A brand is a business paradigm that encompasses many elements. It is the collection of every interaction you have with your customers, prospects, and employees, and the mental and emotional reactions that these interactions elicit. It is the markers customers associate with you, and the trajectory of decisions they make based on these associations. It is the reputation behind the name, and the rapport you build with the consumer base.
This definition may make branding seem vague and cumbersome, so this article will break down how to build a brand in simple, accessible actions. First let’s review some general goals of branding, to add incentive to this facet of marketing.
The Goals of Branding
Ultimately, you are building your small business a reputation. You are convincing the consumer base that you are active, contemporary, trustworthy, and authoritative. Your customer is to eventually recognize your name, logo, colors, campaigns, and product and feel the positive emotions associated with your identity. These emotions will then fuel their consumer choices, and can be the edge you need over your competitors. In fact, a solid brand strategy can potentially overcome a superior product made by your competitors.
What may be years of work on your end translates to just a split-second decision made by a consumer. In this context, it may seem futile to start branding, but the previous positive experience with your brand, or positive impressions from friends and family, or the appeal of good packaging and a familiar name, are very powerful attributes to consumer decision-making. And the effort you put in is applied to your other forms of marketing, so it crosses all channels and adds a sense of cohesiveness to your business. In this way, good brand strategy helps exponentiate growth on the effort you put in to all aspects of your business.
Defining Your Brand
Where do you begin with branding? The first step is to take an in-depth look at your business and define your brand on paper. Consider your business, its goals, and its characteristics. Consider the path between where you are and where you want to be.
Along with the definition of the vision of your brand, outlining implementation guidelines will be very helpful. These guidelines are meant to detail the specific actions to be taken to fulfill the definition and desired trajectory of your brand. This should be referred to for all communications, actions, and associations that occur on your brand’s behalf, both by yourself and every member of your team. Maintaining this document throughout the life your brand will help ensure the consistency required to build a positive identity.
Some examples of things to think about when defining your brand and creating guidelines include:
What is your logo?
Is it unique, relevant, creative, catchy, and visible?
Do you want specific colors or sounds to be associated with you brand?
Is there a phrase that best demonstrates what your business does and its goals, while conveying the type of reputation you seek?
This could either be used in place of a logo, or as an employee-training “when in doubt” mantra.
These Apple products — despite not having their logo in view — are highly recognizable. They all maintain sleek, futuristic designs yet boast separate identities and uses.
How will you “tag” your products?
Some businesses choose to tag with their logo. For example, for a T-shirt company, you could print your logo or brand name either on the fabric inside a shirt or on the price tag. Both have strategic advantages.
Some businesses choose to label their products via design features. For example, even if Apple decided to take its logo off its products, chances are you would still be able to easily distinguish one of their products from the competition’s, as the company has developed a progressive, sleek style of their own.
What qualities do you want to be known for?
Some examples of positive qualities that you can strive for include: strong, smart, popular, classy, mystical, efficient, adventurous, compassionate, witty, resourceful, environmentally conscious, etc.
What behaviors and practices will you use to get people to associate your services and products with these qualities?
Consider your email campaigns, social media marketing, returns processes, customer service, in-store experience, packaging, and anything else that applies to your business.
What type of employees do you want to attract?
Make your business attractive for your target employment demographic.
With the right employees, you will have better brand implementation, higher retention and productivity rates, and better morale.
Working for a popular or well-received brand inspires motivation and pride in employee work.
Carefully think about all of the details of your day-to-day interactions with the public, especially when it comes to marketing and advertising. You will want to apply your brand definition to these interactions to help instill the feelings you want to elicit. Not every point listed here is going to apply to all businesses — you need to build your brand based on your business parameters.
On the other hand, there are also more points that you could add to this list depending on your business’ context. Anything you can think of that can be a chance to make an impression on someone can be a part of your branding. In fact, creative approaches to branding may be your key to building a memorable identity and setting you apart from your competition.
Maintaining Your Brand
A solid reputation and identity require consistency and relevancy, so branding is not an open-and-shut project. You must constantly be implementing the characteristics of your brand. All communications, releases, and presentations must follow the same style and attitude as your previous ones, in order to convince the consumer that those characteristics define who you are. Everything must fall in line with the what you want customers to come to expect of you.
The brand paradigm must saturate the business: Your whole team needs to be a part of your brand. Proper employee training will be important to insuring your brand stays consistent across channels.
You can also establish reputable traits via partnerships and sponsorships. Working with relevant charities or organizations can raise your social consciousness in the eyes of the public. In fact, charitable marketing is a fairly widespread form of marketing. As an example, if you are a local sporting goods store, you may want to consider sponsoring a local youth baseball team. This will leave a good impression on the community, as well as act as a recommendation to parents with a need to purchase baseball equipment for their children — one of your exact target markets.
Considering current events and how they relate to your brand is a very important aspect of maintaining your brand’s trajectory. Political, social, and consumer trends may change and interfere with the strength and quality of your brand. If current trends outgrow your brand, it may be time to consider rebranding in order to better fit the consumer base.
Once your brand is established, it may be worth considering trademarking your name, logo, or other distinguishing marks. Trademarking legally protects your brand from others using reputation for their own benefit. However, even after obtaining a trademark, protecting use of your brand’s signatories is ultimately your business’s responsibility to address or prosecute.
Branding has the potential to add a lot of value to your business. The advantage of being able to influence prospects into conversions can be extremely fruitful if applied and managed properly. If you have questions about branding, need help with your personal definition and implementation, need a strategic logo, or want advice on whether or not you should get a trademark, comment below or contact us.