By Rumzz Bajwa, Digital Strategist and Content Marketer for Giggle Finance
Branding is the way a business owner communicates his or her business’ identity to customers. It’s beyond what you sell; it’s your mission, company values, aesthetic, and tone of voice. It’s essentially how customers emotionally experience your company.
What is a Brand
A business’s brand is the way in which it’s perceived by people who have encountered it. A business’ brand is, in large part, what drives its commercial value. If your brand strongly resonates with a customer, she or she may choose to purchase your products over a competitor’s, even if yours are more expensive.
To understand how a brand can drive sales, you need to understand its elements.
- Brand Compass – the direction your brand has chosen to take and why. It’s composed of purpose, vision, mission, values, and strategic objectives.
- Brand Culture – your brand’s core values and principles. It’s the inspiration that drives how your brand engages with the world.
- Brand Personality – the thoughts, emotions, and behavior patterns of the brand. It shows what type of “individual” the brand is.
- Brand Architecture – the product names, colors, symbols, and visual language that defines a brand. These are both intentional and intuitive. It is founded on research based on a customer’s experience.
- Brand Name and Tagline – considered to be the “face” of the brand. These elements invoke the meaning of the brand and are considered to be its narrative.
- Brand Voice and Messaging – the brand’s purpose, premise, and personality. It humanizes the brand and distinguishes it from its competitors.
- Brand Logo – the visual presentation of what the brand stands for. Its purpose, premise, and personality presented in an aesthetic symbol.
All these elements are like ingredients, that when baked together, create a brand identity. Now let’s move on to what that baking process looks like.
How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity
- Complete your market research
If your brand is essentially the way in which you communicate your business to the world, then building it starts with understanding who it is you are speaking to, and the ways in which they’ll best hear you.
Identify who your target market is and what their values are. Are they teens to young adults who value sustainability and eco-friendly practices? Are they tech-savvy millennials with disposable income who value quality and user experience? Whatever it is your selling, your brand identity will be the ways in which you communicate that thing to your target audience. Knowing and understanding them, will help you to understand how to reach them.
Try thinking about your brand as a person and then think about what that individual’s personality is like. What do they do for work? What do they like to do for fun? Their hobbies, interests, passions? If they could play hooky for the day, what would they do? The more specific you get in thinking about who this person is, the better. This will help you to develop your brand voice and remain consistent as you use it across multiple channels.
You should also have a clear understanding of your value proposition – what deciphers you from your competition. This is how you will cut through the clutter and stand out.
- Design your logo
As mentioned, your logo is the face of your brand. It’s the symbol that people will most strongly associate your brand with. What it looks like matters. When you’re designing it, you want to think about how it can instantly communicate what your brand is. This pertains to the shape of it, the colors you use; if there’s text, the font you use, etc. Take the iconic McDonald’s “M” for example. Instead of just making the logo an M, they gave it an added emotional layer by having it emulate the double golden arches that were a distinguishing feature of the first franchise restaurant back in the 1950s.
- Create content
In today’s modern world, brands are now content creators. Social media gives brands a platform to create personalized content and share it directly with their customers. This is a great tool for building your brand identity as the content you produce and share is a direct reflection of who you are as a brand. This goes beyond the content itself but extends to the way in which it’s produced – the look and feel of it, the aesthetic, and the language you use in your captions as you share it.
This is where brand voice plays a huge part. Are you funny with a biting wit? Or are you esoteric and a bit snobby? Are you a guy’s guy or a girls’ girl? Are you all about luxury? Or are you living for deals and cheap finds? Content creation is about the stories you choose to tell and the way you choose to tell them.
Creating a Memorable Brand
A powerful brand identity produces a strong connection with its audience. Be thoughtful and meticulous in developing all the brand elements listed in this article. Brainstorm creative ideas for communicating with your audience – in ways that are authentic to the brand persona – and engage with them frequently. When it comes to brand building, consistency is key.
Author Bio – Rumzz is a digital strategist and content marketer for Giggle Finance. She enjoys spending time with her family. She loves to go out and experience new moments whenever they came to light. Rumzz discovers satisfaction in investigating new subjects that help to extend her points of view. You can frequently locate her immersed in a good book or out searching for a new experience.