Branding 101: How to Start from Scratch

Brands are very similar to an architectural structure. Stand back and see what it looks as a whole – underwhelming or overpowering, big or small. Zoom in a little and you’ll notice the individual bricks that make up the structure – color scheme, logo design, positioning, tagline, personality, etc. And, like an architectural structure, if your brand cannot stand the tremors of the modern, ever-evolving society, it will crumble.     

Branding comes with heavy responsibilities: building the brand’s credibility, emotionally connecting prospects with products and services you offer, winning a loyal customer base, and the list goes on. However, when it comes to creating a strong, successful brand, that too from scratch, your job becomes more laborious.

Here are some things you need to take care of when launching your own brand:

1.  Know Your Audience

Let’s get this straight: no matter how good your intentions be, your business simply can’t be special to everyone. So, start off with finding your target demographics and then basing your brand identity upon the needs, preferences, concerns and lifestyle of your target audience. Just as children’s books and experimental novels are not written the same way, your messaging and imagery has to be unique to the demographic you are targeting. If you try to target everyone, your efforts will remain futile. In other words, you may spread your net wider but will end up being less relevant to any individual within that group.

Therefore, you need to find your niche and focus on it; try to be as specific as possible. Evaluate the market need of what you’re selling, so you don’t end up selling a product people wouldn’t buy – unlike 42% of businesses. Also, sketch out exactly the kind of person that would exploit your product or service most. Are your target audience millennials? Or are they people who are lactose intolerant? Or maybe single, working moms looking for a daycare?      

You might be tempted to skip this process, but if your targeting is generic, your brand will also be generic down the road.  

 

2.  Identify Your Competitors and Study their Brand

The secret to competitive marketing is not just your product. It is how you position your brand personality in relation to everyone else.  

But for that, you need to first identify your competitors. You may research your direct competitors online, or you might even consider consulting your own network to ask which other companies the customers consider using before coming to you. Going through websites where people interact to solve problems like Reddit and Quora might also help.    

A lot of businesses ignore their indirect competitors, but if you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to know how other companies are fulfilling the same need for your customers with a different product or service. Evaluate your competitors’ brands and study the already established entries to get an idea about marketing in your industry.

Feel free to discover what makes one brand different from the other, but don’t copy another brand. Rather, uncover the inspiration behind the choices and use them for the next step. For instance, if you’re a female motivational speaker in Atlanta GA, you need to figure out your niche of expertise to brand yourself as a professional speaker and to meet the audience’s expectations.    

 

3. Create a Mission Statement

Crafting a mission statement that your customers will laud is an art and one of the most important steps of brand building. It is also a great way to succinctly summarize your brand’s purpose. Your mission statement is a guiding compass that gives your employees a clear vision and inspiration, so they don’t lose sight of the common goal they need to be working towards. For instance, Bird of Paradise Resort – a brand that provides linen clothing for women – is on a mission to use only eco-friendly materials to create modern, feminine pieces.

Here’s a friendly tip: list down your business’s core strengths and write a mission statement that resonates with your audience and adheres to your values.         

 

4. Forge a Visual Identity

When it comes to creating your brand’s individual identity, you need to creatively choose colors, fonts, logo and other stylistic elements. Since your logo design is the face of your business and it is what distinguishes you in a sea of brands, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Also, smartly play with colors as they are proven to have a psychological impact on consumers, which is why majority of eateries use red to trigger hunger. Your visual assets need to communicate your branding accurately.

These graphic elements, however, are only one a small part of branding; the other important elements shouldn’t be ignored either.    

 

5.  Consistency is Key

Once you’ve established your brand’s personality and visual identity, it is time to ensure you remain consistent with them. Failing to do so will make your branding inconsistent, which ultimately will damage your brand identity.

Millions of brand managers face such deplorable situations every day and watch their meticulously crafted brands fall apart. In a nutshell, your company values should be reflected in your product, your product’s packaging, your corporate culture, etc. So, make sure you project consistency across all of your digital and real-world platforms because inconsistent branding makes your brand look unreliable and unstable to a customer. You’ll notice, with the passage of time, your brand will increase the authority, visibility and retention potential of your company.