Oftentimes, small business consultants and startup companies forget to do what Fortune 500s do routinely - and that's brand their businesses at every given opportunity. There are many ways to accomplish this which aren't intrusive and yet they have that "hypnotic" effect of helping clients remember your name without even really trying!

1. Have a good logo designed. Your logo should be iconic - that is, it should contain a simple graphic image that easily carries across multiple forms of media - from large billboards to little business cards, and of course to the web like at the top of your website or at the bottom of your emails. The icon helps to trigger an association with your brand so that your customers will automatically think of you when they say this. It goes without saying that once the logo is developed it should start showing up in all of these places!

2. Invest in a tagline, and use it! For those new to branding, a tagline should not be literal - i.e. you don't want yours to say "We make golf clubs" if that's what you do. Rather, you want your tagline to sum up whatever you provide to your customers on an emotional level. At the very least, your tagline should be catchy and memorable, with a certain amount of lyrical pacing. This will help your tagline to get "stuck in people's heads" just like a song. Finally, your tagline should sound good when placed just after your business name as it rolls easily off the tongue!

3. Three mentions of your company name in every 200-word ad. That means that for approximately every 200 words (this doesn't have to be exact, use your judgment), you should find a way to slip your company name into whatever marketing you're writing. For example, it is well known in the advertising industry that if you're writing radio ad copy, even if it's just 60 minutes long, you need to add that company name in there 3 times. Same goes for magazine ads. If you're writing something like a page of website copy, then just position your company name strategically throughout the piece.

4. Add branding to your ebooks and whitepapers. This means add the company name and tagline at the beginning. Include the logo. Refer to the company name often throughout the text. Add the company name to the footer of each document page. Hyperlink the company name so that it is clickable throughout the ebook - escorting your readers directly to the website where they'll be able to purchase even more.

5. Write on behalf of the company, not on behalf of yourself. Get into the practice of saying "we" and using the company name rather than using "I" and "me". Even if you are currently a solo operation, there will come the day that you bring other people on board, even if they're part-time contractors - and this will indeed be your "team" - your company. When you do this naturally, talking from the point of view of an organization, you find yourself slipping the company name in quite easily. This really helps with the branding more than anything else!

So what happens after you've done all of the above for some amount of time? Well, with any luck, you will become well known in your field - the same way that companies like Apple Computer, Campbell's Soup, Geico, and Microsoft did it!

If you need help launching your branding initiative, contact gailen@ionospheremedia.com today.