50% of the American Economy May Be Unattached to This Marketing Concept
There are as many different definitions of a brand as grains of sand on the beach. However, one of the best definitions is that a brand is “a name, term, symbol, or design (or combination of these) used by a firm to identify its goods or services and differentiate them from the competition” (Da Silva & Duguid, 2010, p.1). Since 2010, adding observable organizational culture and a firm’s reputation has become common in the definition. Culture and reputation have become essential to business branding, and an understanding of any small business brand must include as many stakeholder opinions of the firm’s reputation as possible to determine the brand accurately. Even within the boundaries of the expanded definition, brands tend to focus either on traditional market placement and organizational legitimacy or brands that speak to customers and other stakeholders through emotional alignment and appeals. Those firms pursuing traditional values are usually very planned and cautious when using social media to help shape their culture. In contrast, those appealing to stakeholders’ emotions use social media to draw attention to nationalistic, local, or regional cultures. This latter form of branding, emotional appeal, has had significant success with small and new companies when the branding efforts lean into symbols that evoke populist ideologies and cultural assumptions.
Branding in small and micro-enterprises is poorly understood!
However, branding in small and micro-enterprises is poorly understood, even though the history of branding stretches back to antiquity. Records indicate that branding was first used in urban settings in the Bronze Age and became more widespread in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, more effective and measurable marketing and advertising methods replaced branding in the modern era. However, in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), typically those with more than 500 employees, considerable research has confirmed that brand identity is particularly beneficial in improving competitiveness with firms characterized and entrepreneurial.
Branding and Business Considerations
Traditionally, larger firms use branding to position themselves in the marketplace and fully engage in more crowded competitive markets. Brands, on the multinational and national levels, have been credited with changing a firm’s self-image, their industry, and even the movement of capital on a global scale, attesting to the importance of the concept. Though, on the national and international levels, for example, environmental sustainability and other corporate social responsibility (CSR) branding have been linked to growth and competition, there is little knowledge of how CSR impacts SMEs or micro-enterprises. Communicating organizational purpose, on the other hand, has been related to improved performance for SMEs, though still no direct data for micro-enterprises. There is data on the positive financial impact of communication purpose, vision, mission, and ethical practices in family firms. However, family firms can be single-employee firms to organizations with a global presence. Also, within family firms, positive impacts have been identified when social media, social events, and word-of-mouth branding messaging are pursued. The ability of a firm to stand out because of its reputation branding can even help recruit employees in competitive employment markets. Finally, family firms communicating their businesses’ connection to their family personal brands improve organizational brand awareness, reputation, and social awareness, enhancing performance and creating a sharper competitive edge.
Communicating organizational purpose has been related to improved performance
Branding and Customer Considerations
The chaos and confusion that customers witness and feel in advertising are well established and observable in any media and nearly any location, from schools to churches to stores, and frighteningly evident on social media. There is little to no constraint on accuracy, ethics, or values. Consequently, consumers are focusing on brands that demonstrate authenticity and reflect their ethics and values. Consumers trusting a firm’s brand has a positive relationship with the intent to make a purchase. Consumers and stakeholders sharing the organization’s traditions, identity, values, and purpose also impact customers’ buying intentions.
Brand Management for Small and Micro-Enterprises
For micro and small enterprises, mainly family-run businesses, the financial and social environment erodes boundaries between personal, family, business, and societal interests and needs. For sustainable financial performance and growth, smaller and family firms must align their brand with their resources, capital, community reputation, target market, advertising strategy, and ethics. Added to those existential requirements is the need for constant innovation, an often-neglected element in strategic planning for small and micro enterprises. Many firms have addressed the need for innovation in matching their offerings and market orientation by crowdsourcing research using social media groups and brand pages to involve their stakeholders. Through a financial resource lens, the reduced capital and income typical to most small and micro-firms suggest addressing strategic innovation in a low cost highly successful manner. The good news is that research has shown that as long as authenticity, market alignment, and firm identity are all directly linked to branding efforts, even unsophisticated and naïve efforts at social media crowdsourcing improve community relations and a firm’s performance for community-level firms.
References
Da Silva, L. T. da, & Duguid, P. (2010). Trade marks, brands and competitiveness. Routledge.
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