How identity guidelines impact everything else

Branding, especially in the tech industry, is an underutilized tool. Many people overlook the role of the brand in top-level companies’ success. People think some brands are cool because they provide a fantastic service, not because there’s a lot of marketing effort. Let me show you they are wrong.

Let’s start with what brand and brand guidelines are

A brand is a set of emotional associations with a service or product. We all know that the iPhone could have been twice as cheap, but people love overpaying for the emotions they receive. Nike doesn’t just make sportswear. By buying sneakers, people buy motivation and a strong belief in themselves.

A brand guideline outlines everything that can be defined as a brand. There is no perfect recipe, but I recommend starting with a vision, mission, inspiration, values, tone of voice, key messages, and target personas. Once you have defined these elements, you can move on to the visual components.

The Rule of 7: why you need brand guidelines

Every marketer should know about the magic Rule of 7, but I’ll explain it. It says that a prospect needs to hear the advertiser’s message at least seven times before deciding to buy it. Your audience won’t recognize you if you are shown them differently each time. That is why it is so important not only to have guidelines but also to follow them.

Want some real examples? Here we go.

Slack. These guys know their audience and do not hesitate to use that knowledge to build brand campaigns to help people recognize them. Even when the price rises, the companies don’t look for alternatives to switch. This is how Slack won its market category.

Some of their rivals also try to play on Slack’s brand using controversial slogans such as “Stop slacking, start rocking.” Shout out to Rock for trying.

Next Tech Girls. From the beginning, we worked with a defined audience of girls aged 15–17 finishing school. While creating the brand strategy, we derived a crucial component of converting a potential user — a role model. For these girls, it was important to see the example of other successful women who work in the tech industry. This role model is an essential part of the brand guideline.

Three mindsets that may hurt your branding

My audience is 16 to 60 year-olds

As long as you try to target everyone, you’ll target no one. If your audience is broad, divide it into 2–3 clusters. This way, you will have a better chance of creating messages that will hit the target.

I want to be just like my competitor

I know you want it. But your competitor has its own history, goals, and strategy. You can’t just put on someone’s clothes and say you are that person. Once again: a brand is about emotions.

I’m not ready to try something new

Brands that don’t look like others stand out. If you grew up in 90s America, you have probably seen the iconic ‘Got Milk?’ ad campaign.

With the help of advertising, the California Milk Processor Board convinced the whole of America that drinking milk was not just healthy but cool.

It was a rebranding not just of one brand but of the product itself, making ‘Got milk? the greatest ad campaigns of all time. So don’t be afraid to go beyond the scope.

Branding affects your bottom line, and I’ll prove it to you

On the one hand, the branding isn’t measurable. On the other hand, the results it brings to you are very noticeable. Business can be divided into three periods: pre-acquisition, acquisition, and post-purchases. The brand helps generate revenue at every stage.

How does it work?

There are two marketing elements: performance marketing and brand marketing.

Performance marketing is a set of actions focused on obtaining results right here, right now. It’s all about traffic, channels, and leads. Brand marketing is about reputation, people’s opinions, and the message itself.

Let’s go practical.

For example, we have just launched a company. The first thing we do is try to tell someone about our business on our own. We take the path of least resistance and run Google Ads. Here, performance marketing is about paying money for advertising, but what is written in this advertising is branding. Your brand defines what you say and how you say it.

Find out where you are now with your brand identity

Ask your users what they think. Offer them to describe your brand using adjectives. If one says energetic, the other says calm — Houston, we have a problem.

Check if your brand works for you

A brand is a long-term story. Therefore, it is worth looking at the more irrelevant result on a year-by-year basis. Invest in a brand for one year and wait another year before returning to investing. Now you can compare the results. Note that one year may cost you a lot.

If you want a fast result, run a test ad with three different banners with the brand’s presence at 20%, 50%, and 90%. See which one performs better.

Don’t skip: 3 steps to build your brand

1. There is no B2B or B2C in the brand. It’s always P2P — people to people. People have emotions, feelings, and visions. Understand who your people are, communicate with them, create your persona for them, and check if this persona works.

2. Implement brand guidelines and make all people understand them on top of their brains. Make the team, and all contractors know these things. Their actions affect whether the brand works or not.

At Qream, we decided to provide a highly personalized experience. Every one of our sales managers makes a custom presentation for each client. We also send customized postcards to them. Once again: a brand is all about emotions.

3. Don’t just focus on the numbers. Paying attention only to ROI, CPC, and other metrics, you can forget how your clients feel and what they think.

Takeaways

The most important investment is the investment in your brand. This is the reason why you can bid the price twice as much.

You can postpone the idea of branding and launch the product as it is. However, your audience will grow over time, making you want to level up.

My advice. It is better to dress your brand and understand who you are immediately. Then, all efforts will work together to achieve one clear result and build the reputation you want to have.