The brand a business creates is essentially that business’ personality. Therefore, how you convey it is of the utmost importance. For some people, branding might simply mean creating a logo or picking up some colours. What this truly means is the business’ identity is showcased in numerous ways. Without a clear and well-established brand, your business can easily lose itself among competitors who portray their business identity well.
In a digital world like today, where social media platforms are widely used by businesses and consumers alike, there is no denying that branding has become more vital than ever and social media marketing indispensable. Thinking from the consumer’s point of view – would you be interested in a business whose brand is unclear and doesn’t have a proper online presence? Chances are that you wouldn’t think twice about buying from a company that doesn’t have a professional and curated presence or whose brand is not well portrayed. Plus, such a business is easy to forget.
According to experts from dpdk.com, “for your business to be memorable and relevant, three aspects must be checked: innovative product development, consumer-centric strategy, and unique brand identity. Only this way can you differentiate as a brand.”
So, here are six ways to build a strong and clear brand identity for your business:
1. Research your audience
How can you create a strong brand identity and develop effective marketing strategies if you don’t know your audience? It is close to impossible. Without understanding your customers’ needs, demands, likes, values, and habits, it is a challenge – to say the least – to curate content and create products that speak to them.
For this reason, it is of the utmost importance you conduct thorough research to identify and understand your target audience. By creating a buyer persona, you can truly get to know your customers. This persona is a version of your target customer, with specific needs, values, hobbies and various other characteristics, like demographics. With research, you can discover each aspect to be able to create this buyer persona. This tells you who your audience is and, therefore, who will be interested in your brand.
2. Start outlining your brand identity
After you have gathered enough intel and information on your audience as well as competitors, you can begin outlining your brand identity. This means anything from creating the brand’s visual assets to what the brand’s voice and tone are. It is the phase of brainstorming ideas and finding all the right ingredients and characteristics that make your brand.
In terms of visual assets, you need to create a cohesive tone. This means that your logo, the fonts you will be using, colour palettes, graphics styles, the tone of voice, and every element that makes your brand, need to come together and create a consistent and unmistakable identity.
Whether you want to portray your brand as fun and playful with an informal style or not, it is up to you, your values and the product type. Consistency should be present across all business departments and activities of the value chain, from product creation to development, marketing strategies to packaging and delivery. Only this way can you genuinely convey the brand’s identity.
3. Develop your brand story and mission statement
During the brand identity creation phase, chances are you have all the details coming together, and you can develop the brand’s story and mission statement. This is an extension of your core values, which will be transported to the business core value, which will create the foundation of your brand.
Similar to how you create your buyer persona, you will do so with your brand. Introspective and reflective questions may help you hash out all the details of your brand’s story. These questions are related to the company’s values, the goal and objectives, and how you want your audience to know you. Once you have these answers, this will be your company’s mission statement.
4. Curate the brand’s social media presence
Now that you have a clear understanding of your buyer persona, and hence your target audience, you have developed the brand’s mission statement and created a consistent visual representation of your brand, it is time to build a social media presence.
On social media platforms, you will probably find a vast majority of your target customers. So many individuals make use of these social networks that it is highly unlikely they are not present on at least one platform. This is where they will be searching for you. More specifically, in 2020, more than 3.6 billion people were active on social media. By 2025, this number is estimated to reach 4.41 billion.
When you begin creating your online presence, consistency is key. So, keep in mind your brand’s logo, colour palette and tone of voice. All these elements must be present across all platforms: from social media to your business’ website and how you interact with your customers.
5. Keep the customer at the core of the business
At the core of the business and your brand’s identity should be the customer. This means that your brand’s values should be extended to those of your target audience, always looking to listen to their needs and provide solutions to their demands. This is an effective way of maintaining relevance, being relatable to your audience and increasing loyalty.
Change constantly happens due to various reasons. For instance, consumers’ habits and behaviour have shifted to respond to environmental issues or other disruptive events. For this reason, it is vital you keep the customer at the core of the business and ensure your product or service is in line with their beliefs. In order to do this and be on top of changing consumer trends and habits, you need to conduct research frequently.
6. Consider including a blog section
Blogging can be an effective method of attracting new customers. Regardless of the focus of your business, whether fashion, beauty or tech, people interested in buying your product or service will be interested in learning valuable things about it. For instance, if you have a fashion brand, your blog section could include useful tips, new trends or the latest news in the industry. These all are relevant to your target audience.
Plus, not only will you attract new visitors to your website and social media account, but you will also retain your loyal customers, given you provide interesting and relevant information they find helpful.