You need to create a kickass brand to stand out from the competition. Simple!
In this blog post we will be looking at how to create a kickass brand in 5 easy steps.Branding your business is one of the most important steps in building your business. It gives your product or service a unique personality, and establishes a differentiated position in the market that attracts the right customers.
What is a brand?
A brand is a set of associations that a person (or group of people) makes with a company, product, service, individual or organisation.
What is branding?
Well, if a brand results from a set of associations and perceptions in people’s minds, then branding is an attempt to harness, generate, influence and control these associations to help the business perform better.
Why do you need a kickass brand?
Branding can help you stand out from your competitors, add value to your offer and engage with your customers.
Creating difference
Branding is a way of clearly highlighting what makes your offer different to, and more desirable than your competitors.
Adding value
People are generally prepared to pay more for a branded product than they are for something which is largely unbranded
Connecting with people
Creating a connection with people is important for all brands. A brand can embody attributes which consumers will feel drawn to.
How to build a kickass brand in 5 easy steps
How to create a kickass brand
You can create a kickass brand in 5 easy steps as follows:
STEP 1: BRAINSTORM IDEAS ABOUT YOUR BRAND
First of all you need to start brainstorming ideas about your brand to help create your brand identity and build a customer avatar.
Brand identity
Your brand identity is a crucial tool for ‘identifying’ who you are and how your customers relate to you. The look and feel of your business branding—from your logo and typography to your packaging can both attract and influence potential customers.
The more cohesive and consistent your brand identity is, the easier it is for others to understand and connect with business. When creating a brand identity, you need to choose the right visuals and content to represent you, and maintain a consistent style and tone to support your business’ brand.
Customer Avatar
To identify who your ideal customer is it is useful to create a customer avatar for your business.
A customer avatar is essentially a detailed profile of your ideal customer (in your target audience). It can help you in a number of ways including:
Helping you become the authority in your chosen niche
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Tailoring your marketing messages so they appeal specifically to your ideal customer
Increasing your conversionrates because you’ll be able to encourage the ideal customers in your target market to take action
Attract more of the ideal customers because the ‘non ideal’ customers won’t buy into your messages (well hopefully not – but we have all come across clients/customers who mess us around and aren’t our sort of people!!)
Avoid wasting money on marketing/advertising that just doesn’t work
STEP 2: BUILD THE FOUNDATIONS OF YOUR BRAND
The four cornerstones of any good brand are as follows:
The big idea – what lies at the heart of your company?
Vision – where are you going?
Values – what do you believe in?
Personality – how do you want to come across?
If you can start to answer these questions with clarity and consistency then you have the basis for developing a kickass brand!
STEP 3: PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
Using the key ingredients that we’ve outlined above – and bringing in people to help you define and implement them – will give you a solid understanding of your brand identity, as well as strategies on how to present it to your target audience
STEP 4: CREATE YOUR BRAND GUIDELINES DOCUMENT
After working through a branding project with designers you should be left with something called Brand Guidelines. This is a document which details exactly how the different design elements (typically visual) should be applied in different situations. You can also do your own DIY Branding Guidelines Document if you are on a shoestring budget!
STEP 5: TURN YOUR BLUEPRINT INTO TANGIBLE COMMS
Once you’ve established what your brand identity will be, you will have to decide how to get your message across. You can do this in the following ways:
Storytelling
An established technique in branding a business is to tell its story through communication elements such as business identity, packaging, stationery, marketing materials, blogging and so on. This helps paint a picture of the provenance of the business and its products or services. Get clear on your brand story and create brand love by making a human connection
Differentiation
A great deal of branding is about defining and presenting a point of differentiation in the sector you’re operating in. Get this right and your business will stand out from your competitors.
Customer Engagement
Part and parcel of creating differentiation is engaging with your customers. If you stand out of the crowd for positive reasons and your tone of voice and communications are credible customers will look at what you’ve got to say.
Reinvigorating your brand
Whatever sector your business is in, keeping your communications fresh is essential. Try and reassess your designs, language or identity every few years. This should be seen as an ongoing investment in your business rather than a costly extra.
Consistency
In branding and brand management a lot of importance is placed on achieving consistency, so that the same attributes and characteristics are eviden in all areas of the business’ operations. Essentially, ‘the big idea’ touches and informs everything you do.
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