Creating a strong brand for your company is essential to success. Luckily, there are a few key steps you can take to make sure your brand is positioned for growth. In this blog post, we'll discuss some of the best tips from branding experts on how to create a powerful brand identity. By following their advice, you'll be on your way to building a successful business that stands out from the competition.
It's no secret that brand is on everyone's mind these days. From the struggling startup to the mega brand, brand development and management has become vital to success.
Brand creation used to be something of an unobtainable for most startups or organizations who couldn't afford it; or worse, something of an afterthought of the marketing department of a large and unique brand creation agency. Now more than ever, brand is often one of (if not) THE most valuable assets a business can invest in.
It doesn't matter what type of organization you are; brand affects you today more than ever before. You need it now more than ever if your business is going to survive and thrive in this global economy where there are literally millions (and growing) number of competitors fighting for the same market share. If brand is foreign to you, you'll need some help breaking through the noise and understanding how brand works in today's economy.
Here are tips for brand creation from some of the pros...
Develop a brand strategy before investing in any brand development activities
Invest in brand research first to establish your brand pillars
Be consistent across all brand touch points (e.g. website, social media, packaging, etc.)
Establish an authentic voice that resonates with your customers/audience
Brand should be holistic and work across all platforms, branding elements do not live in a vacuum
Brand should always reflect your values and culture as an organization
The brand creation process has become more important than ever before. It needs to start with long term planning, carry through to brand research and strategy development and eventually flow into day-to-day brand management activities such as integrated marketing communications (IMC), website design, social media brand management and so much more.
In today's world where businesses are fighting tooth and nail for every last customer, brand is the only viable differentiator that can be left to last minute with any hope of success.
As the brand strategist and brand developer, I would like to think brand building is actually pretty easy...it's the brand management and day-to-day activities such as brand touch points (website, social media, packaging etc.) that are most difficult. That is where companies often fail in maintaining their brand identity and brand position in the marketplace over time.
I like to refer to brand development as a journey; one that starts with research and leads you towards a destination of creating an incredible brand that your customers and employees will be proud of. You'll need to know where you're going (brand development research), what brand is (definition, brand pillars, brand touch points etc.)
The brand journey starts with brand research; exploring your current brand position in the marketplace along with competitor brands. It's important to understand where you stand today and how brand differentiates you from other businesses. If done successfully, this process can position you for success moving forward as well by allowing you to discover who your customers are, what they value most about doing business with you and where brand is in the overall purchasing decision.
If brand is one of your company's most valuable assets, it should be developed like any other: with a brand strategy. This brand strategy has to focus on brand building and brand management activities (brand touch points, integrated marketing communications (IMC), social media brand management etc.) that will carry through the brand development process to ensure you'll succeed in maintaining your current brand position or achieving a new one.
It's important for brand to be consistent across all brand touch points such as website, social media and packaging among others; otherwise you risk creating confusion in the marketplace amongst customers. They don't need nor want different faces from you depending on what channel they're using at the time.
By establishing an authentic voice that resonates with your customers/audience, brand positioning becomes much easier to achieve. You can't win on brand alone; you need good products and services at reasonable prices; but without brand creating the first impression (and some would say lasting impression) of your company will become more difficult over time as the noise in the marketplace increases.
Before investing all of this money into brand development activities that you'll probably fail at, invest in excellent brand development firm research first by conducting some competitor analysis and doing your own internal perception studies; gather some information about how brand is viewed today so you know what changes need to be made for it to evolve moving forward.
Conclusion
A strong brand is essential for any company, large or small. By creating a recognizable and trustworthy brand, you can set your business up for success. The experts we spoke to provided some great tips on how to create a strong brand for your company. Contact us today if you want help putting these principles into practice!
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