Building Your Brand [A Guide]
When you’re starting a small business or any entrepreneurial effort, one of the most under-utilized but most important tools in your long-term business arsenal is your Brand Guide. As you grow, this will keep your company on track, keep your employees focused, and will be a helpful resource for you to turn to if you ever get lost in the growth.
We have worked with many entrepreneurs who come to us to help with a product launch. Always, the first question out of my mouth is: “Can I have access to your Brand Guide?”
Often the response is: “My what?”
Your brand is the soul of your business — without a strong understanding of what your company is, you’ll never be able to grow.
Here are a few steps to creating a lasting brand guide for your growing business:
1. Focus on your Brand’s Voice
This is more than your company’s goals, this is your persona. It helps deliver what you stand for and how you want to be percieved in your respective market. It’s how you behave, how you interact with customers, colleagues, competitiors, and your internal employees.
It’s your vibe.
i. Respect Tone
In addition to your brand’s voice, you need to be focused on the tone of your brand’s voice. For example, when communicating you’re assertive, but not aggressive.
2. Establish your Business Personality
You can’t be all talk; you have to perform. Based on your voice and your actions, you form your brand’s personality. Do you take immediate action or do you wait and meticulously plan everything? Is your customer always right or is there room for conversation? Are you quick-witted or are you professional, or a mix of both? All of these are important questions to ask yourself when forming your brand’s personality. Just like an individual, a company’s personality can make or break the deal.
3. Stick to your Brand Identity
This is where your design comes into play. Your logo, your colors, your typefaces, etc. When designing this aspect of your brand guide, pick a primary logo and two secondary logos. Also, make it clear that no employee is to use any other logo — no old logos, no distorted logos, and no logos with any other colors. Your logo is the key element to your brand identity and it’s one of your company’s most valuable assets. Using it consistently is essential.
i. Pick a Color Palette
Pick your brand colors, and stick with them. I’ve seen many people lose traction by changing their colors. For example, if Starbucks changed from green to pink, you may think twice about buying that pink bag of coffee — could it potentially be a knock-off?
Once you have your color palette, pick your hierarchy. What’s your primary color, what your secondary, tertiary, and so on.
4. Evaluate Typefaces
Some may disagree with me, but I think this is the least important aspect of your brand. Other than your website, typefaces will change depending on your usage. While it’s a nice touch to have a preset typeface for cover letters, letterhead, emails, etc. (Soul Graphics does) it’s not necessary. That being said, it could be the extra oomph you need to wow certain potential clients.
In close, your branding guide is essential to your small business (or your personal branding project), and as you’ve learned it’s more than just your logo and a few colors — it’s the soul of your business. If you need any help brainstorming about your brand, reach out; we’d love to help.
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