Branding: the basics

As you're building and managing your brand, it's also a good idea to set a budget. This will help you to avoid spending unnecessarily and to prioritise your branding spend.

Your brand should encompass most areas of your business, from stationery to how you deliver your product or service to customers, so defining a budget can be difficult.

The key areas you could budget for are:

• design needs, such as a logo, signage, business stationery or product packaging
• changes to your premises
• your advertising
• time you'll need to spend training employees
• any resources you'll have to provide for employees to enable them to carry out what the brand promises, eg customer service costs
• keeping your company website updated

You don't need to do everything at once. As long as employees understand and deliver what your brand promises, it stands a good chance of success.

You can create stationery, logos, packaging and advertising quite cheaply if the budget is tight. However, it is a good idea to think about your future growth when devising your image, as changing it later can prove costly. You may also find that customers and employees will have already built up a relationship with your brand, which can then make it more problematic to later change.