As a business owner, you might think you don’t need branding or probably it is something that’s best left to the Apples, the Googles, and the McDonalds of the world. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how big or how small your company is; As long as you have an audience and you will have to sell to them, you will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your product is the best thing for them, and that is what good branding helps you do.
Let’s take a look at ten branding tips that will help you take your new business to the next level.
1.Define your identity:
Branding is more than just a logo you use on your website. Your brand is who you are as a company; it’s the way people perceive you, your values, and your mission, it’s the way you treat your customers, it’s the look and feel of your visual assets. So, before you can move forward with the more tactical steps in your branding strategy, you need to take the time to get really clear on who you are as a company
2. Identify Your Brand’s Target Audience:
As a startup, identifying your target audience is one of the most important aspects of branding. If you overlook this step, the rest of your brand-building strategy might suffer. You need to understand that your business isn’t for everyone; don’t try to make it appeal to every single person on the planet. Think about some brands like Nike, Gucci, and Apple. Each of these brands has specific target markets they appeal to. In a nutshell, Identify Who wants to buy what you’re selling.
3. Create a Unique Voice For Your Brand:
Once you’ve identified your target market, you must develop a unique brand voice that speaks to your audience. Ask yourself, do you want to be professional? Is your brand voice funny? Are you trying to be casual? All of your brand’s communication should have a consistent voice across all channels. From your homepage to blogs, social media posts, and ads, your voice must resonate with your target audience.
4. Design Your Brand’s Visual Elements:
Create a visual representation of your brands such as your brand logo, brand handbook, color palette, and typography. This will help people identify your company.
Think of the McDonald’s golden arches or the Starbucks siren. When you see those logos, you immediately know what they represent. Something as simple as the shape within your logo or the font used to write your brand name – This tells a lot about your brand identity.
5.Establish Your Brand Differentiation
You need to take the time to research and monitor what your competitors are doing. This will help you discover what branding strategies work and which ones to avoid. Your brand differentiation is those things that make your brand unique and different from all other brands in the industry.
6. Take it to the Market: Now that you’ve established all of the components of your branding strategy, it’s time to put that strategy out for the public to see. You can do this by printing your business cards, designing your business website, creating your social media profiles, and establishing your presence on many different marketing channels.
7. Promote Your Brand:
Once your brand has been built out, it’s time to start promoting it but you need to remember that, regardless of how you’re running promotions on social media ads, PPC campaigns, email marketing, radio ads, guerilla marketing, etc it’s important that each promotional method mirrors your branding strategy so as to results in higher profits.
8.Get Others to Advocate For Your Brand:
Great branding spreads like wildfire. Create marketing strategies that get your existing customers to become brand advocates for your business. Encourage customer reviews, run promotions to incentivize referrals, create a customer loyalty program, and Partner with influencers who can bring your brand to life.
It’s important to note that when you get people to advocate and promote your brand for you, it’s much easier to establish your reputation.
9: Evolve As Your Brand Grows
Be prepared to adapt and change with the times because your branding strategy of today might not be effective tomorrow. Brands change based on market needs or industry trends; even potential company mistakes could force you to rebrand your business.
Remember, without branding, your business will just be another nameless and faceless organization. People won’t be able to pick you out of the crowd, and survival will be a struggle.
When you establish a solid brand identity, you can do incredible things for your new business and more importantly establish trust with your customers which will keep them coming back for more. Your brand is your reputation; that’s why you need to take the right steps to build it.
