Small Business Marketing; Consider using a Style Guide to Boost your Brand

Most small business marketing departments start developing a hodge podge of marketing materials and before they know it, the small business' brand and marketing efforts look haphazard.

To address this small business marketing issue of haphazard marketing, consider using a style guide. A style guide is a set of standards for the design and creation of marketing materials.

A solid style guide will help you maximize the impact of your small business brand by standardizing the use of such marketing elements as:
* Brand personality
* Brand name conventions
* Logos—construction, usage, use with other logos
* Taglines & supplemental signatures
* Color, typography, backgrounds
* The use of white space
* Contact info (websites, phone numbers)
* Company identity materials
* Collateral materials

If your small business marketing efforts produce more than 3 pieces of marketing material a year, you should consider developing a style guide.

I'll talk more in depth about style guides, and the incredible impact they can have on your small business' growth, in future issues of my newsletter Marketing Tips & Tools.