Marketing has become a buzzword synonymous with the concept of selling products or services. But the truth is, successful marketing is much more than convincing someone to buy something – it’s a combination of art and credibility.
While you may not assume business and art culture to be within the same wheelhouse, you’d be surprised by the parallels between the two. Where they converge is on the cusp of brand identity.
Let us explain:
Marketing and art are about connecting with people; it’s about assessing their needs and desires, inspiring them to look at visions from different perspectives – and perhaps most importantly, it’s about creating expectations and delivering on promises.
This is where your brand comes in.
Building a successful brand that not only resonates with an audience but offers a unique product or service that is immediately recognizable is the goal. You want to stand out the same way a commercial jingle jumps into your brain the second you hear it!
“Like a good neighbour….”
“We are farmers…”
“The best part of waking up…”
You get the point.
Brand identity is how customers view a specific company, and it determines purchasing trends and customer loyalty. If you have a solid brand identity developed by implementing consistent marketing, your business could inspire new sales and a greater sense of customer dedication. Understanding the steps and strategies you can use to develop your brand's identity can help you decide which tips and tricks benefit your team the most.
In this post, your friends at REM Web Solutions are going to tell you everything you need to know to build a strong brand identity for your business.
1. Let’s Start with the Foundation
The foundation of anything is understanding what it is and why it's important.
Brand identity encompasses the stylistic elements of a brand, such as the colour, logo, and overall personality that distinguish your business in consumer's minds. A company's brand identity is what endears it to its customers and aims to create a certain level of brand recognition through visual, auditory, oral, or tactile associations.
Creating a brand that reaches people is a very personal task, even though you’re trying to reach a large audience. To do this, you need to understand the audience you’re trying to appeal to and assess how you plan to keep said audience in the long term. That brings us to our second step:
2. Distinguish Yourself Visually
Visual elements play a big part in distinguishing your brand identity and are generally the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a brand.
If you think of popular players like Pepsi, Amazon, and Apple – their logo likely pops straight into your mind with little to no effort.
You need to develop a distinct visual identity that aligns with your brand as well as your audience. This can include developing a unique logo, establishing a colour scheme, choosing typography – whatever is necessary to create something that sets you apart from your competitors and makes you easy to pick out of a crowd.
3. Establishing a Unique Voice
A brand voice is the personality that comes through your communications. A voice isn’t quite like being in character, more so, it’s the type of tone you want your audience to connect with. Whether it’s upbeat or informative, having a unique voice is what’s going to set you apart from your competitors.
Developing this voice comes with establishing how you want to sound and how you want people to respond, so be sure to spend some meaningful time thinking about it and implementing it.
A part of developing an authentic voice for your business is coming up with a slogan or tagline. You want to sum up your business's purpose in a sentence that communicates your core message and values. It can be snappy, witty, or even clever. You can use it in your branding and social media posting.
4. Engage Authentically
Part of having a good brand is being authentic. People can tell when you’re not being true to yourself, and this also goes for your brand.
If your audience can tell you don’t believe in your messaging, they won’t either. It’s one thing to have a good product or service; it’s another to believe in it and sell it to others.
Your audience should feel that whatever you're selling is something they would recommend to family and friends, so highlighting the things that make your product personal to the customer experience will help them engage with your brand more authentically and vice versa.
73% of customers will buy from a brand that they know and trust, so being authentic is essential to maintaining an optimized customer base, while 81% of consumers say brand trust is a deciding factor when making purchases.
5. Be Prepared to Adapt
It's important to keep in mind that while it's important to develop a brand identity, you can't allow it to remain completely static.
You have to be prepared to adapt to meet the needs and expectations of your audience and fill the gaps that come up along the way. You need to stay on top of market trends, keep informed about industry developments, and adapt your brand identity as needed. Every logo eventually needs a facelift, even if it's just an adjustment of sizing or colour.
This doesn't need to be a scary concept either; successful brands embrace the opportunity to innovate and incorporate new technologies or strategies that align with your values. This ongoing evolution makes sure that your brand continues to be relevant and resonates with your audience for the long term.
6. Measuring Your Brand's Success
It's essential to improve and keep track of the success of your brand identity, which requires you to evaluate how well it goes over with your target audience and aligns with your business's objective.
There are a few metrics you can reference, such as brand awareness, recognition, recall, loyalty, and equity, to assess how successful your brand is performing.
You can also seek out feedback from your customers, partners, employees, and industry leaders to see where your brand's strengths and weaknesses lie.
7. Safeguarding Brand Identity
You need to safeguard your brand identity from possible risks and threats that could go on to damage your brand image, values, and, most importantly – your reputation. Once your reputation is damaged, especially in the age of the internet, it can be very difficult to regain it.
Before you face a PR nightmare, you have to avoid threats such as trademark infringement, counterfeiting, social media mishaps, negative reviews, legal disputes, and issues of an ethical nature.
Therefore, you need to have a clear branding policy along with guidelines that specifically detail how your brand identity needs to be utilized and protected, along with a crisis management plan that outlines how you or your team should respond to any brand-related problems.
8. Remaining Consistent
While you need to adapt your brand as needed, you also need to have a certain level of consistency – especially in business, to establish credibility. That means your messaging should always match your core values, and so should everything else, from products, services, and customer service.
Suppose you want your business to be known for selling high-quality leather boots. In that case, you need to be sure that your branding reflects this and that you can deliver on your promises. If you’re not able to deliver on promises, you lose out on that consistency and subsequent credibility.
You now have the roadmap to make your brand identity unique that won't only resonate with your audience but also increase your business growth. By having a good understanding of your audience, defining your brand values, and creating a story that reaches others, you're going to have the key elements to creating a thriving brand and business. Remember that a strong brand identity is the foundation for success; it fosters loyalty and can propel you and your team to greater heights.
However, if you want a little help to develop your brand identity further, you can trust your friends at REM Web Solutions. Our business is marketing and making sure our clientele is successful, which is why our dedicated team of professionals creates content like this with you in mind. If you want to expand your business to new levels of success, you can check out our website and see the services we have available for you.
If you’re curious about some of the awesome businesses we’ve worked with, see our portfolio here.
