Branding your business is vital to the success of your company, whether it’s small or large-scale. Having a brand strategy gives you an advantage when competing with industry leaders in today’s increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does it mean?
In Matt Hanses‘ Entrepreneur article, You Don’t Create Your Company’s Brand — You Discover It, he goes over some of the basics about branding. Here are a few highlights.
What is branding?
The word “brand” came from the Old Norse word “brandr” meaning “to burn” – referring to the practice of burning marks (or brands) onto products.
Today, branding is nothing more than the set of impressions that lives in peoples heads. It is a promise you make to your customer. It lets them know what they can expect from your company and how you’re different. It’s the term for creating a recognizable business “personality” which people will remember and react to. It’s made up of your company’s culture/values, plans for where the company is headed, and how you want your brand personality to be perceived.
Discovering Your Brand
As Hanses puts it, “a brand isn’t something you dream up — it’s something you discover. Specifically, it’s something you have to discover about yourself.”
Are you the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? Corporate or personable? Spontaneous or strategic? Tradition or modern? Upscale or accessible to all? You can’t be all things to all people without becoming invisible, so your brand should be based (in part) around who your target customers want and need you to be.
But don’t get us wrong, branding isn’t something you can just make up — it has to be authentic. Sometimes, if you’re having a hard time figuring out your industry identity, it helps to consider 6 things:
1. Company Mission– Why does your organization exist? What is it there for? You have assets, employees, vendors, relationships, and internal systems… but why?
2. Company Values– What’s important to your company? What do you stand for? What are your standards of quality? Do you have environmental, social or ethical ideals?
3. Corporate Culture– What is your company’s style?
4. History of the Company– Who were your founders? What were their values? What were their goals? Why did they start the company in the first place?
5. Company Ambition– Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10? Where do you see the company going?
6. Consumer Opinion– What are their needs? What do they think about you?
Branding Your Business
Once you have your identity figured out, your fonts, design, and writing should all align with that message.
Your website, logo, packaging, and promotional materials work together to communicate exactly who you are to your target audience. Over time, your marketing efforts will look and sound like they’re coming from the same source, which is exactly how you get brand recognition.
One way the internet has opened up commerce is that people are more willing to take a chance on new brands they haven’t tried before. This is one reason why businesses need to put their brand out there so that it can be discovered.
With people searching for new businesses and brands to try, business owners need to make sure their brand’s information is highly accessible. Good ways to make your brand easily accessible is to optimize your website’s SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing. Here at Web Strategies, we can give you the tools you need to build a strong, recognizable, brand for your business. Let us know how we can help.
You don’t want to become just another leaf swirling in the wind — “Every brand is beautiful, every brand is inspiring.”
Images retrieved from Christine Kane and Modern Farmer.
