When most people hear the word “brand”, their mind instantly goes to the company logo and slogan. It’s true, a big part of the company brand is their logo. After all, most people end of visually linking a company with a logo or slogan.
A logo, however, is just one part of your brand. Your brand is how you present yourself to the public and how they perceive you. Your brand should be consistent throughout all facets of your business, evoking the same feelings and filling the same needs as before.
Sometimes, coming up with your brand can be easier said than done. Below, we’re going to outline five tips for successfully creating a company brand.
When it comes to starting a brand, you’re going to have to do plenty of background research before getting started. Who are you going to be researching, however?
First, you’re going to want to research your target audience. Your business isn’t going to serve everyone in the world, so it’s best to come up with a target audience early. When coming up with your target audience, you want to be as specific as possible.
Age, Gender, Occupation, Education level, Location, Language, and Income
These are just a few examples of our deep you should go into your research. Marketing and selling a product to a mom with two kids is much different than marketing and selling a product to college men.
Your target audience isn’t the only thing you should be investigating, but also your competition. Even though you may have the perfect idea for a business, you might struggle if you find out the competition is overly stiff.
You want to find something that makes you different and sets you apart. Think about how your competitors present themselves, what do they use to market their business, what is their social media presence like, etc.
You want to make this your brand and not follow industry trends just because everyone else is doing it.
Now that you’ve done the research, it’s time to start thinking about how best you’re going to market and spread your brand. Even though not every brand has one, it’s important to feel like you have a long-term vision of what you want your brand to do.
This is where you start to develop your core values, mission statement, voice, and what your goals are.
To start, think about who you are in the industry and what you do. Think about the target audience you have and how your brand can fill their needs. After this, think about how you are going to spread your identity. What messages are you going to send? What are you trying to encourage?
This will help you with the last step, in devising a content strategy and guidelines. It’s always great to have guidelines set in place, as this helps shape your company’s culture. It’s a surefire way to make sure everyone is one the same page by having these guidelines fleshed out.
Once you figure out your values and everything listed above, it’s a lot easier to find exactly what you want to say. If not, then your content and words to your audience may never match up. Without a clear, consistent voice your brand is more likely to fall apart.
This can all start with your online presence. Choosing a domain name is tough, but it’s important for identifying yourself immediately with your audience. Through your content strategy, you should be able to find words that resonate with your brand and those that you believe will connect with your audience.
If you need help in that area, check out Google’s Keyword Planner. It’s a free tool that will help you determine what words people search for when looking for something in your market.
But your language and branding must extend past your website. Remember that social media is king for many people.
Social media offers you a chance to publish consistent content while also interacting with consumers. Here, you can further build your brand by listening to feedback or responding to inquiries through messages and comments.
We couldn’t talk about branding without mentioning the logo now could we? Your logo is going to follow your brand wherever it goes, so it’s best to put plenty of effort into making it right.
The most important thing nowadays is that your logo can still look the same when on different platform sizes. You logo may be going on websites, billboards, phones, tablets, computers, banner ads, and so many other places. You don’t want people to have to squint just to see what your logo is.
When choosing a logo, you want to keep a basic color scheme that’s easy to remember and identify. There are plenty of different ways to go, like mascots, wordmarks, text, icons, lettermarks, etc.
You probably won’t be designing the logo yourself, but try to find someone who can share your same vision and will be willing to work with you instead of taking over the project themsel