Communicating with customers, shareholders, employees and other stakeholder groups is key to doing business. No matter what size you are. Giving the right impression will create confidence in your company, your product and your brand, which will create real commercial benefit in the medium and long term.

But while many small businesses understand this in theory, they are reluctant to embrace it in reality due to the perception of a high cost for a service or product that gives no tangible ROI.

How many times have we seen a business card, a truck or a magazine ad where the first impression is a disappointment? Things like clip-art used as a logo, MS Office system fonts instead of quality typefaces, graphics pulled from the web and so on. In the world of many small businesses, approaching their brand, marketing and communications in this way is the best value. The “it does the job doesn’t it?” attitude.

But consider the situation in, for example, a specialist performance car magazine. Your customer wants a set of new shocks for their Subaru Impreza WRX. There are 2 ads on the same page. One has been done properly. High quality product photography, a considered layout and a professional looking logo. The other uses web graphics, Comic Sans and has the finest clip art money can’t buy instead of a brand. Which company is your potential customer going to phone first?

While it may be true that marketing, design, branding et al does not seem to create an immediate benefit in terms of sales, creating a brand and using it to its full potential must be considered a valuable long term project. Taking the analogy further, would the prospective customer phone the company whose logo he has seen on hoardings and racing cars at Brands Hatch or Silverstone, rather than the one he’s never heard of? Probably.

True, corporations spend millions on this kind of thing. Producing an Annual Report for a big multinational can cost in excess of £200,000 before you’ve even had it printed. Sponsorship and advertising budgets can run into tens of millions, even in a recession. But it need not be like that.

Design and marketing services for businesses need not cost the earth. Improving the ROI for marketing services can simply be a case of finding the best value supplier. As a small business ourselves, our overheads are low, our skill level is high and our motivation is enormous. We have the expertise and the experience. That’s why we think we can help many small businesses improve their image and create the right impression for the people that really matter – their customers, shareholders, employees – their stakeholders.