No doubt as SME owner you regularly hear these days how important building a brand is to your business – but what does brand actually mean?

Marketing Director at Plan Insurance Brokers, Grant Georgiades reviews Simon Middleton’s book “Build A Brand In 30 Days” to see if the self-titled “Brand Strategy Guru” can shed some light on this elusive term.

Brand has long been crucial to the marketing of big businesses. The importance placed on brand awareness for small business owners feels a fairly recent phenomenon. Simon Middleton explains how an effective brand strategy can help influence buying decisions no matter what the size of your business.

Our private hire insurance clients are told that establishing their brand within their locale is one way that they can compete with new entrants into the market, such as Uber. For our motor trade insurance customers, a strong reputation and trust can mean the difference between making a sale or not. Perhaps, after all, constructing a brand strategy is worth considering for your company?

The author provides 30 exercises for you to perform that will help you develop your thoughts in relation to your brand. If you’re already running a busy company then it’s unlikely you’ll complete the tasks in 30 days – but that’s not to say they aren’t an effective use of time.

Their overall aim is to shape an authentic and consistent message that you can communicate throughout your every business decision and customer interaction.

A common misconception about creating a brand is that it ends once you’ve designed a trendy logo for your company or a stylish advert. However, your brand should influence and shape every aspect of your business.

Your “brand” will both attract potential customers and help to retain existing clientele by elevating your business’s product or service from being a cold commodity. Instead going forward you will form a connection with your audience.

“Build A Brand In 30 Days” will work for those who are unfamiliar with branding as well as experienced marketers that just need help focusing their mind. In stripped down, no nonsense language topics such as brand values, positioning, naming, creating advocates, PR and effective use of brand budget are covered.

By the end you will have teased out a highly distinctive brand that will help attract and engage customers. The book also contains real brand stories that provide useful insights into the effect that a coherent, fully functioning “Brand” can have on your business.

I found it a stimulating and worthwhile read. If you read “Build A Brand In 30 Days” yourself, please let us know whether it was of because of us, and feel free to recommend alternative titles?!