When starting your own business it's very important to consider the colours of your business very carefully and then stick to a maximum of 3 colours that you use across all customer touch points - shop or office decor, leaflets, logo, website colours. This is part of your brand identity which, over time, enables people to know a particular communication is coming from the authentic you. So it's important to choose carefully so you can be consistent with your brand colours for years to come, not turn your target audience off with your colour choice and for those colours not to clash.

There a few check points to go through:

1. Who is your target audience? What colours would appeal to them? What colours would be a turn-off for them? i.e. pink is very likely to put a male off coming to your business.
   
2. Customers buy from people and not businesses, so what colours do your friends and family associate with you and why?
3. What are all the different places where you'll have contact with your customers or potential customers (prospects), either now or in the future. This could cover craft fairs, social media, shop etc. And what marketing communications will you be likely to use for your business at each of these places i.e. business cards, leaflets, flyers, posters, banners, t-shirts.  Are there any factors that may influence any of these places or marketing communications i.e. if you're going to have company t-shirts, do you need to avoid certain colours that'll clash with their skin tones or hair colour. 
4. How do you want your target audience to feel about your brand? Colours can influence our moods and emotions, hence the advent of Colour Therapy. See the next section for more information on this element.

This very helpful and eye-catching infographic gives a brilliant insight into why colour is important, how different primary colours influence people and their emotions and also highlights which brands use particular colours. 

Hope you've found this useful. Good luck with your new business venture or your rebranding exercise. If you'd like my help to create a website that brings your brand to life or if you need any marketing communication materials created and printed, then please get in touch.

Best wishes
Carolyn

I've met a few people recently who run their own small business and have told me that they just don't know where to start with self-promotion and therefore don't advertise themselves at all.  It's great that their business is ticking along through one of the best forms of marketing - word of mouth - however is this really enough in today's world? Does it honestly help to satisfy the self-employed financial anxieties that we all suffer from? It seems not, but not knowing where to start, combined with a lack of time to invest in finding out, keeps them stuck in a rut. ​

Step 1 - Take a deep breath and make time to invest in this
Self-promotion can be a tough thing to do as it often means for a fair few small businesses, stepping out of their comfort zone and using a computer or technology that is, to be honest, a bit baffling.  

Step 2 - Know your target audience
First and foremost know who your prospective customers are and where they go to find the product or service you offer.  This previous blog post will help you identify your target audience if you need help in this area. 

Step 3 - Get your business on social media
Depending on what you discovered in Step 2, decide which social media channels are right for your business and prioritise them according to audience reach i.e. the number of prospective customers who are using that channel. Focus then, on getting the one that you ranked number 1 up and running. As a crude rule of thumb:

• If you're selling to consumers:
  • Facebook is generally the place to start. I'm proud to say that the small business owners I've met and advised lately have already set the self-promotional wheels in motion and got their Facebook business pages started.  It's brilliant to be able to help them take small steps every day to make this happen. This article gives a great introduction to how to create an effective Business Facebook Page so I highly recommend reading it.
  • If you're all about pictures, images, graphics, designs then you should be looking to use either Instagram or Pinterest as well as your Facebook page. Click here to read an article that will help you to decide on which one is best. 
• If you're selling to businesses:
  • Twitter is a must
  • Google+ is highly recommended, closely followed by LinkedIn - even if you just have a presence on both highlighting your credentials and encouraging reviews. 

Step 4 - Get yourself a website
This doesn't have to be all singing, all dancing but, it does need to have an impact on your target audience, be professional as well as informative.  Most people these days won't do business with anyone unless they've researched you first and ideally seen reviews from your previous/existing customers.  Prospective customers also like to have all their questions answered before they commit to coming to you, hence FAQs are extremely popular and highly recommended. Much of this information could be gleaned from a social media page, but not all the information is as easy to find as it would be on a well-designed website. We, as consumers, are all too impatient these days and want things fast, so unless demands of prospective customers can be met quickly and easily, you'll lose out on their custom as they move on to find another business that satisfies their needs there and then. 

A website that's optimised is great and a hygiene factor today. Promotion is key and also helps improve Search Engine Optimisation. If you're an introvert though, self-promotion is a daunting thought and therefore avoided. Read this is a great article from the Talented Ladies and learn how you can absolutely do this. Happy reading. Happy action planning :)