Consumer behaviour is changing and it is looking to stay that way for the foreseeable future. It isnt a secret that the internet has allowed very small business to compete with some of the global corporations. And many of them have been amazing success stories, particularly online. People were willing to buy products and services from a company or website they’d never heard of, if the price was lower. Things have changed however and hundreds of website companies are going under, the fall out of which is a growing lack of customer confidence. What this means is that people are going back to preferring known and recognisable brands, even if it means spending a little more.

Yet at the same time job insecurity and redundancy are causing more and more people to consider starting up their own business and becoming self-employed. Research from Barclays last year showed that there were 98,000 start-ups created in the UK within a three month period, despite the credit crunch. It is by no means the easy option. Around the same number of businesses failed during that period too!

I think that underestimating your companies branding is as detrimental as not having a website at all. When a customer hits your website, what does your logo say about your business. This is your window to the word, it says everything about you and what you stand for in the blink of an eye, it needs to be right. But it’s so often the case that startup owners put off paying professional logo design in the initial stages. They think “wait till I get a few more customers, then I can afford it”.Then they design one themselves in photoshop and thinking that looks fine, load it up to the site. Many go for free clipart template business cards and stationery design from somewhere like vista print.

This isn’t acceptable for a Brand. All web business now more than ever, need to look much bigger and much more capable via good marketing, to retain customers and encourage new ones.In the middle of a recession, most consumers are nervous about who to trust, so a brand needs to demonstrate that they are trustworthy and dependable. New websites need to appear to be much bigger than they actually are to survive. As i have mentioned, consumers are now more then ever going to the big brands for what they need. Ultimately, a brand that consumers thinks of as credible and dependable will be the brands that they will recommend to family and friends and so on.

The fact of he matter is. Bankruptcy will hit around half small business very early on in their life, usually within two to three years. Experts agree that one of the main reasons for failure is poorly thought out  and shoddy marketing. A custom logo design helps you create the right image for this marketing to succeed. So do yourself a favour – start looking at some sample logos in your industry and see what the successful ones have in common.Find yourself a professional designer who can carve out a unique identity for your brand and ensure its success in such a stormy climate.