Whether you are creating a brand for the first time or rebranding, there is a lot to consider in the image you are trying to construct for your audience. Business owners often feel overwhelmed at the prospect of establishing a brand. Many don’t know where to begin. Today, let’s look at the building blocks. The questions to answer – and the order to answer them in – that will help you create a brand for your business.
This list of things to consider – while approached from a general standpoint – is a good place to begin. You may find that you need to add elements specific for your business and industry. Building your brand may require other details, content, approval processes, etc. If you start with this list, you can then add those layers.
So, when developing a brand, where should you start? What building blocks should you gather?
- Mission – First, be clear about what you do. Although usually it is nonprofits that use the term “mission,” the concept is relevant for all businesses. The clearer you are about the purpose of your business, the easier it will be to align all the elements of your brand to that purpose.
- Target Market(s) – Who do you serve? Who are your customers or clients? Most businesses have more than one target market they can serve, so start listing out who you want to reach. Some marketing experts recommend choosing a niche. I recommend choosing more than one niche, if you can. Read here for more on this.
- Brand statement – For each target market, write a brand statement of exactly what you do for them and how you help those people. Resist the temptation to write the same benefits over and over. Separating your target markets during this process allows you to think in a more specific way about how they would describe their pain points and the way they would word the solution they are looking for. Use a format such as “For (name the target market) who want/need (whatever they are lacking), my company provides (what type of products/services do you offer?) that helps them by (how does it address their pain point?) so they can (what does addressing their pain point allow them to do?). Your brand statements will be long, run-on sentences, but that is okay. This is an internal marketing exercise to help you establish language you can use later.
- Business Name – A lot of people start with the business name first, but wouldn’t it make sense to make sure you are clear about what you do and who you are trying to attract before you do that step?
- Tagline – If your business name makes it obvious what you do, you might not need this. If someone wouldn’t know what you do by seeing or hearing your business name, you might want to create a short, pithy tagline that captures that clearly. Your marketing materials or logo can use a tagline in conjunction with the business name.
- Values and Tone – I would think through these at the same time. What does your business stand for? What are the principles you adhere to when you do business? And how do you want your customers to feel when they hear from you?
- Color – Colors have meaning for your customers. Look up color charts to see which colors say what you are trying to say to your audience. Just because a color is your favorite color does not mean that it sends the message to your audience that you want to send. For a guideline for US-specific color meanings, read here.
- Logo – Whether you are engaging a graphic designer or creating your own logo, you need your logo to effectively convey all the elements you have decided on to this point. Notice how far down my list logo development is. Notice how many things come before it. If you have answered these other questions first, it will be much easier for the logo you choose to be in alignment with all of your objectives!
- Font – Font choice is often established during logo development. It is worth thinking about what fonts you will use in different types of marketing and communication tools.
- Messaging – Are there any tent poles of your messaging that you want to establish up front? Specific language that you want to come up in all of your marketing (or marketing to specific target markets)? Are there specific ways you want to make calls to action? This might be a chance to revisit your brand statement for ideas.
- Creating templates – Are there any tools you use repeatedly and want to have a design ready up front? Maybe you plan to create a lot of flyers, social media posts, newsletters, brochures, signage, etc. Whatever you envision will be used, create the templates now, incorporating your logo and any other look elements that you want to be consistent.
- Launch strategy – As you work on finalizing the elements of your brand, you will need to release it into the world. It is best to start by teasing upcoming launches to your audience as early as possible before an official launch date. Although this is the last item on this list, you might begin drafting your launch strategy earlier in the process.
If you have multiple people on your team, you will likely want to include a step of confirming who will be part of the approval process, and then add steps throughout for gathering feedback and approvals on the various elements. If you have key stakeholders that you want to be able to provide feedback along the way, you can do the same. The bigger your company, the more vital communication and buy-in are going to be and the more concrete a process you should create for it.
Again, you may see a need for adding steps to the process for your business, such as whether you want create some sort of tracker to set action items and track progress. Thinking through the steps of building your brand first will allow you to go through them far more efficiently and smoothly!
Thinking through the steps of building your brand first will allow you to go through them far more efficiently and smoothly! #brand #marketing #business #smallbusiness #smallbiz #biztips
Click To Tweet
Though this may feel like a great deal to do, hopefully this list makes it easier to decide what steps you need to tackle!
The post The Building Blocks of a Brand appeared first on Melissa Forziat.