What is your brand and how do you build it?

In our daily lives, and particularly in our digital world, we are surrounded by brands. The famous Nike swoosh, Kellogg’s K, and Apple, are all instantly recognisable. But as well as the infamous logos themselves, we are just as familiar with the essence of these brands. Whether it is inspirational fitness, nutritious breakfasts or stylish, innovative technology, how do these brands achieve this global status and renown?

Let’s start from the beginning. What is a brand? Think of your brand as the ‘face’ of your business – it’s how your audience perceives you and what sets you apart from the competition.

Simply put: your brand is your company’s reputation, and establishing a successful reputation requires consistency in your visual and verbal communication.

While some may think creating a brand starts with an attention-grabbing logo, there is more work required before this point to establish your brand identity. For example, what is your company mission? Where do you see your company in five years time? Once your business’ vision and values are laid out, it’s then time to get creative.

To help inspire your brand building process, we’ve compiled our top tips to effectively build a successful brand:

1. Research is key

Identify your target audience.

Invest time into identifying your audience. By doing your research on your chosen market, you will be able to develop your product and brand to suit their requirements.

Market research is key, and can take place in the form of surveys, social media scanning or reading up on the latest industry reports. Many companies now opt to build a customer profile, which is essentially an example persona of their ideal customer’s traits by identifying their key audience demographics.

Who are your competitors?

Knowing what sets your business apart from your competition is vital when developing a successful brand. Keep an eye on your competitors to help you better understand which branding techniques work well and which don’t. You’ll want to stay one step ahead of them, so regular monitoring of your competitors is important.

Know your product

This may seem obvious but knowing your product or service inside out is a crucial element when building your brand. Once you have identified a market for your product, define what you do, and why it is different. What is your mission statement? Determining these elements of your business will form the bedrock of your brand, so you have your product ready to sell, and can build your brand around it. We recommend conducting an analysis using the 7 P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Packaging, Positioning and People) to help you to evaluate your business.

2. Build your visual brand

Impactful logo

Having a strong logo is an essential step in building your brand. A logo is your audience’s first impression of your brand – and we only get one chance to make one of those. So, for that reason, it is vital to be memorable.

Start by searching for designs you like for inspiration. Whether plain and simple or abstract, bold and bright, consider design elements that reflect your values.

Your logo should be memorable, visually appealing and unique. Creating a mood board when doing your research can help you to get a clearer picture of your favourite styles, to inform the creation of your design. Our recommendation is to enlist support from a graphic designer, who will create a series of design concepts based on your brands visions, values and your preferred style.

The psychology of colour

Alongside designing your logo, a quick way to establish the visual style of your brand is to create a colour palette to be used across all marketing collateral. Stick to two main colours and keep them consistent in all design work, from leaflets to your office sign. This will help your customers to become familiar with your brand and make it more easily recognisable.

Did you know that brands use colour psychology to evoke feelings in their audience? For example, certain hues can increase excitement. Find out which colour would be the best reflection of your brand with this useful infographic from Iconic Fox.

The right typefaces

Once you have narrowed down your chosen colours, it is time to pick a set of typefaces to use. It is recommended that you have no more than three fonts that represent your brand, as more can appear messy and unprofessional. As a base, pick one heading font, and one secondary font – and be consistent with them.

Particular fonts can also evoke certain emotions or convey a certain personality. Read more about this and decide which is the right font for your business in this useful article from Digital Synopsis.

Once you have decided on the design elements of your brand, they can then be used to create your marketing collateral such as your website, business cards, leaflets and social media graphics. Working with a graphic designer can ensure your brand looks visually appealing and consistent across all of your channels.

3. Your business name

What’s in a name?

You may already have a well-established business name, or you’re at the beginning of your business journey and trying to choose a name. Deciding on a descriptive, yet unique business name that evokes the essence of your product or service, is no mean feat. Refer back to your business’ core values and future vision and think about what your business does, and how you want to communicate it to your audience – and you’ll soon have a collection of possible business names. If you’re stuck for inspiration, try tasking friends and family to get their thinking caps on too. The more ideas thrown into the ring, the better!

Be cautious of being too specific with your name. As your business evolves, you may wish to change it. Instead, we recommend letting your tagline do the talking.

Seal the deal with a snappy tagline

A tagline is a short and sweet sentence that follows your business name, often used to share additional information about your business offerings. Having a tagline is a great way to convey your business’ offering quickly and succinctly.

In order for your brand to be well-established, you must remain consistent. Communicate your business name, followed by your tagline in every communication and through every channel. Think of Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ strapline – it’s a tried and tested way of creating strong brand recall.

If you’re thinking about a rebrand or bringing a new product to market, our team are here to help. If you’re struggling for inspiration and need fresh perspective, our experienced team are just a call away: 01392 680740. We’re very responsive on email too: info@absoluteprandmarketing.com.

Together, we can make your brand sing.