Building a brand from start to finish is a difficult task full of challenges and doubts and this process takes time, money, and lots of research.But not only this is important but a great business idea or innovative product means nothing if you can’t communicate it to the world specifically in a way that your target audience can relate to.
Also a strong brand image is the most practical step to cultivating the reputation you want with your audience. Brand building is a big job but it could be fun and great to learn in the process. At the end of the day your brand image in the minds of your customers, competitors, and the market all comes down to brand positioning and the aesthetic choices you make.
But remember your brand identity is more than a logo. It involves everything from your unique brand personality to your mission statement to the consistent color palette you use across every channel.
In this article we will give you some tips on how to build your brand from scratch and create a memorable brand identity that resonates with your target audience.
Also we will give you some tips on how to communicate with your target audience and position yourself in the market.
What is a brand?
A brand defines a business, product, service, person, or concept in the market. It differentiates your business in the market from others in the same industry. Branding is the process of establishing a brand how it looks, what it sounds like, and the defined target audience it hopes to reach.
As we already said earlier a brand is more than a logo, or color palette. To build a successful brand, there’s plenty of work that needs to be done before you can start designing a website or creating marketing materials.
Here are some important bullet points you might have in mind before creating a brand image.
Target audience
Defining your target audience is one of the most important stages of creating a brand from the very start. Everything stems from this. Defining your audience in detail helps you build a brand that speaks directly to it.
A simple way to identify your audience is to create buyer personas. A buyer persona is an “imaginary” profile of the person that you want to sell to. It should include basics such as age, location, and income as well as more in-depth information like political views, product use cases, and any related brands they buy from. Basically create a profile of what is going to be your ideal customer, their habits, what products from other brands they might use, what necessities they need on a daily basis.
Of course this is only at the beginning to help you give baby steps in terms of communication with your customer but you’ll naturally learn about your audience over time as you develop the brand and make more sales.
Brand identity
Your brand identity involves your business name and the visual elements that define your brand, from your logo and colors to the aesthetic of your photography and your social media handles. Brand identity also includes your brand’s story and competitive advantage. Influencers and collaboration are the extended version of your brand that is why it is important to choose profiles that meet your brand mission, vision of your brand.
Brand voice
Brand voice is how your brand sounds. Defining this ensures brand consistency across every customer. If your customers expect a cheeky, frank tone from you on social media, carry that through into your website copy and other communications. This may vary depending on your target audience, your industry and your product. Of course depending on your target audience the tone must change. You shouldn´t communicate in the same way if your target audience are young people or mums. The tone, message, slogan or caption on social media have to vary to adapt to your audience.
Mission and values
Your brand’s mission is the North Star for your business. It establishes both a goal for yourself and a promise to your customers. Your values are what your brand stands for (e.g: you have a cruelty free makeup brand) Both are important as you build your brand because they keep your decisions in check. Whatever you do as a brand should always stay true to your mission and values. You also can use this mission and values to communicate with your audience to find possible future customers that might be aligned with your brand.
Style guide
Your brand style guide is one part of your larger brand guidelines. It spells out exactly how your brand will surface on every platform or channel. It covers acceptable use of your logo, fonts you use, brand voice and tone, and overall aesthetic of your brand. It’s a useful guide as you scale, hire, and use agencies to create work on your behalf.
Choose your business name
Your company’s name is probably one of the first big commitments you’ll make as a business owner. Ideally, you want a brand name that isn’t being used by another company (especially in your industry), has available social media handles, and is a fit based on your brand or products. It should be easy to remember, hard to imitate and easy to translate in many languages.
Some ideas in how you can create the perfect name for your brand:
- Make up a brand new word (e.g: Tiktok).
- Reframe a word unrelated to your industry or product (e.g: Apple for computers).
- Describe it literally (e.g: Shell).
- Alter a word by changing its spelling, removing letters, adding letters, or using Latin endings (e.g: Tumblr or Nike).
- Create an acronym from a longer name (e.g., GTA for Grand Theft Auto).
- Use a portmanteau: Pinterest (pin + interest)
- Use your own name (e.g., Donna Karan or DKNY)
Also read: Apps that will help you with your profile
How to build a brand on social media?
To build a brand on social media, start by selecting the right platform that aligns with your target audience. Different platforms attract diverse demographics and respond differently to content. You have to search where your target audience is more active on Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. Also consider collaborating with micro influencers is an effective way to reach in a faster way your target audience and reach them out.
Establish clear objectives
Is super important to set up measurable goals. When brainstorming goals for your social media marketing strategy, consider setting SMART objectives.
Save time
A solid social media marketing strategy and schedule can save your team a lot of time. Since you’ve already taken the time to make sure you know the type of content you’ll post on your social media channels, you won’t have second thoughts when it’s time to make the next post.
Maintain a consistent tone
All social media content you post should reflect your brand’s tone and values. With a social media marketing strategy, you can clearly define your brand’s personality, values and mission, which makes it much easier to maintain consistency across all channels.
Measuring results
Every social media marketing strategy should establish a set of objectives, as well as the KPIs that will be used to evaluate progress toward meeting those objectives.
Also read: how to appear in “for you” on tik tok
