How To Do Great Branding

How to create a strong brand

When you go to the store you buy more than just the product, right? Their branding is successful.

Coca Cola is more than a soda, Apple is more than a phone and Porshe is more than a car. When you purchase these products you don’t only get the product itself, you get the experience around it. The company you pay knows exactly what kind of experience you expect, the sense of quality, the status. It’s called branding, to create a strong brand. 

Creating a strong and well-known brand can be more difficult than you think. To succeed you need to create an image that is consistent throughout your brand. Everything from the colour scheme on your website to the language in your Instagram posts has to be consistent. Everything has to contribute to what your customers should feel when they interact with you. A company is more than just the name!

A clear line of consistency gives your customers a reason to buy, remember and prefer your products. After reading this guide you’ll know exactly how to create a strong brand within your industry.

What is a brand?

Before we start talking about the importance of branding among your customers we’ll take a look at the basics. What is a brand?

A brand is what you offer your customer, it’s what divides you from your competitors and makes the customers choose you. A brand often has a name, a logo, a slogan, some colour scheme and a voice (we’ll get back to that part later on). A brand is not only what you offer customers, it’s as much about the picture you provide to people on social media or people bypassing on the street.

How to do branding?

Creating a brand is as important as it is complicated. There’s lots of research and thought needed so we’ll help you get started with one of the most important steps in your company’s journey.

Who is your target audience?

The first step you need to complete before you can start completing a good branding is knowing who should be impressed by what you do? If you’re not sure about your target audience your company won’t be able to accomplish that trust, awareness, recognition and, well of course those incomes you hope for.

Before we get to designing the brand you’ll have to take a look at the following questions and make sure you know the answers.

• Who needs your products or services?
• Who is the ideal customer?
• Why did you create this brand in the first place?

When you have answered these questions I’d say you have a quite clear picture of your target audience and this is when you can start reaching them through your channels.

What is your mission statement?

It probably sounds meaningless to consider the reason you started your business but since that is what is going to be the centre of your business. You’ll need to have a clear answer to this question.

Does this sound a little weird? Think like this, everyone wants to sell their product but Coca Cola goes further, they want to offer you the cold drink you gasp for after a hot day on the beach, Starbucks want to offer you the dream coffee you need after a tough day of work. All strong brands offer something beyond the product, an experience. What can your brand offer and in which situation?

What are your unique values, quality or benefits

There are probably lots of other companies within your niche but you want to sell the best, right? It’s easy to focus on your competitors when talking about competition but today we’ll take a look at how you can succeed with your branding.

Then what are the differences that affect your success? Well, it’s your brand.

That is why you’ll need to fill your brand with things that are your, and only yours. Your values, your benefits and your quality. You have to advertise what makes your company unique. Therefore I think you should take a look at your company, what makes you stand out from the crowd? When I say that I don’t mean your unique products but more your unique values, this is what you can use when building your presence and awareness.

Which are your visual characteristics?

Now you have hopefully created a clear picture of your audience, what you wish to accomplish and why your customers should consider you. This is where we can begin with an interesting part of your branding, to create visual assets. As we came up earlier, it’s important that your customers recognize your brand while you’re active online. Therefore It’s important to choose a font, a logo, a colour palette and an icon to make sure you are recognized online.

When you create your visual characteristics it’s important that they match your mission statement and they reflect the qualities you represent. If you’re a larger company it can be useful to create documentation about how to use the visuals and make sure they are used as supposed. This will be useful if someone else takes over social media or your website so that your customers still recognize you and you can keep your marketing consequent.

What does your company voice sound like?

To be able to sell you have to communicate with your customers, how does that sound? What does the company sound like? When a customer contacts you’ll need to make sure they recognize who they are talking to. A way to write, a simple answer that is easily recognized by your customers. Or maybe you can make your customers recognize you by creating a professional expansion video. All these tones and ways of communications are cornerstones of your brand.

Make sure your customers know who they are talking to when contacting you. All the way from your social to your companies and blog posts on your website. Keep it consequent and clear, creating a brand is all about that. Maintaining the line of argument. In other words, this also includes your tone online, your voice.

Are you ready to start branding?

We have arrived at the part where you start forming your brand. We have gone through the theory now it’s your turn to turn it into reality. Make sure that your brand spreads all around the different platforms you use, perhaps you should increase your awareness on other platforms? But remember the be consequent.

Website

Fill out your site with logos, colours and fonts that are typical for your business. Never use something not representing your brand. The website is an important part of your brand. You’ll also want to make sure all content reflects your company voice, the voice should make itself heard, in blogs and descriptions.

Social media

All photos, videos and company images should represent your brand, who you are. We recommend that you use your logo as a profile picture and that you design an interesting banner. As on the website you’ll need to make sure your voice is visible in posts and bios. Let your customers recognize you.

Packaging

If you sell physical products, the packaging is when your customers actually hold the brand in their hand, shouldn’t this show what kind of business you are? Creating your packages so that they match the experience you wish to provide your customers is key. As earlier fonts, colours and phrases have to match your company and social media. Everything to stay consequent.

Customer support

A company is worthless without someone doing the work behind the scenes, make sure your customer support is engaged and know the image they are providing to the world. Make sure your employees use logos, phrases and most importantly, your company voice. Make your voice remembered. 

Is the brand like a person?

At least that is what we believe, a simple way to make your company recognizable and strong is to treat it as a person, let the customers do the same. If you wish to see how it works try answering the following questions:

• How would your company introduce itself? How does it look?
• How would your company talk? Serious and professional or maybe funny and a little challenging?
• How would everybody else describe your company? What are their first impressions in a couple of sentences?

Like every other question in this article, these three questions are important to make sure you have the foundation to build a brand and strong communication within your company.

How to create a strong brand you have hopefully been able to lay the groundwork for your strong and impressive brand. As mentioned before it’s important to stay consequent. Make sure to always have the strategy in mind when interacting with customers whether it’s on social media, in the store or during an email campaign. Your brand will match the experience you wish to provide for your customers.