Having a brand is essential for any business and some of the benefits include an increase in revenue, business identity, and much more. Branding determines whether customers will buy your product or services or another competitor’s.
Why Branding Matters
It is critical that a business creates a unified brand to stay consistent in all aspects including channels and languages. Having effective branding moves the needle for businesses. As a business owner, you have control of the brand of the business including the design, marketing strategy, press release, and the color choice shapes the identity of your brand in the minds of customers.
Defining Your Brand’s Core Identity
To help you understand your brand’s core identity, the following questions can help:
- What is unique about your brand?
- How is your business different than your competitors?
- What do you do better than others?
- What does your brand stand for?
- How does your brand make the world or people’s lives better?
Bring Your Brand Identity to Life
Making a good first impression is everything. The name of your business, logo, or tagline might be the first thing a potential customer sees so it needs to be effective.
The following information is the core elements of a brand what you need to keep in mind when you make decisions.
Name: the name of your business has the power to make it or break it. It needs to original and unique, but not confusing where people do not know what your business does.
Taglines and Slogans: coming up with a short, memorable quote leaves a clear brand message in your consumer’s minds. Some key things to consider is keeping it short, include a key benefit, differentiate your brand with something unique, and use upbeat language.
Logo: your logo has potential to be as recognizable as your brand’s name. It needs to have though and attention to detail. Try to make it consistent with your brands identity.
Colors: keep your colors simple. Colors have meaning and there is psychology behind each color which is complex and compelling.
Typography: your font needs to complement your logo, and it should be an extension of your brand. You need to be strategic about what fonts you can pair together.
Let Your Customers Understand You
Your brand goes beyond visual design. It also provides value. Maybe your business is about convenience, fun, comfort, safety, or happiness. When you know the value, it is time to communicate with strategic messaging and voice.
Messaging: Your brand messaging is the story that your business tells. It contains your brand’s values, purpose, and differentiators.
Voice: you will identify your brand’s messaging and voice when you work on your core identity.
Start Building Your Brand
Your brand should be a priority from the beginning. Branding has the potential to play an influential role and it requires time and research and maybe some of your budget, but it is an investment that is worth it in the end.
Remember that your brand can change over time. What you set as your brand today, might be different over time and you might need to make some changes to your logo, colors, or even voice to shape the perceptions of the customers.
Branding has always been important and establishing guidelines to ensure it is appropriately portrayed across your platforms and 3rd-party entities. This guide has all the information you need so that you start building your brand in the most effective way.