Branding
If you are a small business owner like myself, you have worked very hard to establish your business and its reputation. Building a reputation is not easy—and maintaining it can be even harder. The reality is simple: everything you do, good or bad, is a reflection of you and your business.
The Rule of Seven
People begin to recognize your business through many small, repeated interactions: seeing you at markets, noticing your signage, receiving your business card, visiting your website, engaging with your marketing materials, or following your social media posts.
It’s often said that it takes at least seven interactions for someone to recognize your business and as many as 27 interactions to build trust.
However, if your branding is inconsistent across those touchpoints, it will take far longer.
For example, if someone meets you at a market but your booth has little or no signage, they may forget who you were. When they get home and visit your website, if the style looks completely different from your signage or business card, the experience feels disjointed. Even if they follow you on social media, inconsistent branding, tone, or content can prevent them from forming a clear, cohesive impression of your business.
Consistency is what ties all of those interactions together.
Create a Branding Strategy
With everything else involved in running a business, finding time to focus on branding can feel overwhelming. However, you have to weigh the effort against the long-term value of building recognition and trust with your customers.
If you have the budget, you can enlist the help of a marketing agency. But if you’re a jack (or Jill) of all trades, chances are you’ll be handling this yourself. Here are some foundational guidelines to get started:
1. Start with Your Logo
Your logo is the pinnacle of your branding strategy. It will appear on nearly every piece of content—print or digital—associated with your business. You need to love your logo, not just like it.
Make sure you have high-resolution versions in multiple formats (PNG, JPG, SVG). Test it on different backgrounds and ensure it always looks clean and legible. When applying for markets or shows, organizers will often ask for your logo—be ready to share a crisp, professional version.
2. Brand Colors
Develop a core color palette and use it consistently across all media. While you don’t need to limit yourself exclusively to these colors, they should always be your first choice.
These colors will often come directly from your logo. Over time, you want people to recognize your work by color alone—before they even see your logo. Consistency is key.
3. Fonts
Choose a small set of fonts and use them across all platforms and applications. At a minimum, have one font for large text (headlines) and one for small text (body copy).
You can use more, but only if they serve a purpose and are used consistently. Too many fonts—especially eight or more on a website—can feel chaotic and unprofessional.
4. Tone
Your messaging should sound the same everywhere. Are you quirky and playful? Calm and conversational? Polished and formal?
Define your tone and stick to it. Nothing creates mixed signals faster than wildly different messaging styles across platforms.
5. Imagery
Whether you’re creating website banners, blog headers, product photos, or gallery images, your visuals should feel cohesive.
Aim for consistency in aspect ratios, lighting, environments, and composition. A recognizable visual style reinforces your brand just as strongly as your logo or colors.
Tools of the Trade
There are many tools available to help maintain consistent branding. I personally use Canva, which offers a Brand Kit feature. This allows you to save your logos, fonts, and color palettes and automatically apply them when creating new designs.
Explore the tools you already use and see what branding defaults you can set. By doing this, you ensure that your messaging stays consistent while saving time—and you’ll build recognition and trust with your audience much faster.
What branding strategies have worked for you? Share your thoughts with us @bz_furfur and, as always, stay unique.
