It’s absolutely critical that you learn how to build a strong brand identity that is unique for your business.

According to brand marketing experts, you must differentiate your business from competitors; otherwise, it will fail. Having a unique brand identity is essential for non-profit and for-profit small business success.

Your non-profit or small business has to be better than or at least different from your competitors in order for your prospective customers to choose you over them. If you don’t see a difference, create one; so, you can set yourself apart from your competitors.

You can set your business apart by having better quality, price, service, integrity, reputation or a combination of different factors. You can set yourself apart from the others by being remarkable.

If you haven’t started your non-profit or business, you still have a lot of flexibility for setting yourself apart from your competitors. You can learn a lot from their mistakes and whatever is working for them.

Find any market niche unfilled by your competitors or find any unsolved problem. Try to be the best solution for the worst problem that your prospective customers are having. Better yet, try to create and market your product or service as the best “pain killer” for the most excruciating pain your prospective customers are having.

Focus on the narrowest niche possible. Devote your resources on being the best in that niche. If your customers think of you as a specialist, you will maximize your income!

To start your research of what’s out there, you can google the keywords related to your business. For example, if you want a business related to dog-grooming, you can google “dog grooming” and check out what your competitors are doing. Find out what’s working for them and what’s not working.

Instead of just joining the crowd, you can set yourself apart by starting a “mobile dog-grooming service.” You can narrow your niche further by promoting and branding your business as a “mobile dog-grooming service for pampered pets.”

This unique brand identity can set you apart from other dog-grooming services. If you provide good service, you can have a good chance of having customers loyal to your brand. With a unique brand identity, it will also be easier for your customers to remember you and refer your business to others.

Your brand identity doesn’t have to be a nice one. For example, the “Rich Jerk” is an Internet marketer who has chosen a unique brand identity that is not particularly pleasant, but it works very well for him. It’s easy to remember. It sets him apart from all the other Internet marketers.

Make a decision about your brand building goals before you start marketing your brand. You want to be clear as to what it is that you want to accomplish with your brand — what “image” you want for your brand. Once you have a unique brand identity, you will have to communicate your brand in all your marketing strategies consistently and repeatedly.

How to Create Brand Awareness

Implement the marketing strategies that can create increased awareness of your brand for your target customers.

• The most obvious way to increase awareness of your brand online is to get a top listing of your small business website on google.com, yahoo.com, bing.com and other search engines. To get a top listing of your website, you can use search engine optimization.
• You can use press releases and paid advertising to increase brand awareness and traffic for your website.
• Use free social networking sites, such as, facebook.com, twitter.com, linkedin.com and google+ to spread the word about your expertise, product, service and company as well as other aspects of your unique brand identity.
• Create videos about your expertise, product, service and company on youtube.com and other free video-sharing sites online.
• Create articles on hubpages.com and other online communities about topics related to your expertise, product, service and company.

Communicate what is unique about your non-profit or small business brand as often as you can. You can use free internet marketing and paid brand marketing strategies to promote your non-profit or for-profit business online. As your customers’ awareness of your brand goes up, your funding, sales and profits should also go up.

It’s crucial that you learn how to build a strong brand identity that is unique for your business. Effective strategies of branding can have a huge impact on your non-profit or small business success.