7 Effective Steps on How To Brand Your Business

What Is A Brand?

A brand is how people perceive your business based on impressions you can and cannot control. Brands are not just limited to businesses because individuals as well have personal brands. People have a personal brand based on impressions like how they communicate, their face, name, and more. 

A business can build its brand around impressions like the name, logo, products, reputation, fonts, colors, and voices. The main factor necessary to successfully brand your business is consistency. Your business will lack consistency if you keep changing the impressions like logo, name, and more. 

Why Branding Is Important?

Your brand identity is very crucial because it lives and evolves in the mind and hearts of your customers. There are 5 major reasons to detail the importance of a brand identity for your business. They include:

1. Your brand is the face of your business

A brand gives customers an impression about the business. The logo is usually at the forefront of your business as it provides identification. It should provide the name of your business and the public should know what it means. 

2. A brand identity determines the credibility and trust in your business

Your brand will go a long way to give you market authority. You will achieve the necessary authority via consistency. Consistency will earn you trust among your customers and credibility among your competitors. 

3. It gives your business purpose and supports the mission

A brand identity gives the brand a purpose. The mission statement for your business should support your brand identity. 

4. It draws new customers and satisfies existing ones

People are drawn to a product that has a face, mission, and identity because they agree or relate to it. Once they convert to customers, the brand will give them a sense of belonging. A good product will draw new customers to your business while a good brand gets advocates. 

5. Advertisement template

Your brand will act as a template for your advertisements. It will appear in print ads, commercials, and online advertisements. These advertisements will make impressions and promote your business to potential customers. 

How To Brand Your Business

1. Research your audience, competition, and value proposition.

Market research is always the first step for starting a business process. It also applies when you want to brand your business.  You will need to research your audience, competition, and value proposition. 

• Audience

Your audience is basically your target customers. Customers have different needs and you need to address a specific need to target a group of customers. You need to research what your audience needs and wants from your industry to establish a successful brand. 

• Competition

Your competition has set some standards in the market. Thus, it is important to research their standards to ensure you are level or above these standards. Competitor research goes hand in hand with value proposition. 

• Value Proposition 

Value proposition is what you have to offer your customers that your competitors cannot. It is about what makes you unique in your particular industry. 

2 .Choose a name for your brand

We can identify various brands, what they offer, and their value proposition just by their name. The name is important depending on your business. You can generate your business names via online tools or you can use approaches like:

• Make up a new name
• Use an entirely unrelated word. For example, how the name Apple is used for tech products.
• Use a literal description. For example, Pastry Shop for a pastry food business idea. 
• Combine two words.
• Use an acronym. 
• Eliminate or add a few letters. 

3. Pick a slogan

 A slogan is very useful to your brand and business. This is because it will feature in your website, business cards, social media bio, commercials, and bio. Ensure you make your slogan, short, descriptive, and catchy. You can use the following approaches to come up with a slogan:

• Use literal descriptions. For example, ‘Wedding dress shop’.
• Create a rhyme.
• Make a claim. For example, ‘the world’s best wedding dresses’. 
• Use a metaphor.
• Adopt an attitude. For example, ‘sassy wear’.  

4. Select a personality and focus

A brand personality and focus highlights products/services you offer, your target market, and your value proposition. To effectively portray your personality and focus, you need to address the following aspects:

• Choose your brand language

Your brand language will also give your brand a personality and focus. The language can either be professional or personal. A professional tone is more suitable for high-end brands while a conversational tone suits laid-back brands. 

• Use Metaphors or concepts

Metaphors and concepts will help personalize your brand especially when advertising. For example, you can use athletes if your brand focuses on sportswear. You can also use animals, among other things. For example, a lion would indicate that your brand is some sort of king or promotes bravery. These concepts will feature in advertisements. 

5. Work on the Visuals

The visuals help you design your brand and to create a brand identity. There are three main aspects of a brand’s visuals. 

• Design a logo

The logo is part of the face of your business. Customers see it first whenever they come across your products or commercials. You should design the logo as the first visual. This is because other visuals can arise from it. 

• Choose a brand color

Brand colors are important because they help to communicate emotion and feeling. They also make your logo and text more visible. However, this depends on what color you choose. Ensure the colors you pick promote visibility and emotion. 

• Pick a font

The fonts will feature on your website, slogan, and advertisements. Use a maximum of two fonts to avoid confusion among your audience. 

6. Apply the brand in your entire business

To apply your brand generally means to adopt the features mentioned above on aspects like packaging, and advertisements. You should also adopt your personality and mission to create an about us page. Ensure you also actively promote your brand on social media platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn.

7. Monitor and promote the brand

Monitoring the brand performance can help solve issues as they arise. You will be able to implement changes to rectify factors that slow the brand performance. There are various tracking and analytics tools you can use to monitor your brand. Examples include:

• Google Analytics
• Social media discussions and comments
• Surveys 

Conclusion

A brand is how people perceive your business. It is impacted by impressions you can control and ones you cannot control. Brand identity and performance is crucial to the success of your business. You need to know how to brand your business to achieve a large market share. Strong brands promote customer loyalty.