7 savvy branding tips for businesses on a budget

Can you afford to level up your brand in the new year?

The better question is: can you afford not to?

I get it: it seems that every entrepreneur I talk to is facing financial uncertainties this year. When budgets are being tightened, the first thing to go is usually branding (ICYMI, you’ll want to read this recent blog post on why that’s a recipe for disaster). 

So while one side of my mouth is advocating for investing into your brand despite shrinking budgets, the other side recognizes that there are still affordable ways to level up your brand—some that don’t even cost a penny. The reality is that investing into your brand can look different for everyone and for some, even just a few minutes of time and attention can be the most worthwhile investment in the moment.

So if your business is on a budget this year, I’m coming in hot with 7 savvy branding tips that are either ridiculously affordable or totally free!

1. Keep it simple

When you’re starting a business, it can be so easy to dive off the deep end. You get your shiny business credit card, and suddenly that luxe standing desk, leather chair, mid-century modern floor lamp, and $800 rare Monstera Borsigiana Albo that will totally make a big impression in the background of your Zoom calls are all yours.

Often, entrepreneurs can fall off the deep end when it comes to branding their shiny new businesses. There’s an overwhelming pressure to “do it right” and to compare our 1-month-old business to so-and-so’s 7-year-old entrepreneurial empire.

My advice to new business owners is: keep it simple.

If you’re just starting your business, your branding needs to focus on simply selling your offerings.

This doesn’t mean you should completely ignore your brand (remember, branding is all about that first impression, and when your business is in its infancy, it needs to make the best impression possible in order to get off the ground!). But this does mean that it’s okay to keep it simple. Start with a more simple branding solution, like a semi-custom branding kit or a more simplified brand strategy and visual brand identity design or logo design package, and save up for a bigger rebrand in a few years when your business has more clarity, customers, and capital (more on this below). 

2. Utilize free or affordable branding and design resources

I often tell my husband: “I don’t have expensive tastes; I have aesthetic tastes.” Meaning, I don’t care if my clothes come from Target instead of a high-price brand, as long as they have the ~aesthetic~ I’m seeking, the price point doesn’t matter.

When your brand is on a budget, it’s okay to chase ~aesthetic~ taste over expensive taste. As a professional designer, I know the value of custom-creating branding and marketing collateral for clients, but if that’s not realistic for you right now, that’s also okay. Free or low-cost resources means you can keep to your bottom line without sacrificing quality of design.

Here’s a few of my favorite recommended free or affordable branding and graphic design resources:

I often meet small business owners who have a general brand strategy in their heads but haven’t put it down on paper. While it may make perfect sense to them, no one can quite match the look and feel they’re hoping for when it comes to copywriting or design. (And this makes them wary of outsourcing!)

I like to think of brand strategy as the picture on the puzzle box: It’s a model of what you want your business to look like. With a brand strategy in place, everyone on your team will be speaking the same language about your purpose and mission. Clearly documenting this brand strategy allows you to seamlessly onboard new contractors and employees, saving you time and giving them what they need to hit the ground running. 

Canva

Canva is a free web-based design platform that allows you to create a myriad of brand or marketing materials: social media templates, presentations, documents, even business cards! (Bonus points: set up branded templates and then outsource creating these graphics to another team member.)

Creative Market

Creative Market is one of my go-to’s for design resources, such as fonts, layout templates, stock illustrations, and more. If you’re a brand on a budget, I’d recommend buying one of their many Canva templates to harness both these amazing resources together.

Unsplash

Gone are the days of stock images featuring smiling businesspeople laughing around a conference table. Unsplash is a free stock image resource that features photos of nearly any topic that actually look modernized.

Brandpad

If you read our latest blog post about outsourcing and delegating, you’re already familiar with how critical it is to set up your team with guidelines and templates to ensure brand consistency. While Brandpad is created with brand designers like me in mind, their free plan allows you to set up your own online brand style guide, including your logo files made easily downloadable for anyone to use.

Free email course: 5 Days to Brand Clarity

Last but certainly not least, my free email course, 5 Days to Brand Clarity, walks you through the 101 of branding your business from scratch! You’ll learn how to get clear on your why, craft powerful brand messaging, and more—all the essentials that I include in my 1-on-1 client brand strategy development, but made simplified and best of all, free.

The only downside to using free or affordable DIY resources like these is, well, you have to do it yourself. 

Too many entrepreneurs think they “can’t afford” to hire a professional or outsource work when really it’s just their own limiting beliefs or fear of spending that holds them back. 

However, if you’re still young, scrappy, and hungry like Hamilton, it’s okay to spend your time utilizing tools and resources like these that will elevate your brand without breaking the bank.

3. Elevate your email signature with Google Docs

A small but mighty component of your brand is your email signature. Yep, that’s right! It may be the last thing you’d think of, but upgrading your email signature is a completely free way to elevate your professional communications and make a big impression.

Update your tired-looking plain text default signature (or worse, not having one at all) by including your logo, icons for social media accounts, or a multi-column layout for a sleek look. I’ve recently updated my own using this step-by-step tutorial featuring Google Docs and Gmail and I’m loving the new look!

4. Create a brand messaging strategy

Ever sat down to write an Instagram caption (because naturally, you’re doing it yourself when your business is on a budget!) and think, I have no idea what to write?

Reinventing the wheel every time you sit down to write or speak about your brand will not only consume time and mental energy, but also risk inconsistency in your brand messaging. What may make sense for you to say in the moment may not be clear to others, so crafting a clear brand voice and brand messaging strategy ensures your words are targeted, clear, and powerful.

5. Spend a little extra on your business cards

The big potential client called and wants to meet you for coffee. You’ve been waiting for this to happen: it’s critical that you make a great impression on her! You put on your most tattered pair of sweatpants and leftovers-stained t-shirt, readjusting your messy bun as you slide into your bunny slippers and head out the door, making sure to spill a bit of stale coffee on your jacket on your way. You’re all set!

…Wait, that’s not how it’s supposed to go, is it?

As an extension of your brand, your business cards are just as important to making a solid first impression as ironing your shirt or putting on your shiniest pair of heels. Speaking as a design professional and paper nerd, if you can at all afford to spring even just a little more for high-quality printing, trust me, it will go a long way.

My go-to for both my clients and my own brand is Moo. I recently redesigned our studio’s business cards and sprung the extra $18 or so for their Luxe business cards and I am over the moon with how they turned out. In an in-person-networking sea of business cards being passed around faster than Pokémon cards on a ‘90s school playground, the elevated quality of these cards are sure to stand out from the crowd.

6. Start saving now for your future rebrand design

If your brand is on a budget, it’s not too early to start saving for your dream brand design. While your simple logo may get the job done now, there may come a day when your brand has outgrown what you’ve started with: and that’s natural, and perfectly okay! (In fact, my own brand has massively evolved since I began Author nearly 5 years ago—and this is what I do for a living!).

If you anticipate rebranding your business as it grows and evolves over the next year, two years, or more, it’s vital to start planning ahead and start saving now. Especially if you’re on a budget, you may still be on a budget (albeit a bigger one, hopefully) in the future, and wouldn’t it be better to have the funds already set aside when you’re ready for them? Start setting aside a small amount per month so that when the time comes, finances aren’t a concern. Your future self—and future brand—will thank you!

7. Remember that branding is an investment, not a cost

While I’ve shared numerous tips on how to elevate your brand that are either completely free or low-cost, it would have been more appropriate to call them low-investment. Branding isn’t a cost: it’s not something you’ll sink money into and never see a return on investment. Instead, think of branding as just that, as an investment into your business.

Even if your finances are strapped, remember that investing in branding will pay off in the long run. Start small, or start saving for your dream brand down the road.

If you’re ready to level up your branding, don’t let budget stop you! We’re now offering branding packages at varied price points so any business can elevate their brand at an affordable cost. Just hit the button below to schedule a completely free consultation to learn more!