When starting up a business and thinking about branding, most of the entrepreneurs will work on finding a memorable name, logo, and slogan. However, building an effective brand means more than that. Learn how to build a successful brand identity, by diving into the following business guide to effective branding!
Where to start?
When developing your brand identity, you should consider building a brand strategy. Make it clear from the very beginning what image you want to hold in the customers’ mind, what your business promises to them, and how you want to communicate your brand. You should think of branding elements such as:
- Your business name
- The business logo
- The slogan or tagline
- Your color palette and fonts
- Your brand voice – the language you want to use with your audience
- Product packages
- Marketing materials and ads
- Website and social media channels, etc.
In order to know what elements to include in your brand identity and how to develop it, consider the following steps.
Brand positioning
At the end of this step, you will end up with a great positioning statement that talks about your business unique value propositions for customers.
Start by thinking about the perception you want your customers to have about your business and products or services. What’s the image you want to hold in their minds? That means you need to reflect and decide on:
- your target market
- the unique things about your business and products or services
- the associated emotions and values that your brand will promote
Usually, you have to position your business based on the products/services you provide, on the operations you do differently, or on the specific customers you target.
Brand promise
Here, you build the message you want to deliver to your customers. In the end, this will take the form of a slogan or tagline. This message should be behind any communication you send out there to your customers, being a post on social media, a press release, or a new sales campaign.
The message should talk about who you are, what your business is, and what you are standing for. Your brand promise should include the benefit that your customers get from your business, but it should also be inspiring, authentic, and emotion-oriented.
Brand elements and tools
When you finish working on this step, you will have a list of things you have to work on to build your brand identity and to communicate your brand to your customers.
This list will include your business name, logo, and slogan, but also your color palette and fonts, and your brand voice, packages, or marketing materials. All these are strongly informed by your brand positioning and brand promise. Also, reflect on:
what other elements, such as website, social media channels, blog, video ads, etc. does your business need for effectively building the brand identity?
what tools should you use to develop these elements?
You make these decisions based on your marketing and sales goals and based on your budget.
Brand consistency
This works like a constant reminder for you or your marketing team. It takes time to develop a brand, and it needs a lot of communication with your customers. Thus, in this communication, it’s essential to be consistent. Once you decided on your positioning, brand promise, and brand elements, follow them in all your work, communication, marketing, and sales actions.
Keep learning
Maintain a learner’s mind, and stay up-to-date with the latest knowledge and experience in building memorable brands. Also, when your business grows, be ready to further develop your brand to keep pace with your customers and with the market.
Remember that there is no such business without a brand. Create an effective brand strategy to:
- stand out from your competitors
- better reach and connect with your customers
- increase your sales
Start working on your business brand by deciding on your business positioning and brand promise. For the rest of the work, you could also count on marketing strategists and experts who can give the best advice on what branding elements and tools you should use to grow your business!
Get in touch with us and get the help you need for effective branding!