One of the most vital factors in a business’s success is its branding. And branding is not just about color schemes, logos, and taglines (although these three are important too). Branding is more than leaving a memorable impression. It’s how you can communicate with consumers. It’s how you can set yourself apart from your competitors. It’s what makes your business trustworthy and marketable. Branding is what paves your way to growing a successful enterprise.
And to help ensure your venture’s growth, here are the four steps you have to take to effectively establish your business’s branding:
1. Know Your Target Audience
Before anything else, make sure you invest time in doing your research. Say you’re already on the stage of branding and creating your commercial identity. It’s safe to say that you have already found your niche and that you’ve already found a target market for your niche. The next step is then to know your market thoroughly.
Knowing your target market is not limited to knowing what they want to buy. You also have to know your potential customers’ preferences. Search for the methods of purchasing and delivery that are more convenient for them. Find out the principles they stand for and the social issues they are interested in. Look for the common interests they share with you as an individual.
To create a brand identity that people can trust, you have to be relatable right from the start. Take negative underwear, for example. They banked on the fact that most lingerie companies are being run by men. They capitalized on the need for women to have a say in their fashion. This is ideal because, in this era, nothing is more marketable than a business with a social mission.
2. Understand Your Identity
Every business leader starts a company so they can solve customers’ pain points. Whether you sell a product or offer a service, you’ll always be banking on people’s needs.
It’s easy to look for demands; the problem lies with making you look like the best choice out of the thousands of options out there. And that’s where the second step comes in.
Choose whether you’ll be the professional entity that can solve their problems efficiently or the friend that focuses on their comfort as they solve their problems themselves. Decide whether your goal is to reinforce efficiency or to make their experiences more enjoyable. You can start building your brand’s identity by deciding whether you plan on making lives easier or more comfortable. With these core principles at the center of your branding, you can quickly deal all the other factors.
3. Know the Value of Your Name
This hits two birds with one stone. You should handle both your company’s name and yours with extreme caution. The name of your business signifies what it has to offer. It represents your business ethics, your vision, and your values. Hardware companies like Banner Solutions can wisely show what they can provide within a glance. The same goes with Twitter since it reflects what the platform is all about. You can also go with simplicity and choose a name that can quickly spread across the globe. Companies like Kodak and Apple have proven how phonetic pleasantness can be capitalized on.
As much as you’d want your company’s name to be catchy and all over the place. Don’t forget to keep yours out of the way. Again, a single social mistake can go viral and ruin a career in the current social era. People are more socially aware now. A business owner’s personal misdeeds can lead consumers to boycott the business as a whole. And with your business’s marketability on the line, ensure that there’s no dirt connected to your name.
4. Understand the Value of Consistency
The importance of meticulously choosing your logo, color scheme, and tag lines is that your marketability relies on your commitment to your branding. Can you imagine Coca-Cola being blue instead of red? Yes, the flavors might change, and, in some countries, they change the packaging as well. But there will always be a touch of red somewhere.
Your consistency guarantees that your brand’s recognizability overall marketing platforms. That’s why your entire team must speak with only one voice. Think of marketing as a form of communication between you and your customers. If your messages and methods of communication are disorganized, it’s harder to understand who you are and what you offer.
Developing your brand’s identity is the most efficient means of making what you offer marketable and what opens doors for possible opportunities to upscale down the road. And taking care of it as early as possible will be one of the most beneficial steps you can take towards success.
