If you are the owner or founder of an SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) or are the person responsible for sales or business development in any size organization then your reputation - your personal brand is paramount in your personal success and the success of your organization.

‘Brands are like people’ is an analogy often used to describe the companies they represent. Virgin is the brand built by Richard Branson and the two are hard to separate. Consumers buy into the personality of the founder and what it represents and promises.

In many cases however ‘brands are people’ - every celebrity is a brand, from Oprah to Dr.Phil, to rock stars and actors to sports people like Beckham.

Business brands take on or communicate the values of their founders. This is especially true for start-ups and new businesses, professional services firms where the names of the founding partners make up the brand names. Although this is not the best way to brand your services business this is still the dominant reality for many.

So the brands are designed and communicated by people. People, especially in services industry is who we all buy from! So it makes sense that ‘these people’ have an optimal representation of who they are and what makes them special in the place where it matters most, the place where positive perceptions are formed - online!

Your online identity and representation is made of your online assets:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Blog / Website
• YouTube Channel, etc

The most important of these in the SME (B2B & Professional Services) is LinkedIn, and we’ll cover this next.

The creative strategy is the translation of the brand objectives and attributes,
into communication that will:

• Grab customer Attention,
• Arouse their Interest,
• Stimulate their Desire and
• Prompt them into Action.

Having a strong creative strategy is more important for the SME which doesn’t have the corporate budget to drum in the message using the sheer weight of media dollars. An SME is also in a better position to develop a strong creative strategy:

• Unlike a big corporate organisation, an SME does not have to deal with layers of management and political games.
• In most cases there is no brand baggage.

Creative strategy is rarely used by businesses outside the large and well established Consumer Goods and Services; from FMCG to Banking, Retail, Telecommunications, Cars, etc.  B2B and Professional Services companies, and in fact most SME’s can benefit from having a Creative Strategy.

• Provides consistency which is crucial in building memorability and trust with the target audience
• Ideally, the theme is will be derived from or generate synergy with the brand name or the positioning statement.
• Allows for development of more ‘creative’ communication, which also makes it more memorable. Creative themes achieve this by developing synergy between words and graphics and thus become more memorable.This means that you do not have to expose your target audience to your message as many times as you would otherwise with ‘average’ or less interesting communication, which means you can spend less money communicating with your prospects to turn them into customers.
• Well communicated THEMES deliver greater marketing ROI because they go beyond features and benefits in the mind of the prospect and engage them emotionally as well as logically.

The more creative the communication, the more memorable and comprehensible it is. Which means that you do not have to expose your target audience to your message as many times as you would otherwise with ‘average communication’.

A consistent THEME that uses the name of the brand or its positioning or ultimately both will always yield better results in achieving the above objectives.

MORE CREATIVE = LESS FREQUENCY = GREATER ROI