When is the best time to invest in branding your small business?
Are you considering investing in a brand identity? If you’re embarking on the journey of launching a business, quitting your job to work freelance, or taking strides with self-employment in another way, you’ll likely be aware that you need to invest in a brand identity for your business. But when is the right time to invest in this? How do you know you’re ready to hire a designer and spend some of your precious pennies?
From our experience working with over 100 different businesses and individuals, we can confidently say that the #1 thing to know before hiring a designer, is your business.
What we mean by that, is that it’s crucial to really know your business inside and out: who you’ll be working with or selling to, what the personality of your brand might be, what your services or product are (and how your customer will engage with them) and what your competitors are doing, amongst other things. Essentially you’ll need to know what your business is going to do, why, how, and who for.
Without first knowing your business, or by being vague and unsure about it, you’ll end up with designs that don’t suit your business, or designs that need to be updated just a year or so later.
This is probably one reason that lots of freelancers and solopreneurs start out with a basic logo and not much more. And while a lot of these logos aren’t as strategic as a full brand identity, they do the serve the purpose of giving you a starting point - something to put on your website, your business cards, and on your Instagram profile.
Once you’ve gotten to know your business or customers better, and have a clear picture of what you’d like to achieve you can confidently articulate your business to a designer and are much more likely to have a brand identity that will last you 3-10 years. And that’s why it’s in an investment!
Now that’s not to say that a rebrand won’t be needed at some point - businesses do evolve, and we need to adapt to suit them. Where you are in 3 years time with your business could look very different to where you are right now. Hell, 3 months from now you might taking it in a whole new direction! In reality, with every big change, will come a need to reassess your brand identity.
Use this checklist as an easy way to see if you’re ready to invest in a brand identity:
1. Are you in the first 1-3 years of your business?
While many brand new businesses might have a fully fleshed out business plan and a thoroughly thought out business model, that’s not always the case, nor is it always necessary. What is going to be needed if you want to invest in a brand though is having been in business long enough to know your business (and therefore your brand). You might be year 0 or year 3 before you get your first brand identity!
For example, our client Decade were in their first year of business and came fully prepared and ready to invest in a well thought through brand. On the other end of the spectrum, it was many years into business when Cicely Blain Consulting switched to Bakau Consulting and invested in a full brand identity. There’s no right time, but there is a necessary amount of info to come armed with.
2. Do you know what it is you are doing/ selling/ creating and how?
You might have a high-level idea of what you are selling (service, product, or idea) but do you know how your customers or clients are going to engage with it and you? Have you thought through their experience? This is important when considering how they will interact with your brand and what touch points or areas to add personality might be. What will that look like? And how will the functionality of those things be impacted by your brand personality or values?
3. Do you know who you are doing/ selling/ creating for?
Taking it one step further, do you really know these people? You don’t have to know everything about them (although well researched information on your customers can be helpful for growth later down the line) but you should be able to paint a picture of the type of person they are. What do they care about? What do they value? What resources do they turn to for information and recommendations? Can someone understand this person and visualize them as a character – clothes, hobbies and all!
4. FINALLY, DO YOU HAVE A ROUGH STYLE IN MIND THAT YOU FEEL SUITS YOUR BUSINESS?
Having an idea in mind of what your brand will look like isn’t crucial before you invest in a brand identity and hire a designer, but it can be helpful – especially for small businesses where you as the owner will be hugely influential on the brand personality and operations. Your taste and preferences shouldn’t be as important as those of your customers or clients, but realistically they are going to have an impact on the final identity.
This is another reason why business information and experience is handy – after a year or so you should know your business well enough and know what attracts your customers, as well as what you like (and can use!) in terms of visuals. Coming ready with some inspiration or ideas will be incredibly helpful for your designer as they don’t yet know you or your taste and will be trying to understand it in just one or two short meetings.
If you can happily answer ‘Yes!’ to all of these points, then you’re ready!
If you answered no to some of these questions, you might struggle to get clear enough for a designer to create an accurate brand that will grow with your business. And don’t worry, if you did answer ‘no’ or are feeling unsure, take your time to get clear and talk to a designer about it!
Strategic brand designers (like us) tend to include brand strategy within their design process and our clients rave about how it has helped them get even clearer, confident, and more sure about what it is they are doing – meaning they are now able to go out into the world and run their business more effectively!
Feeling ready to go? Send an email to hello@saltdesignco.studio to get started!
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