What is a business without a brand? To put it simply, very little. Branding is a way to give your business a "face." It makes your business recognizable in a world where both successful and failing businesses are a dime-a-dozen.
According to Nielsen research, up to 59% of consumers prefer to buy new products from brands that they recognize. This is a huge slice of market share if you can create a standout brand for your business.
This blog outlines five foundational steps to building a brand online that will set you off on the right foot.
Building a Brand Online: How to Build a Solid Foundation
What exactly is branding, anyway? In short, a brand is defined by a customer's perception of your business and the services you offer.
Your brand is your reputation—and it's in your hands to bring this reputation to life through clever brand strategy. Here are five ways to build the foundation of a strong brand.
1. Hone in on Your Purpose
The world's most successful brands are driven by purpose, meaning, and action. Yours should be no different. In order to define the purpose of your brand, ask yourself these four important questions:
1. Why does this business exist?
2. What makes our business different?
3. What problem does our business solve?
4. Why should people care about what we offer?
These ideas should be used to build the basics of your brand. This includes the voice of your brand, color scheme, tagline, slogans, messaging, and more.
2. Always Research Your Competitors
It should never be your goal to copy exactly what your competitors are doing within your industry. However, you should be fully aware of what they are doing—in terms of both successes and failures. You can use this information as ammunition to build on your own brand.
Your ultimate goal should be to differentiate from your competition and convince your customers to choose your brand over theirs!
3. Create a Strong Logo and Tagline
When most people think of branding, they probably think about visuals, colors, and fonts first. Indeed, these are essential elements in building a strong, recognizable brand, but it's not everything!
When it comes to developing a strong logo and tagline you may need to hire creative expertise to help you with this. If you prefer to tackle this step in-house, check out these fonts for free to assist in your design process.
Your logo and tagline should appear on everything that relates to your business. This is what gives your business a "face," i.e. visual recognition.
4. Establish a Unique Brand Voice
Your branding voice refers to the mission of your company and is defined by your target audience and your industry. Ultimately, this is how you communicate with your customers. It also defines how they respond to your communication. Your brand voice needs to resonate with your customers in order to build recognition and trust.
A brand voice can be many things, such as friendly, professional, authoritative, conversational, personal, informative, etc. So find a tone that connects with your customers.
5. Define Your Brand Story and Messaging
This is where you tell your customers who are and how you can benefit their lives. It's important to tell this story succinctly and effectively—you only have a small window to capture attention in today's day and age.
Remember to communicate your brand story using the same brand voice you have chosen.
Make sure your messaging is always associated with your brand and translated consistently across all marketing platforms. Keep it simple and relevant to your industry.
Build a Better Brand Online
Building a brand online is not rocket science, but it takes research, effort, and, most importantly, consistency. We hope this blog has been helpful in starting you off on your branding journey.
