To create a brand, a truly great brand is one of the most powerful ways a business can differentiate it business, products or services from its competitors. Not only will a strong brand make customers sit up and take notice but it will allow your business to charge a premium over its competitor, build customer loyalty, drive sales and accelerate product differentiation in the market.
Your brand isn’t just an add-on to be considered as and when. It should be right at the centre of your business, affecting everything you do and simultaneously reflecting the sum of everything you do. It is, in essence, both the cause and effect of all your actions. A brand is not just a logo, it’s the collective emotional response to the logo and other elements.
Factors that are Crucial to Creating a Strong Brand
The process of branding is building that brand, all the way from designing the logo, doing research into the name, working through the attributes, doing the focus group work – branding is part of the business you are building. Much like a Method actor lives and breathes his or her character, so too should a business live and breathe its brand if it wants to convince customers. Creating a brand, like an individual personality, is based on a set of behaviours and characteristics – with the strength and consistency of these impacting on its effectiveness.
Coming up with a name and a logo at a minimum requires a huge amount of effort and research, the whole process of creating a brand is even more complex and time-consuming. So in order to help here’s a list of the things you should be aware of and consider when creating and building your brand.
Make Sure it Reflects Your Core Values
Everything you do, or what anyone working with you does, will reflect the brand. If you solve problems fast, save people money, do what you say you will listen to your customers, etc., all of this will be translated in their minds as what your business represents. When I work with any start-up, the last thing on my mind is building the brand. First, I want to know what they do differently and make sure that every form of communication and interaction with the outside world is consistent – tone, messages, look and feel of the website, fact sheets, logo, etc. This is a pain and can be tricky but does not cost a fortune to do and is, in essence, how you build your brand.
Ultimately if you wish your business to mean/represent one thing and the feedback you get from the outside world is different, you have what is termed ‘brand dissonance’. In plain terms, listen up and change what needs to be changed! The devil is in the detail here, but it’s a question of making sure everything you are working on is consistent and comes across in the way you want. The next issue is to get those around you to do likewise; another challenge for another day.
In essence, your brand represents both who you are as an individual and what your business is as an enterprise. To start with, there is no difference between the two, but as your business grows this will come to mean different things, which in turn presents other issues. But irrespective of what you think about branding, it is ultimately a measure of your success; do things well, and its valuation will grow and with it.
Identify and Elicit a Strong/Aligned Emotional Reaction
What feeling is your product or service going to give the consumer? What is the desire or need it will fulfil? It might be the desire for freedom, safety, confidence or success, or something completely different. Understanding your audience is key – their age, sex, ethnicity, income, education level and locale. What motivates them to buy? How do they think?
Once you’ve identified the purpose, define it as succinctly as you can as it will form the basis of your branding efforts. Consider this commonly used core purpose or mission: “We strive to meet or exceed expectations through exceptional service and a dedication to quality”. The problem with this is that it’s too ambiguous, it could belong to any number of businesses and so doesn’t differentiate the company from its competitors. It doesn’t tap into the hearts and minds of customers. So strive to identify exactly what does – and make sure it’s something inspiring, specific and believable.
From this, you will be able to define your values which set out how you get your customers to that ‘place’ you’re taking them in their minds. This is not about your own personal values, this is your company’s values which underpin the purpose you’ve defined. They should reflect the vision, culture, and goals of the company and clarify what you stand for and why you do business the way you do. Core values focus on the “why”, more than the “how”. Why are these qualities the key to success? Leave room for these values to develop into new and exciting interpretations of possibilities later down the line, allowing your company to adjust and adapt in a changing world.
Tthe more work you do in this area, the less you will need to spend on your branding and graphic design in the long run, as you’ll be able to approach your chosen branding or graphic design professionals with a clear outline of your core purpose and values. It costs you more in the long run if you don’t know what your brand is and can’t share it.
Create a Message that is Clear, Compelling and Consistent
Imagine you don’t know a thing about your company. Now tell yourself the key message you want customers to hear. Do you get a clear picture in your mind of the benefit to you as the customer? If not, why not? Have another look at your proposition and whittle it down to what distinguishes you. Is it price? Quality? Innovation? Or something else.
Use the ‘so what?’ Test to decide whether or not your USP is compelling. Read your USP to yourself. Does it warrant the response ‘so what?’ If so decide what you’re trying to say about the benefit you deliver and repeat the ‘so what?’ test until you have a truly compelling USP.
Once you’ve nailed it, be consistent, both in communication and in practice. You don’t have to be the best, just the most consistent. Few would argue that a Mr. Whippy is the best ice-cream in the world for example. But we know what it is, how it will look and taste and we can see at a glance which ice-cream vans stock it – and it’s been the same as long as we can remember. And these are the factors that sometimes make us want one, even though it’s not necessarily our most favourite ice-cream in the world! Consistency helps build trust and loyalty which are invaluable to your brand.
Additional Factors
- Understanding your customers – To create a brand that is successful requires you to understand the values of your target audience and focus your offering on these customers. Trying to be all things to all people will only dilute and confuse the strength and message of your brand.
- Effective brand positioning and brand promise – The brand positioning is how the brand is perceived in the context of competitive alternatives. Brand positioning needs to remain consistent throughout all your marketing efforts, or customers will become confused. The brand promise addresses customers’ expectations about a product or service. Examples of brand promises include Coke’s, “To inspire moments of optimism and uplift” and Google’s, “To provide access to the world’s information in one click”.
- Keeping your brand real – If you want people to buy into your brand, make it believable. Instead of claiming perfection, claim something more unique, justifiable and in keeping with your brand. Again, think of your company as a person. What kind of person goes around claiming perfection? More than likely someone you wouldn’t necessarily want to associate with or believe.
