When you’re setting up a new business, one stage you absolutely cannot skip is developing a business branding plan.
Branding is creating a unique presence for your business that helps distinguish your company, products and services from others in the marketplace. Branding underpins all your marketing and promotion efforts, which will be much harder and much less successful if you – and your customers – don’t know what your brand is.
The concept of branding has expanded over the years, from being simply a recognizable logo to other, less tangible factors that help paint a picture of what your company is all about.There are several important business goals you want your branding to achieve. One of the most important is to define both your mission and vision for customers and deliver those consistently.
Good branding expresses your business values and differentiates you from your competitors. In addition, branding tells the story of your business in a way that engages your customers. It can inspire your employees too, and keep them focused on your goals.
Branding is also part of how you deliver what your customers expect from you. In fact, it’s a crucial part of your relationship with customers, building trust from the time they first hear about your business, to the moment they interact with you, and long after a transaction is complete. A good brand can keep customers loyal to you rather than your competitors.
As you can see, you can’t afford to ignore branding when building your business. So, let’s get started with the groundwork you need to complete to create a strong brand.
Getting Started With Business Branding
Like all other aspects of business development, creating a branding plan requires information gathering. The purpose of this is to learn all you can about your customers and competitors so you can fine tune your branding and messaging.
The best approach is to ask questions that help you identify your competitive difference, the needs of your industry, and the value you bring to customers. That knowledge will be essential when you’re ready to nail down your branding.
If you’ve worked on a business startup plan or digital marketing plan, you’ll already have some of the information you need for your branding strategy. If not, now’s the time to do it.In our digital marketing guide, we covered the following key questions and showed you how to get the answers you needed:
- Where is my industry going?
- What’s my target audience?
- Who is my typical customer?
- Who are my biggest direct competitors?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- What advantages does my business have over those competitors?
Other important questions to answer for your branding strategy include:
- What is the mission of my business? What is its vision?
- What values and qualities do I want people to associate with my business?
- What do I want people to think and feel about my business?
Think of any major brand you love and you’ll realize that they have gone through this process, but they aren’t the only ones. Every business operates in a specific niche to serve particular customers. And all businesses aim to be different from their competitors, either in the range of services offered, or the way they offer those services.
The questions listed above will help you to articulate those differences and to reach some conclusions about the concepts and ideas that best represent your brand. Once you have a firm grasp of those concepts, you’re ready to work on the marketing and promotional elements that will showcase your brand to the outside world. These include a logo, slogan or tagline, advertising, an explainer video, a business card and a brochure.
Step #1: Design Your Business Logo
If you think about the world’s most recognizable brands, you can probably picture their logos immediately. See those logos and you conjure up memories of your association with that brand. Since your logo is one of the first things people see, it’s a great place to get started with your branding strategy.
Step #2: Choose A Slogan And Tagline
After your logo, the next most important part of your branding is your slogan. Also known as a tagline, this is a short phrase or sentence that summarises the most important message you want to deliver to your customers about your business or product. They’re particularly important for marketing where people can’t see your logo, like when listening to a podcast or radio ad.
You’ll use the research we mentioned at the start of this guide to help you narrow down possible slogans. The best slogans are easy to remember, differentiate your brand, and make people feel positive about your company. In most cases, they’re used in two main ways:
- To point out your product’s biggest advantage. If you’re the first, best or fastest at doing something, this will likely feature in your slogan.
- To highlight your business values.
tep #3: Promote With Banner Ads
When you’re ready to promote your business online, one method you can use is a banner ad. Banner ads can help to attract customers and promote your business. When they incorporate your logo, slogan and brand colors, they can help people to become familiar with your business and start to associate that branding with you.
Step #4: Create An Explainer Video
No matter which current research you look at, online video is a huge trend. Video gets more attention than text and keeps people engaged and on your site for longer. That’s why it’s important to include the creation of an explainer video in your business branding plan.
As the name suggests, an explainer video is a short video that clearly explains what your business is about. There are three main issues you must address if you want your explainer video to meet viewers’ needs:
- Who is your audience? (which customers are you talking to with the video?)
- What problem are they experiencing?
- What solution do you offer and how does it work?
Step #5: Get A Business Card
Even in the era of digital marketing, a business card is still one of the best and fastest ways to give a customer or possible partner your contact details.
Business cards provide you with a professional way to share your key business information, especially at face-to-face networking events. Since you never know when you’re going to meet a prospective customer, it pays to have business cards with you all the time.
Your business card is an excellent direct marketing tool and your first chance to make a good impression. As well as your logo and tagline, a business card can showcase your values, beliefs and expertise. While many business cards follow a standard format, there’s no reason why your business card should be boring.
Step #6: Prepare A Business Brochure
Brochures are another tried and true promotional tool, and an essential part of executing your business branding strategy. They’re a great way to tell your personal story and the story of your business, to showcase your values, and to present your products. Most importantly, brochures can help you to engage your customers.
One way businesses use brochures is to highlight offers, discounts and sales. These provide an incentive for prospective customers to read it. Brochures can also help to present your business when attending a conference or exhibition.
You’re Done!As you can see, there are several components that go into creating your branding plan and executing it with the right design and promotional elements. Once you have these, then not only can you articulate your value and competitive difference to customers, but you can showcase it through your branding.
