by Joanna L. Krotz
abstracts prepared by Hugh Fisher

Without a name, and a good reputation to go with it, building your business in the crucial first year can be difficult. Joanna Krotz, a publisher and management expert who has worked with Microsoft’s small business program, talks about the importance of having a clear identity and offers some interesting and unusual ideas for “getting the word out.”

“Brand building is the ongoing relationship between your business and your most influential audience, including customers, media, investors, employees, family, suppliers, and so on,” Krotz writes. In order to strengthen those relationships and capitalize on them, a new business owner must decide how best to inform the community of his/her existence and cultivate an image that customers will know and trust. Doing this takes time, but Krotz suggests ways to accelerate and enliven the process. She suggests, among other things, getting your company involved in the community by contributing to a local charity or project, then capitalizing on name recognition that will result. A good logo, coupled with inexpensive newspaper advertising and “hip branding” on t-shirts, hats, etc. will carry your new image further into the market. The online promotional avenues of web page ads, e-mail signature lines, and blogs can also drive customers to your website and increase the likelihood that the name of your new business will eventually become a “household word

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/advertising_branding/how_to_build_a_company_identity_from_scratch.mspx