5 Steps to Building a Strong Brand Identity
We live in the era of choices, and to an extent, we enjoy that privilege. We can now buy local, imported, organic, non-organic, packaged, prepared, raw, long-lasting, temporary, stunning, mediocre, and everything in between. However, from a business and marketing perspective in particular, store shelves are getting more crowded by the minute, with new brands trying to make a name for themselves and lose the anonymity that comes with the territory. What we have observed both as customers and business owners is that well-established brands are the ones that remain prominent no matter how many newbies join the ranks.
Why? Because we are creatures of habit and emotion. We spend 43% more money on brands we’re loyal to, and that loyalty comes from years of amazing experiences, great customer support, and innovation, among many other things. What this means for new brands whose identities have yet to be carved is that you need that edge only proper branding can give in order to stand the test of time. Here are the five key steps to achieve just that, and avoid staying anonymous on another crowded shelf.
Define your values, mission, and vision
True customer loyalty is centered on emotion. When a customer forms an emotional bond with the brand they love, admire, and trust, there is no poaching campaign in the world that can persuade them to switch sides. Once you have created this loyal bond, you can rest assured that your recurring business rate is going to skyrocket.
To achieve this, however, you will need to offer something meaningful to your existing and prospective customers. Concretely, you will need to think beyond your products or services and instead focus on building a compelling brand identity people are going to fall in love with. You need to stand for something meaningful. With that in mind, define a set of values you can weave into your mission and vision statements, and disseminate those messages and stories through content, visuals, and your entire marketing strategy.
Design a sterling visual presence
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but how many people actually follow this idealistic mantra? It’s a noble thought, but the reality of the modern consumer world is that people are highly visual creatures, and they will judge your brand on its aesthetic appeal as much as its storytelling, values, and tone of voice. This means that when it comes to web design, there can be no room for mistake.
Your brand colors and visuals need to align themselves perfectly to your brand’s unique identity and personality in order to enhance the consumer’s experience, capture the attention of the public, and stand out from the crowd in the competitive industry. Choose a clean, decluttered look that emphasizes user experience and complement it with unique colors, pictograms, and imagery.
Empower your brand with marketing
If branding is the way to your company’s unique identity and a way to connect with your demographic in a meaningful way, then marketing is the way to spread the word of your brand throughout the online and offline worlds. After all, what good is an amazing brand personality if there’s no one to experience it? If you want to unlock your brand’s true potential in the competitive industry, then you need to take advantage of effective marketing tactics.
Concretely, your comprehensive marketing strategy should include everything from social media management and influencer marketing, through content creation and meticulous SEO implementation, all the way to email marketing and search engine marketing. Once you have disseminated your brand through these online channels, you can focus on growing your local reputation with marketing collateral, press kits, and other supplementary offline tactics.
Take your audience into account
Of course, you can’t expect to simply bombard your audience with ads and social media posts and hope for the best — you need to have a viable plan based on actionable data and insights. In other words, you need to tend to thorough market research if you are going to tailor the right messages and ads to appeal to your demographic, and more importantly, address their exact needs.
This also requires of you to delve into enemy territory, and spy on your competitors a bit in order to discover their true strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to innovate and improve on their success, but also discover any pain points you can take advantage of.
Ensure cross-channel consistency
Finally, keep in mind that the long-term reputation of your brand rests on your ability to ensure consistency across all communication channels. Translated, this means that you need to disseminate your content and messages across all relevant channels in the online world.
These include emailing regularly to your subscribers, posting daily on all social media feeds, updating your blog page, engaging with your audience in meaningful conversation, and posting your content on other authority sites. Before long, this type of consistency will improve brand awareness and traffic to your website while at the same time improving your engagement metrics across the board.
Final thoughts
Success in the modern business world depends on a company’s ability to create and spread the word of its amazing brand. Use these essential building blocks to craft a compelling identity and disseminate it across the online and offline worlds in order to become the leading company in your industry.
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