Building a brand is an exceptional phenomenon. A brand isn’t something tangible, like a product, yet it is the bread and butter of an organization. So how do we define a brand? Essentially, a brand is a perceived personality of a product, service or company, including the name, sign, symbol or term. A brand also involves the relationships between customers, staff, partners, investors and so on.
Without a well thought out brand image your company might never reach your business and marketing goals. Don’t believe us? Check out a few of the facts we found on branding and company profits!
Brand Audit
Do your research!
First and foremost you have to analyse your brand positioning in the market and who your target audience is. Find out their: age, gender, location, income, occupation, marital status, education level, and importantly what they like and dislike. Your main aim should be to find out how your product/service is perceived by your customers. Additionally you should also conduct a competitor analysis- including a review of their website, SEO tactics, advertising and brand identities. This will inform your decisions on how to differentiate yourselves, and what branding strategies to employ.
Value Proposition
The who you are and why you exist!
If you want to attract any form of audience you need to positively influence how they see you and the best way to do this is by sharing their values. If you haven’t come up with a catchy unique selling point or an authentic mission and vision statement, don’t wait any longer. It’s crucial not only to connect with your customers by letting them know what you are about, but it’s also important for your staff, who will have to uphold it. This is going to be the foundation for building your brand.
Pro Tip:
Come up with a value proposition which will withstand the test of time. This is best achieved by focusing on the experience you want your customers to have rather than on a specific product.
To ensure your brand succeeds and thrives in the future, you need to develop a brand identity that accurately portrays your essence and is flexible enough to evolve with time and changing trends. This won’t happen overnight, you need to be patient and trust the process. It will involve some thorough thinking, a committed team to produce the right form of communications, and design.
Design
Transform your brand identity into visual language!
This will probably be one of the hardest parts of building your brand and if you aren’t a digital designer or have one at hand, it would be good to invest in an expert. This is because it will be the foundation your branding will be build on, so you really want to nail this part.
After your audit and value proposition you’ll have to figure out how to channel the appropriate sentiments through visuals. Therefore select your favourite elements, that have the potential to create a strong emotional response and trigger further visual associations to build on.
Your design goal is to have a: logo, brand colours, typography, photography and graphics.
Our logo went through many alterations before we settled on a look that would fit our message.
Do not over-complicate things! When there is too many things going on your audience will most likely get overwhelmed. Make sure to save your brand design and use it as a guide for your staff whenever communicating outwardly.
Implement
Increase your brand awareness!
Now that you know your brand you have to distribute its message and build it over time. Implement several strategies to build brand awareness and see which one works best. Develop a content marketing strategy that tells the story your business wants to communicate. You can achieve this by growing your social media presence, as well as investing in digital advertising or print media. Ensure all of your channels match your brand’s voice and your business goals and keep telling it over and over again. However, depending on the channel, the way you put your message across should be different. Despite the fact you should be saying the same thing, you’ll have to say it in a different manner, for example, use a more serious tone on LinkedIn than you would on Instagram and other social media platforms.
Adapt
Be flexible, adapt to change!
If you want your branding to stay on top, you have to embrace change. One of the best examples of a company capable of staying on top with their branding over many years is McDonald’s. They frequently adapt their menu to match current trends and their logo has also changed as contemporary aesthetics have shifted.
Be ready to rebrand to match your customers’ needs and behaviours. Don’t just focus on your product, analyse the whole consumer flow and buying patterns. Keep checking what your competitors are doing and if something works, incorporate it into your brand. This way your brand will always stay relevant and relatable.
A brand is more than just a logo, a colour palette or your company’s name. It’s how the business is perceived outwardly, including the trademark, communications and the “what we stand for”. At Leadtree Global we build our branding by focusing on the aesthetic, as well as our culture – how we come across and speak to our audience. Ultimately, your brand identity will affect the way you communicate, how much you stand out, and how you engage with your customers. To build your brand you will have to construct your: brand’s core values, voice, and messaging architecture (basically your positioning, value prop, tagline, and brand stories), as your visual design will work in with those elements. Having a strong brand will give you automatic recognition, customer loyalty, higher revenue and much more. To achieve all these benefits follow our tips and tricks – you’re bound to see your business grow!