Branding is not a one day process. It is a hard and deep effort of the whole team to make a business a successful brand, but following the right order and steps can reduce your efforts and time.Proper branding will lead your business to make a strong position in the market.
Branding is not an hour job, you must have to think a lot and choose wisely. There are some key steps through which you can make branding easy and less time taking.
1. Know Your Customers
Before starting branding, you have to know who your customers are. and what is your targeted market? So that you can target their pain points. Also, you should identify the demographic, economic, geographic, and psychographic factors of your targeted audience.
- Demographic factors: Age, Gender, Religion, Education, Marital status, etc.
- Economic Factors: Income, expenses, occupation, resident
- Geographic Factors: Geographical location
- Psychographic Factors: Personality type of customers. ( Compliance, competitive, detached, etc.
2. Know Your Competitors
It’s not enough to know your customers. A business should also know you are its competitor in the market. If you have not done detailed research on it, you will not be able to compete with them.
You can do excellent branding of your business if you have an idea about your competitors.
- You should know who your competitors are.
- what they are offering.
- How are they competing
- What’s their model
- What’s their competitive advantage?
3. Competitive Advantage
After identifying your competitors you should also identify what’s your competitive advantage. Competitive advantage means what special you are offering to your customers that your competitors are not offering.
It is also important to identify and convey your competitive advantage to the audience by branding your business and presenting it in your advertisements. You should know
- What’s your competitive advantage?
- What made you different from your competitors
- Do your customers want what special you are offering?
4. Brand Strategy
For branding, it is necessary to develop a brand strategy in which you have to mention your mission and vision. It will help your customers and your employees to understand your company’s core values and business strategies.
Mission statement:
It is a 100-150 word statement in which we mention the purpose of our business. Basically, we describe what our business is doing. An ideal mission statement consists of nine components.
- Customers: Who are your customers?
- Products & Services: What are the firm’s basic products/ services?
- Markets: Geographically where does the firm operate and competes?
- Technology: Is the business technology current?
- Concern For Survival, Prof, it, And Growth: Is your business committed to growth and financial soundness?
- Philosophy: What are the basic beliefs, ethical priorities, and values of the firm?
- Self-Concept: What’s the firm competitive advantage?
- Concern For Public Image: Is the firm responsive to social and environmental concerns?
- Concern For Employees: Are employees valuable assets for the firm?
Vision Statement:
The vision statement is a statement in which we mention that, in the future where we want to see our business. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric said “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion”.
While writing your vision statement keep the following things in mind.
- The vision statement should reflect at least future goals of 5-8 years.
- Should describe the outcomes of current performance and future goals.
- A vision statement should reflect your aims not just for customers but for all stakeholders.
- The vision statement also reflects your core ideology.
5. Brand Identity
A brand identity is the combination of the brand story, brand voice, brand logo, brand colour and brand image. This part consists of 70% of the branding process therefore it is important to understand all these things and apply them in the right way.
Brand Story:
This is the most influencing factor, which startups avoid during branding. Your brand story is the tool that can relate to your audience and your business. Come Up with a brand story in which you have to mention which factors motivate you to start your business.
How did you start your business? And how your business is serv. the society? Try to include something emotional to which the audience can relate to themselves.
Brand Voice:
The Brand voice is the basic characteristic that you are claiming in your business. I-e; reliability, honesty, convenience, warmth, growth, love, affordability, etc. The easiest way for writing a brand voice is to recall your brand story and note down all the keywords which come to your mind while thinking about your story.
- The brand voice of Dawlance is reliability.
- The brand voice of Express is affordability.
- Choose a Maximum of three brand voices and stick with them.
Brand Name:
The brand name is the core identity of any business. A good brand name will help your customers to remember your business and it will attract an audience. While designing your brand name keep the following things in mind.
- Your brand name should be simple and precise.
- Easy to remember and pronounce.
- Your brand name should be relatable to the audience.
- There should be room for expansion.
- Your Brand name should reflect your business purpose.
- Startups don’t need to use a unique brand name.
Brand Logo:
The logo represents the overall brand. You may recognize the logo of Pepsi without even reading the brand name. While deciding your logo keep in mind which type of logo is suitable for what kind of business.
- Later form logo ( i-e Junaid Jamshed, McDonald, etc.)
- Combination logo ( i-e; Dove, Lays, etc)
- Pictorial logo (i.e.; Apple, shell, etc.
- Letter mark logo ( i-e; MTJ,CATD,HP,etc).
- Wordmark logo (i.e.; coca cola, Google, etc).
- Abstract logo (i.e.; Pepsi, Nike, Khaadi, etc).
- Mascot logo (i.e.; KFC, pingles, ding-dong, etc).
- Emblem logo (i.e.; Yale, Starbucks, etc).
Brand Colour:
You have noticed that each brand follows a specific colour in branding. What does it mean? Why is Fanta using orange colour and coke using red colour? How do different colours affect your brand image and your customers?
- Red colour ( depicts love, Energy, and youth).
- Blue colour ( Depicts pureness, trust, efficiency, and coolness).
- Green colour ( Depicts nature, cleanness, and freshness).
- Orange colour ( Depicts fun, adventure, and entertainment).
- Yellow colour ( Depicts Depicts joy, warmness, and energy).
- Pink colour ( Depicts Care, women-oriented, comfort).
- Black colour ( Depicts luxury, deepness, and strength).
- Purple colour ( Depicts innovation, creativity, and wealth).
- White colour ( Depicts trust, honesty, and nobility).
Brand Image:
Brand image is the process of positioning your business in the customer’s mind. If I say Samsung, apple, infinix, or Nokia, The different images of these brands will come to your mind although all of them all mobile companies but why does your perception change from brand to brand? This is because of brand positioning.
You can simply create your brand image by consistently following your brand voice and using it in your advertisements. If customers find that you are offering what you have claimed in your brand voice, they will automatically have a positive image of your brand.
Proper branding will lead your business to make a strong position in the market. The purpose of this blog was to give a brief guide about branding and its significance in this era but branding is not an hour job, you must have to think a lot and choose wisely.
Your logo, fonts, colour, voice, and story should reflect and be related to your brand image. Therefore, branding is one of the most important factors in creating a strong image of your brand in customers’ minds.
We aim to provide you with exceptional branding and marketing services. So, If you are looking for fantastic branding services for your business contact us at contact@wervivid.com for assistance. Thank you for considering us. We will love to work with you.
