Building a brand strategy for an SME
To build your brand strategy, define the customers you want to serve, the problem you solve and the evidence that gives them a reason to choose you. Apply those decisions to your messages, visual identity and the way you work with customers. You can then decide which materials need changing and how to check whether people understand them.
Start with your offers and sales conversations. A logo redesign can wait if prospects still struggle to understand your services or your teams describe different versions of the same offer.
This is a proposed working framework to test with your customers. The brief records decisions; you still need to resolve disagreements, acquire missing skills and organise implementation.
Decisions to make before creating materials
A brand strategy gives your team a framework for presenting the business and keeping its commitments. Separate these elements in your brief.
Positioning
Decision to make — Which customers and situations do you serve, and what alternatives do they consider?
Useful check — Does a prospect understand when to approach you?
Promise
Decision to make — What benefit can you commit to within your service scope?
Useful check — Can the delivery team keep that commitment?
Evidence
Decision to make — What facts help customers assess the promise?
Useful check — Can you show an example, a process or a documented result?
Verbal identity
Decision to make — How do you name your offers and explain your work?
Useful check — Do your website and sales team use the same terms?
Visual identity
Decision to make — Which visual elements and rules help people recognise you?
Useful check — Do materials remain legible and consistent across formats?
Customer perception
Decision to make — What do customers remember after encountering your business?
Useful check — Does their description match what you intend to communicate?
Management chooses the positioning. Customers tell you how they perceive the business, which may contradict your intention. Keep that distinction when reviewing feedback.
1. Examine buying decisions and current difficulties
Review enquiries, accepted quotes and lost opportunities. Speak with recent customers and, where possible, prospects who chose another option. Ask what prompted their search, which alternatives they compared and what information they needed.
Avoid starting with “Do you like our brand?” You will learn more from “How would you describe our business to a colleague?” or “What helped you decide?” Record their wording, then separate what you observed from your interpretation.
Compare the feedback with your website, presentations and proposals. Look for gaps: a specialism missing from the homepage, a service prospects assume is included, or a promise your team needs to qualify when explaining it.
Use interviews to understand situations. A small group drawn from your contacts does not represent the whole market. Compare its responses with sales data and further feedback before extending a conclusion.
2. Choose a customer group and a difference you can demonstrate
Describe customers through their needs and constraints. “Swiss SMEs” is too broad to guide an offer page. “Businesses opening a second location that need to align their tools” gives your team a problem to address.
List the alternatives: a competitor, an internal team, a standard tool or keeping the current arrangements. Examine what customers gain and what they must accept with each option. Then choose differences you can explain and demonstrate.
“Quality, innovation and proximity” needs detail. Depending on your business, explain who handles the work, how you approve it, what you deliver and the service limits. Claim a deadline, certification or measured benefit only when you can establish its scope and evidence.
Working formula: We help [customers in a specific situation] achieve [goal] through [offer and approach], supported by [available evidence]. Use it to align the team, then adapt the wording for visitors.
Organise the names of your offers
If you sell several services or products, decide which use the company name and which need a separate name. Start with naming that customers understand and your team can maintain. Creating several brands means preparing their messages, materials and ongoing management: justify that work through distinct needs rather than a preference for a new logo.
Check what customers expect from a supplier in your category before highlighting differences. In the maintenance example below, they need to understand which equipment you maintain and under what conditions before assessing the value of a single contact.
3. Complete a one-page brand brief
The following template is a proposed working method. The example concerns a fictional business maintaining professional equipment. It does not describe an EWM client or claim achieved results.
Priority customer
What to record — Role, situation and constraint
Fictional example — Restaurant managers organising equipment maintenance
Problem
What to record — What triggers the search
Fictional example — Ad hoc interventions make maintenance records difficult to manage
Alternatives
What to record — What the customer would otherwise do
Fictional example — Coordinate several suppliers or arrange repairs after a breakdown
Offer
What to record — Service and exclusions
Fictional example — Schedule maintenance and retain records; equipment replacement outside the contract
Promise
What to record — Commitment the team can keep
Fictional example — A named contact and a report after each visit
Evidence to prepare
What to record — Documents customers can examine
Fictional example — Sample report, contract scope and verifiable qualifications
Messages
What to record — Information to explain first
Fictional example — Covered equipment, visit arrangements and intervention conditions
Tone
What to record — Rules with examples
Fictional example — Describe the work in plain language; explain necessary technical terms
Owner
What to record — Person who approves and updates the brief
Fictional example — Management with the maintenance lead
Test
What to record — Decision to check with readers
Fictional example — Can a manager understand the contract coverage and request a proposal?
Have the people who sell and deliver the service review the brief. Resolve disagreements about scope or commitments before creating materials.
4. Develop messages and visual identity
Prepare a short business description, messages for each offer and supporting evidence. Write answers to recurring objections about compatibility, availability, scope, pricing or support. Each message should help customers understand a decision.
Then create visual rules covering logo variants, typography, colours, imagery, layout and examples. Test them on actual materials: a service page, a quote and a customer document. A logo that looks appealing in a large presentation may become illegible in a small header.
For your website, UI/UX design helps you work on journeys and interface comprehension. Check contrast, text size and button states as part of your web accessibility work.
If you communicate in French and English, give writers the brief and evidence alongside the slogans. Preserve exclusions and commitments in both versions. Choose terminology with readers from the relevant markets, without assuming that everyone in a language region shares the same preferences.
5. Prioritise materials used in customer decisions
Start with the materials customers consult to assess you: offer pages, references, sales presentations, quotes and follow-up messages. Assign an owner and an update date to each. Include older documents and templates that colleagues reuse.
For a new business, start with what you need to sell and deliver the service. Expand the guidelines as new uses arise. For an existing brand, retain elements customers recognise and identify the problem you want to address before replacing them.
A website redesign may require content, translations and URL migration. Separate those tasks from graphic design in the budget. A name or domain change needs its own transition plan.
Check comprehension and monitor results
Show a page or presentation to people who resemble your intended customers. Ask them to describe the offer, locate conditions and find the next step. Observe misunderstandings before explaining the document yourself. Revise the relevant passages and repeat the test.
Track measures suited to your goal: relevant enquiries, reasons for lost sales, recurring questions, sales team feedback and searches for the brand name. Record changes in pricing, advertising and availability too. A before-and-after sales comparison cannot isolate the effect of brand identity.
SME research offers useful questions within limited contexts. A qualitative study in Mafikeng examines three entrepreneurs’ practices and consumer perceptions. Heidi Neuvonen’s dissertation explores brand strategy adoption in technology SMEs through interviews in the United States and Finland. These studies do not provide a growth rate applicable to your Swiss business. The brief and tests in this guide are editorial tools to adapt to your circumstances.
Budget, deliverables and approval
Request a proposal that separates research, positioning, messaging, visual identity and implementation. Specify languages, materials, supplied files, usage rights and included approval rounds. Allow time for your team to take part in interviews, gather evidence and make decisions.
Complexity depends in part on the number of offers and decision-makers, relevant markets and materials needing changes. Visual guidelines alone may not include strategy, website copy or sales templates. Confirm these deliverables before comparing quotes.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a new logo to change our positioning?
You can change how you present your offers while retaining the logo. First check whether customers recognise it, whether its use causes problems and whether replacing it addresses your stated goal.
Who should approve the strategy in an SME?
Appoint someone who can decide the positioning and commitments. Involve sales and delivery teams to check customer needs and your ability to keep promises. Avoid approval based solely on visual preferences.
Should we run an internal workshop or use outside support?
An internal workshop may be enough if you have customer feedback and someone who can lead decisions. Outside support can help when decision-makers disagree, evidence is missing or you need to apply the decisions to many materials. Define the required decision and deliverables before choosing a format.
How can we start with limited resources?
Define one priority offer, gather its evidence and improve the materials used to sell it. Prepare templates your team can maintain. Plan the remaining offers after checking that customers understand the first version.