Is Branding Only for Large Companies?

If you own a small to medi­um size con­tract­ing busi­ness, chances are you have heard mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als tell you that you need to build your brand or invest in brand­ing your com­pa­ny. Hear­ing that you need to ​“do” mar­ket­ing to build your brand does not sound good to most of you, because you are think­ing, ​“Yeah but I need my phone to ring today!” I am right there with you. Get­ting that phone to ring is the lifeblood of our busi­ness­es, right? If that phone is not ring­ing, my guys are not working!

The title of this blog, ​“Is Brand­ing Only for Large Com­pa­nies?” was inspired by a com­ment I received from a cab­i­net con­trac­tor on one of my blogs. He was frus­trat­ed that some of the ad dol­lars he had invest­ed in an online social site did not get his phone to ring. He came to the con­clu­sion that brand­ing is only for large, nation­wide com­pa­nies with BIG budgets.

Build­ing a Brand is Necessary

I do see this con­trac­tor’s point, and I agree with him to a cer­tain degree: com­pa­nies that have more mon­ey can typ­i­cal­ly spend more on brand­ing cam­paigns than com­pa­nies that do not have the cash.

In my opin­ion, where this guy went wrong is that brand­ing is cru­cial and is not always for just the big nation­wide com­pa­nies. I am all for pulling the plug on a web com­pa­ny that promis­es you leads (lead gen­er­a­tion) and does not pro­duce. Yet I am also in favor of invest­ing mon­ey in web­sites, print and com­mu­ni­ty events for the pur­pose of build­ing one’s brand. I am a bit more con­ser­v­a­tive on this approach, but I do think a com­pa­ny needs to have a good plan that involves branding.

Why Does It Matter?

Here is why I think it is impor­tant to build a good brand both on- and off-line. Let’s sup­pose you are adver­tis­ing on Ang­ie’s List. You are among the top 5 rat­ed com­pa­nies on the list. Joe Home­own­er goes on Ang­ie’s List to find a painter. He thinks any­one on the list with lots of great reports must be good. In oth­er words, he has faith in Ang­ie’s List. So he selects 3 or 4 painters to give him a quote. Not always, but chances are, he will select a mid­dle or low­er priced quote because again, he trusts that any­one on that list has to do decent work, so why not go with a low­er bid?

See where I am going with this? Now, how does good brand­ing help? How do you sell more work if your prices tend to be high­er? Good brand­ing! This is where I believe that being an edu­ca­tor to your audi­ence (i.e. con­tent mar­ket­ing) as well as a cus­tomer ser­vice prince will help not only make your brand more mar­ketable but will help win projects. Joe Home­own­er might get a bid from 3 or 4 top rat­ed Ang­ie’s List con­trac­tors, but if you are the one that has giv­en back the most, edu­cat­ed him the most and built up enough trust in his head already, you just might have a bet­ter chance at being the win­ning bid.

So How Do You Build a Good Brand?

Many books have been writ­ten on this sub­ject. For the sake of time, I’ll nar­row it down to just a few key things.

1. Blog­ging or Vlog­ging: Edu­cate your audi­ence as much as pos­si­ble by main­tain­ing a good blog. If you don’t like to write, start a YouTube chan­nel and begin answer­ing ques­tions from your cus­tomers and prospects so you become viewed as the expert.
2. Social Media: Get involved in social media. Nor­mal­ly this is a very inex­pen­sive way to brand your com­pa­ny. You do not need to be on all social plat­forms. Select the ones you feel will be the more reward­ing, ones you feel most com­fort­able with: LinkedIn, Pin­ter­est, Insta­gram, Face­book, Google+ and so forth. Get involved in the con­ver­sa­tion and build your com­pa­ny brand and your own per­son­al brand! Brand­ing does not always have to cost you mon­ey, but it does require time and energy!
3. Speak­ing Engage­ments: Become a keynote speak­er and edu­cate your audi­ence on a par­tic­u­lar sub­ject you are an expert in: paint col­ors, primers, deck­ing, stuc­co, or roof­ing, for example.
4. Com­mu­ni­ty Events: Learn where your cus­tomers and prospects hang out around your city. Make sure you have a good plan to be involved in the events they attend. If your prospects tend to be fair­ly wealthy, chances are they are into sports such as cycling or run­ning. Do what you can afford: give out water bot­tles at a race, spon­sor the race with your logo on the race bibs if this is avail­able, give out pop­corn, spon­sor a lit­tle league team, serve cof­fee, join a non-prof­it etc.
5. Serve Your Cus­tomers: This should be the eas­i­est part! Do an incred­i­ble job serv­ing your cus­tomers. This should be from the moment they call or email you to the future, even years down the road. If you con­tin­u­al­ly do a qual­i­ty job and treat your cus­tomers like gold, they will come back and con­tin­ue to use your ser­vices. They will also be your brand pro­mot­ers and refer you!

Build­ing Your Brand Is Hard Work

If you want qual­i­ty leads, you have to work for them. They don’t just show up overnight. Cre­at­ing a good con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy is a great way to build your brand. Yet that too can take months (some­times years) to real­ly make your com­pa­ny the expert. I know that Riv­er Pool and Spas stopped most tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing (yel­low pages) and put all their effort into blogs and videos back in 2009. They began com­mu­ni­cat­ing to their audi­ence in ways that were very help­ful, mak­ing them an edu­ca­tor, an author­i­ty in their indus­try. As their brand became stronger, their leads became bet­ter. They went out on few­er bids and closed more work! Oh, and they spent very lit­tle out of pock­et to get those leads. It just required their own time and patience.

A great quote from Glenn Llop­is from a Forbes arti­cle he wrote sums this point up: ​“Your audi­ence wants to know you before they begin to buy from you.” How long will it take to build that trust? In most cas­es, it takes years, but it only gets better!

Brand­ing is not just for the big com­pa­nies. It is for you. It is nec­es­sary to build your business!

image cred­it: pur­chased from dollarphotoclub