Why Your Small Business Needs a Corporate Identity Package
If you're like many small business owners, you might be
wondering just what a corporate identity package is. And if you
already know what it is, you might be wondering why your small
business would need one. After all, you're just a small
business, not one of those big corporations. What's in it for
you?
Just as the name implies, a corporate identity package
identifies your company to potential clients, suppliers and the
general public. It includes your business name, small business
logo, your logotype (just a fancy way of saying how things are
placed, which font you use, spacing, and other things like that)
your motto or company slogan, and associated printed material--
your business card, and letterhead, envelope and forms.
When you started your small business, you might have dreamed of
becoming more than just another small business. Maybe you even
dreamed about becoming a big business some time in the future.
And even if you're a completely practical entrepreneur and
didn't have those dreams, you need to attract customers in order
to keep your small business open. A corporate identity package
can help you do that.
Write a couple of big corporations, ask a question and request a
business card. They'll send your answer on their letterhead, in
their company envelopes, and include a company business card. If
you take a moment or two to look at big corporations' identity
packages, you'll soon notice a few important things in
common.
Their corporate identity package looks professional. What
makes a big corporation look professional? I think one key is
simplicity. Generally, a large corporation has a simple symbol
or even just graphically represents their name as their logo.
Take the Coca-cola logo for example. Or Toyota. Or Cameco
Corporation. They're all very simple.
When you look at their corporate identity package, you see
quality. They use only high quality printing services and
paper. Sure, that's going to cost a little more, but it'll be
worth it in the end because its an integral representation of
your small business' image. You could print your corporate
identity package yourself using your home printer, lightweight
paper and business card templates, but how is that going to
look? Will that produce the professional image you're after?
Their logotype is consistent. Big businesses use exactly
the same color for their logo and their background every time.
They use consistent fonts. Their slogan for example, would
consistently be in Times New Roman, never a different font or
even a similar font, but exactly the same font, and always in
the same proportion to the logo. Spacing is consistent. Spacing
between letters and between lines is also always exactly the
same proportion. Their secret is designing in vector form so
their logo can be enlarged or reduced without changing
proportion.
Their corporate identity package matches exactly. Their
letterhead, envelopes, business cards all match. And if you
ordered something from them, the invoice and the statement you'd
get at the end of the month would match too. Perfectly.
Here's another reason to take a little time to look at big
corporations' identity packages: you can use what they do to
create an identity for your own small business. What they do
works, and they do big business, so if you want to do big
business too, why reinvent the wheel? Copy what they've done.
No, I don't mean you should copy another company's logo. Just
copy the way they've done things. Take their ideas and
use them.
You probably don't have the luxury of spending the amount of
dollars a big corporation does on their identity. In fact, they
sometimes spend millions on their corporate identity. So how do
you get a professional look at a small business price?
You can do it yourself or you can hire a design professional to
do it for you, sometimes at minimal cost, or even free. Here's
one idea. You can sometimes find good student graphic designers
who'll design your logo for you in exchange for allowing them to
put it in their portfolio. In any case, if they do charge you a
fee, it will be a whole lot less than what a professional
graphic designer would charge. Besides it'll feel good to be
helping a "poor student".
So, why should you have a small business identity package?
What's in it for you? If you do it right; if you have a
corporate identity package that looks professional, is of high
quality, has a consistent logotype, and matches perfectly,
you're going to look just like the big guys even if you're the
smallest business in town.
And if you look like the big guys, you just might have a chance
to play with the big guys. And what if, just what if, your
corporate identity package helped you, even just a little, to
realize the dream you had of someday owning a big business when
you started your small business?