What is brand building ?
Simply put, your brand is defined by a customer’s overall perception of your business.
Your brand is your reputation!
In today’s market, a successful brand has to be consistent in communication and experience, across many applications:
- Environment (storefront or office)
- Print collateral, signage, packaging
- Website & online advertising
- Content publishing
- Sales & customer service
- Internal (with employees)
Now, brand building being simple? The truth is: branding doesn’t happen overnight…or even in a few months.
Building a brand is definitely a process and requires a strategy. However, the ongoing effort will result in establishing long-term relationships with your customers.
This can lead to a steady increase in leads and sales, word-of-mouth referrals, and advocacy for your products or services.
What is brand building?
The definition of brand building is to generate awareness about your business using strategies and campaigns with the goal of creating a unique and lasting image in the marketplace.
Positive image + standing out = brand success.
Branding can be broken down into three high-level phases:
- Brand Strategy
- Brand Identity
- Brand Marketing
Brand Strategy
You can think of brand strategy as the blueprint for how you want the world to see your business.
An effective and comprehensive brand strategy should include the following components as part of the process:
- Brand discovery
- Competitor research
- Target audience
- Brand voice
- Brand message & story
Brand Identity
Is the way that you convey this to the public with visuals, messaging, and experience. Your brand strategy will influence how you present your identity and align it with your purpose for the most impact.
Your elements of brand identity should be applied across all channels consistently. It’s the way that your business becomes recognizable.
This includes your:
- Logo
- Colors and fonts
- Patterns and icons
- Collateral
- Website design
- Content and messaging
- Advertising
- Print or packaging
Brand Marketing
Is the way that businesses or organizations highlight and bring awareness to products or services by connecting values and voice to the right audience through strategic communication.
The amplification of your brand image can be done effectively through various digital marketing activities:
- User Experience (i.e. your website)
- SEO & Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Paid Advertising (PPC)
How to Build a Brand People Love
1. Discover the purpose behind your brand.
Every successful brand has a powerful purpose behind it.And so should you.
There are four questions you should ask yourself when defining a brand purpose:
- Why do you exist?
- What differentiates you?
- What problem do you solve?
- Why should people care?
Leadership expert Simon Sinek developed an impactful model called The Golden Circle.The Golden Circle concept can help in identifying the purpose behind anything in business or life,really.
The 3 Parts to The Golden Circle:
- What – the products or services you offer to your customers
- How – the things that differentiate you from the competition
- Why – the reason you are passionate and why you exist
2. Research competitor brands within your industry.
You should never imitate exactly what the big brands are doing in your industry.But, you should be aware of what they do well (or where they fail).The goal is to differentiate from the competition, Convince a customer to purchase from you over them!
We’re always thinking about how to make a brand stand out from what’s out there already. Don’t skip this step in the brand building process.Research your main competitors or benchmark brands. For instance, study how well they have gone about building a brand name.For a brand name to be effective, it needs to be easy for consumers to recognize and remember.Creating a brand competitor research spreadsheet.Competitor research is a key element of your own brand development. Start by creating a brand competitor spreadsheet for comparison. You can use Google Sheets, Excel, or even just a notebook.
3. Determine your brand’s target audience
The foundation for building your brand is to determine the target audience that you’ll be focusing on.You can’t be everything to everyone, right?Right.When brand building, keep in mind who exactly you are trying to reach. You’ll tailor your mission and message to meet their exact needs.The key is to get specific. Figure out detailed behaviors and lifestyle of your consumers.You’ll come to realize that the competitive advantage when branding your business is to narrow your target audience focus. This can help ensure that your brand message comes across crystal clear to the intended recipient.
Your Brand Buyer Persona
Brand creation relies on truly understanding the buyer persona. Here are a few of the things to document when describing your ideal customer:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income
- Education Level
To get even more definition for your brand’s buyer persona, dive into these details:
- Motivations
- Goals
- Pain points
- Fears
- Desires
- Influencers
- Brand affinities
Identifying the target audience for your services or products is an exercise that will affect and benefit all areas of your brand building process, particularly marketing efforts. You want the right person consuming your content, clicking on your ads, subscribing to your email list, etc.
As a result, determining the ideal audience for your business will support your overall digital brand building strategies. It’s definitely an important first step!
4. Establish brand mission and vision statements.
Have you thought about your brand mission and vision? In essence, you’ll have to craft a clear expression of what your company is most passionate about.
This is your why; the reason you get up every day.
Before you can build a brand that your target audience trusts, you need to know what value your business provides our brand vision is a future, someday, aspirational statement that your brand drives towards achieving.Envision a projection of where your brand aspires to go, what it aspires to be, and what impact it will have on the environment you are in—think 10 years out.The mission statement is a now, everyday, statement of commitment that is a roadmap for accomplishing your vision. It will inform how you execute your brand building strategies.Everything from your logo to your tagline, voice, message, and personality should reflect your mission and vision.You can use the information gathered from The Golden Circle exercise to create a clear and impactful brand vision and mission statements.
5. Outline the key qualities & benefits your brand offers.
There will always be brands with bigger budgets and more resources to command their industry.Your products, services, and benefits belong solely to you.Starting a brand that is memorable means you dig deep to figure out what you offer, and no one else is offering.Focus on the qualities and benefits that make your company branding unique.Assuming you know exactly who your target audience is, give them a reason to choose your brand over another.It’s important to note that this is not just a laundry list of the feature your product or services offer to the customer or client.Think about how you provide value that improves consumers’ lives Here are a few examples:
- More authentic and transparent customer service
- A better way to support productivity
- Reducing costs with a more affordable option
- Saving time on daily tasks
6. Form your unique brand voice.
Your voice is dependent on your company’s mission, audience, and industry.It’s how you communicate with your customers, and how they respond to you.A brand voice could be:
- Professional
- Friendly
- Service-oriented
- Authoritative
- Technical
- Promotional
- Conversational
- Informative
7. Let your brand personality shine.
Customers aren’t looking for another cookie-cutter company that offers the same thing as everyone else.
They are looking for an experience tailored to their needs, backed by genuine personal interaction
Wondering how to brand your business in a unique way? Make your personality stand out in every aspect of your brand-building process.Be consistent with this brand personality across all points of contact.
It can be as simple as:
- A conversational voice in communication (using “I”, and “you”)
- Sharing behind-the-scenes content
- Telling stories about real experiences
- Describing your products/services in a quirky manner
8. Build a brand story and messaging.
When building a brand, tell customers succinctly who you are.Use the business voice you have chosen for your brand.Your messaging should be intricately associated with your brand and conveyed consistently.This part of the brand development process goes beyond your logo and tagline to define the key aspects of:
- Who you are
- What you offer
- Why people should care
A brand story is an opportunity to communicate on a human level, making a direct emotional connection with your consumers.What this means, is that the language you use should be understood immediately while striking an emotional chord.
Make it simple and clear.
Most importantly: when creating a brand story, address not what your product can do…but why it is important to your customer.
9. Create a brand logo & tagline.
When you think about how to build a brand, visuals probably come to mind first. We haven’t even talked about these until this deep into the brand building process!
This step may be the one where you need help with creative execution.
The most exciting (and arguably the most important piece) of the brand building process, is to create a brand logo and tagline for your company.
This logo will appear on everything that relates to your business. It will become your identity, calling card, and the visual recognition of your promise.
So be willing to invest the time and money by creating something exceptional to reinforce the visual identity for your business.
Need help branding your business? Hire a professional designer or branding agency with logo and identity design experience, to help make your brand stand out.
Their expertise will ensure that you get a unique and timeless mark for your business.
A designer can also develop brand guidelines, to ensure consistency for any future application of the logo and associated brand color palette or fonts.
A strong brand style guide will include the following things:
- Logo size and placement
- Color palette
- Typography and fonts
- Iconography
- Photography/image style
- Web elements
10. Integrate your brand into every aspect of your business.
The brand-building process never stops.
Your brand should be visible and reflected in everything that your customer can see, read, and hear.
For example:
If a client walks into your office, or a customer walks into your store—your brand image should be on display both in the environment and with personal interactions.Anything tangible–from business cards to advertisements, to packaging and product–needs the stamp of your logo.On any digital platform, ensure that your brand looks the same everywhere. Use your brand style guide to create consistency with visuals such as color and logo use, fonts, photography, etc.Your website is the most important tool for marketing your brand. When you design your website: incorporate your voice, message, and personality into the content.Profile pages for social media networks should be branded visually, and with your chosen voice for engagement.And don’t forget about video! YouTube, Facebook Video and Facebook Live, Snapchat and Instagram Stories are all platforms that need to have content executed with your unique brand voice and personality.
For those venturing into podcast audio, adhere to a theme that supports your brand message, value, and voice.
11. Stay true to your brand building.
Unless you decide to change your brand into something that is more effective based on measured consumer response, consistency is key.Refer back to your Brand Strategy whenever you need to make a decision about identity or marketing.Once you establish a brand voice, use it for every piece of content you create.Document all the brand guidelines you create and distribute internally for reference.
What is brand building worth, if it’s not consistent? Don’t constantly change your branding. The inconsistency will confuse your customers, and make long-term brand building more difficult.
Conclusion:
Branding is about building consumer trust in an organization’s products. Globalization and communication mediums are making a wider target audience possible. As a result, companies are investing heavily into marketing campaigns that can boost the value of their brand.