The word “branding” might make you think of slick ad campaigns and paying an arm and a leg for vague returns. That kind of thing can seem out of reach for smaller or newer businesses without loads of cash to spend, and maybe that’s why many businesses go years without making any specific branding efforts. However, building a brand for your company doesn’t have to be complicated and expensive. Taking even a few steps toward building a more consistent brand can have plenty of long-term benefits for your business. Learn about it in this branding guide for beginners.
What is a Brand?
The term “branding” is notoriously difficult to define, but most of us recognize a good brand when we see it. I like to think of a brand as a company’s style and character. It’s how your prospects and customers would describe your business.
Entrepreneur magazine calls your brand “your promise to your customer” – both what they can expect from their interactions with you and what sets you apart from your competitors.
Your brand is important for many reasons, but it comes down to this: People buy from companies that they recognize and like, and branding your company helps people recognize and like you.
Most marketing experts agree that to create a consistent brand identity for your business, you need to establish both your company’s values, and its appearance (which is based on its values).
Your Company’s Values
If you’re just starting out with branding, consider beginning with your mission statement. Perhaps you already have one. However, it’s not valuable for building a brand if it’s vague, rote, or doesn’t distinguish your company in a special way.
Your mission statement should incorporate your business’ unique value proposition – what makes you different from your competitors and the unique solution you offer to your customers. It should also be written for your target market.
What’s the overall purpose of your business? Not just to make money – how does it meet the needs of your customers? That’s what your mission statement should describe.
The best mission statements and brand attributes require a deep understanding of what your customers and potential customers already think of and expect from your business.
The mission statement should also be short – consider this HubSpot post on the topic for more in-depth ideas.
Once you’ve finalized your mission statement, you and your team can create a short list of your most important brand attributes. These are characteristics like “dependable” or “modern” or “high quality.” Don’t go overboard – only include those values that are the most important to your company and make you unique. You can use as little as three, but keep it under six.
Once you have your company’s mission and values committed to words, you can move ahead with making sure those values are expressed in tone and appearance every time your company presents itself to the public.
Your Brand’s Voice and Appearance
The most important part of your company’s visual branding is the logo. In fact, many people mistake logos for “brands” in and of themselves because they’re such a key tool for establishing your company’s character.
Before you launch into logo creation, the eCommerce blog A Better Lemonade Stand suggests using an image collection tool like Pinterest to create a “Mood Board” based on your brand attributes to get a visual feel for your brand.
From there, you can work with a designer to create a logo or use an online tool or service. These are available for every budget, from Fiverr to 99 Designs to choosing to work with a recommended freelancer or agency.
You can use your mood board and logo to choose a palette of of 5-6 colors to work with regularly in your designs, and also choose few standard fonts to use consistently.
Finally, establish guidelines for your brand’s tone of voice. Describe how formal or casual you want to sound, examples of certain words or phrases to use or avoid, and possibly a customer archetype or buyer persona for your staff to picture whenever they write in the voice of your company.
Compile all your brand guidelines, including logo examples, and make them handy for all employees to refer to, especially those who have contact with the public. Staying consistent is an important part of gaining customers’ trust, and that can’t happen if your employees ignore your brand guidelines.
Again, many books have been written on each step of this process, and you could spend weeks or months working on your brand. This is just an overview for you to take some steps to get started. If you want to discuss creating a brand for your business in more detail, contact us at ViralWolf.