputation in my industry, and I get calls daily from all over the world for my products. I'm entering my best season, and it should be a great one!

My question (about time!): how do I re-launch my brand in a small and manageable way, while letting my customers know that I now have the ability to deliver? And also, how do I polish up my formerly well-respected brand? I fear that it has become tarnished by industry rumors, and my competition.

Clearly my budgets are beyond tight ... your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

My best for a safe, healthy, successful and prosperous '09!

Thanks.

Hello Commnity,

Chris Bradle will be joining the SBOC today @ 2PM EST. Chris can help you with creating and managing your small business brand strategy. All questions are welcome, so ask yours now to ensure Chris has time to respond within the hour he's with us.

Best regards,
The SBOC Team

Mann Made Productions, Inc. does more than "one thing" within the entertainment industry. We actually do about 8 different things. Is it smart to only brand Mann Made Productions, or should we brand each entity as well as the overall company. In other words, we do:

• graphic, web, logo design, etc.
• marketing and consultation
• education services
• computer services
• jewelry
• and more

Should we brand each one of these as a separate business under MMP or just brand MMP with each operation being a subdivision?

As you can probably imagine, I’m a big proponent of encouraging clients to engage a brand development firm to either create, consult or manage the process of branding. The traditional ‘ad agency’ model would have you believing that this means the client is simply along for the ride with little or no voice. Although in the ‘branding’ model the client has a big role and using their voice is vital to the process. The list below is very brief but site some examples of items clients can implement. Note that I didn’t say void of the direction of your branding firm. One of the key elements to branding is consistency. It’s all too important to make sure all of your messaging whether in marketing or daily operations speaks the same language.

As an example most clients (small business) are handling some of the following:

– Implementation of operations procedures that convey the personality of your brand (ie: Planning company voice mail messages, Managing customer dialog in person, email, phone, and fax, and creating a distinct meeting experience)

– Managing Internet Social Networking (ie: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Blogs, etc.)

With a real world business example this list can easily expand. Without more specifics about the particular company you are branding it’s hard to derive a long defined list.

On the surface, here are some ideas for increasing the impact of your web site.

As a starting point, segment your home page content into sections. After reading your home page, there are a couple defined sections that could easily be moved into another page. Basically what you will achieve is a clear message on the home page and navigation to other pages of your site. Segmenting the site into more pages will give your visitor logical breaks and freedom to explore. Also, more pages makes you appear larger or more versed in your market.

From a design perspective, white body copy on a black background is very hard to read in large chunks. Many studies have been conducted that show readers losing attention quickly when posed with reading large segments of ‘knock out’ copy. Traditionally designers are trained to use ‘knock out’ copy (white text on black background) for impact. The rule that is sometimes missed is the copy must be short. Consider a white or lighter colored background that will recede behind black or dark colored copy.

These two updates are relatively easy and should really help visitors engage your site.