Creating branding around your business is key to establishing long-term relations with your clients – and it involves much more than just implementing a company logo and choosing brand colors. Branding gives your business a personality that distinguishes it from other similar companies and keeps the attention of your target audience. How to build a strong brand from scratch?
Brand building: what is it?
Brand building is the process of creating a unique spin on your business, giving it a unique personality and making it more relevant and relatable for your target clients. In the process of brand building, businesses create a branding strategy to promote a specific brand identity, creating a trustworthy, reliable, and memorable image of your brand for your customers to connect with.
Brand building strategy is key to maintaining steady growth and keeping your audience interested in your company. Without branding, your company becomes just another service or product-providing business that doesn’t distinguish much from its competitors.
Start with establishing what makes your brand unique
Don’t simply say that your main objective as a company is to make money – that much is obvious, but you’ll need to go deeper than that to truly connect with your customers. Why was your company founded? Why does it continue to operate? What is it trying to achieve or change?
If you’re trying to change people’s lives with a unique product or service, you’ll have to state that. Establish your purpose first, think about what makes your brand unique and separates you from other similar businesses.
Find your target audience
You might have some data on your demography – but do you know who are the people that walk into your store or purchase your products from your website? Why do they need your product, and how exactly does it help them in their daily lives?
Connecting with your target audience is a fundamental step of brand building. You’ll have to build an emotional connection that gives an ulterior motive for your customers to purchase your goods. Think of your brand as a person – what would that person be like? What would his or her traits be? And finally, what type of customer is going to be your main audience?
Keep an eye on your competitors
Knowing what your competitors did to succeed, as well as what others did that didn’t exactly work out according to the plan, is the key to making it big in your industry. Don’t simply copy what your competitors do – find out how you can improve on it in your own, unique way, convincing your audience to choose your company over others.
Research your competition based on their messages and visual cues, the quality of their products or services, their online reviews, and their marketing strategies. Compare at least a couple of your direct competitors, find out what makes them stand out, and think about how you can use that information to promote growth in your company.