How does your brand get noticed and, more importantly, sustain that attention? Brand identity is what meets the eye, the logo, the motto, the design, the colours, the look and quality of the product, etc. These visible components help create and cultivate a unique image that aligns with your company’s goals.
At the core of brand identity is a consistent message for recognition and connection. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you are asked about smartphones, sneakers, or chocolates? It’s usually the name of a product, and some brands have become so popular that they get adopted as generic terms.
So let’s help you create a unique identity for your business this 2021.
1. Be Guided by a Vision
Your company likely has a vision along the lines of filling customers with a useful product or providing them with an important service. Together with your mission, this vision serves as the foundation of who you are as a brand.
Quality, excellence, affordability, eco-friendliness, and other values that your company espouses should reflect in the messaging and as seen in the following:
- Logo
- Product packaging
- Advertisements
- Website and social media posts
- Other promotional materials
2. Be Patient in Assembling Your Identity
Running a business from the garage does not mean sleeping on building your company’s personality. Having an identity sets the business apart from the competition and adds to its legitimacy and credibility. The visuals also create appeal and communicate with consumers; indeed, some buying decisions tend to be more emotional than rational.
Invest time, money, and effort in putting together the following elements:
- Logo– When designing this visual representation, make it simple, memorable, relevant, original, versatile, timeless, and meaningful.
- Colors– Psychology tells you that your choices affect how people perceive your brand and their buying decisions too. Will red, color, yellow, pink, blue, or purple make your brand look reliable, etc.
- Slogan/Taglines– “Just Do It” and “I’m Lovin’ It” are examples of one-liners that are simple, succinct, and stand-out. In crafting your slogan or tagline, remember that a tagline tends to be catchy, while a slogan answers why the consumer should choose you.
- Messaging -Pay attention to what and how you speak to customers as a brand. The tone, style, and word choice will convey the message to your target audience in a manner that is effective, understandable, and distinct. Apply this uniform brand voice across all aspects, including your website content and customer service.
3. Be Specific
When you created your business and product lineup, you already had a group in mind. You’d imagine this customer base to belong to an age bracket, income level, and other characteristics confirmed by your market research, SWOT analysis, and
Knowing your potential customers makes for focused efforts as you build a brand that they can identify with and align with their values. You’ll create products packaged and advertised accordingly, spend ads on platforms they use, and apply strategies for customer engagement and loyalty.
4. Be Ready to Set and Meet Expectations
What do you want to offer, a product or a service? Think of the attributes or standards of this offering and how you intend to meet and maintain these.
Customers should get the results expected from using the product or service. It will really hurt the brand image if the quality is different from how it was promoted. Bad reviews and rants from customers on social media also won’t help. Notably, there are regulations such as truth in advertising that look into such issues.
5. Be Consistent
The strength of your brand identity rests on consistency that is evident across the products and their parts, marketing materials and ads, website and social media accounts, and physical stores and offices. Steve Jobs was known to spend a lot of time poring over the tiniest details, including the kind of grey that would go with an Apple store restroom.
Customers can spot the smallest of things that may stir confusion and distrust. An outdated company letterhead in legitimate emails can look suspicious. So, always check that all your branding components are up-to-date.
Final Thoughts
Building the essence of your business is the result of intense, methodical, and targeted efforts over time. Global brands like Apple, Netflix, and Microsoft enjoy market leadership, but they continue to innovate and advertise for their existing and new customers. Big or small companies need to survive the competition and changing business environment.
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