How To Develop A Strong Brand in 4 Easy Steps
The year is 2020 and your business is thriving. We hope that’s your reality. If not, have no fear – this year is going to last us another million days, you have time to recover.
The tragic truth is that when people say branding they think logo or a catchy slogan. Although we can’t stop singing Oh Oh Oh, O’Reilly, there’s still a story behind the catchy jingle. A brand is your company’s personality, what you are, stand for, and your customer’s expectation of your business.
Take it from our Creative Director, Marco Perugini, who identifies branding as “The definitive, iconic essence of an entity. I say entity because a brand is no longer just a company – artists, musicians, and professionals have their own brand now. Branding also isn’t just a logo, it’s an overarching thematic feel made up of elements of color, typography, brand voice, sound, etc. – all working together to establish meaning and messaging in an authentic fashion. It’s something you don’t just do, you live your brand.”
These helpful tips will help you and your business establish a strong brand.
#1 Find A Purpose
What is it that keeps your business running? Do you serve to educate, entertain, or advise customers?
Find your mission throughout your industry. This will be a big advantage with your competition as you can connect with your target audience. To simply identify your purpose, first, unlock your mission and vision. This will put you in the fast track lane for branding.
#2 Establish your Audience
Your ideal clientele is already out there, they just need to find you. To do so, gather some information. Who do you see on a daily basis in your store? Who’s shopping on your site or showing some interest in your social media? What do these people need that you can offer? Make that connection and you begin to connect the dots with finding your business demographic.
Uncovering your target audience opens the doors to marketing. We then unlock how they shop, behave, feel, and so on. Once you establish an emotional connection with your audience, you have them right where you need them.
Marco says “…good branding has a foot in the past and an eye to its own future. Authenticity cannot be manufactured. Every brand should take cues from its own history to help drive forward thinking decisions. The most successful brands do this from day one, and learn to think of how that brand functions and lives locally, regionally, nationally and globally.”
#3 Perfect Your Messaging
If you treat your brand like a personality, your messaging comes off a lot more clear and direct. The actions you take to set yourself apart from your competition is what makes or breaks your branding.
For instance, starting a video campaign can be beneficial to introduce your rebranding. And having the right videographers can be just as important. You want to have the right producers to accurately depict your vision and message. Develop a script, choose the perfect location your ideal customer would be, and decide on the tone of the video.
#4 Consistency
Having someone recognize your brand is how you become an established business. From fonts and colors to images and tone, develop an official brand book or style guide to save you time and money.
“Equal parts consistency, and authenticity. Defining ‘good branding’ is sometimes objective. I may not personally like the same look for a company that someone else does. However, this doesn’t make it ‘poor’ branding. Consistency is key. Everything a brand produces in a visual or advertising sense should look like it came from that brand. It should look and feel so much so like that brand, that without a moment to question it – you should know immediately what brand you’re looking at,” says Marco.
This goes for e-Commerce businesses as well. In 2019, it’s estimated there are 1.92 billion digital buyers, and eCommerce sales account for 14.1% of retail purchases worldwide. Choosing the top eCommerce development companies has been made simple with agency directories like designrush.com.
The biggest piece of advice? “Be active, authentic, and true to yourself. ”
Be true to what your brand stands for and don’t pander to anyone. Modern consumers can smell a phony a mile out – especially in the digital realms. Stick to what you know, what you do best, and do it better than anyone else this year. Every competitor out there is fighting tooth and nail for every scrap of market share they can pick up. Don’t give up an inch on your own “turf” and don’t stretch too thin trying to engage in multiple sectors if you don’t belong there. Stay hyper-focused on growth plans, goals, and metrics that can help gauge your successes, and track your failures to optimize accordingly. The focused brands out there will not only survive this year – they will sow the seeds of fruit-bearing trees for many years to come. Consumers will remember the authentic players that made their year better – regardless of how they did it.
Save yourself the headache and talk to an expert at Into the Blue Agency. We offer brand development, market research, media planning, etc etc. See more here.