How to Build your Brand Identity in 5 Steps.
With millions of companies trying to create a name for themselves, having a strong brand identity is vital for differentiating yourself from your competitors. If your information isn’t delivered engagingly and authentically, you will quickly lose your audience and get left behind.
Assess current situation-competition
Nowadays it’s so difficult to capture the attention of customers, digital markets are extremely crowded, and our businesses can be swallowed by more eye-catching identities. By having a strong brand identity, you can categorically know the difference between you and your competition and use this as the basis of your branding technique. Similarly, paying special attention to how your competitors display themselves will educate you on what branding styles work and which don’t. however, knowing what works can mean you easily fall into the trap of copying them. Instead, you must take this into account but make sure you have a twist to make your company be the one that sticks out in the industry.
You must also look at your target audience, what are their pain points? And, what does your product do to solve this? It is not possible to ever target everyone to your product, but targeting your product to a certain audience and learning what they want will create a brand that people love. How you want people to experience your brand is completely up to you as long as you keep aware of your current situation. Being flexible goes hand in hand with this, allowing yourself to evolve with the times will keep your customers happy and your company relevant, no matter how small the tweaks you make are.
Know your mission
Knowing your business and your ‘brand heart’ is vital for your brand identity. You must know exactly what your business stands for, customers are drawn to companies whose values match their own. This applied to your brand’s core principles, missions and goals. You can’t create a brand identity when you don’t know exactly what your business’s purpose is. Similarly, knowing the reasons your brand is great will allow you to make decisions and express your narrative to the world confidently.
Once you are aware of it, you can completely inject your vision into everything you do and put out. For example, your brand name, tag lines, and even the content you create. This will help you with social media platforms and blogs. In certain situations, it will allow you to update your website and audience faster, putting you at a great advantage all of the time.
Appearance
Your brand identity is essentially the whole look and feel of your company, and what ‘vibe’ it gives off. Creating a memorable brand requires the consistent use of the colour schemes, logos, typology, trademarks, taglines, and any other visual assets all have great importance as in turn, a strong identity will give you intangible value. These things must all reflect your core values, this will help you stand out and help to build your credibility.
Colour
- Creating a colour palette allows you to have variety and create unique designs for your business. It is vital to pick colours that reflect your brands ‘mood’ and ‘personality’, as this is what will influence your consumers’ perception of you. For example, black could come across as serious and sophisticated, and green may symbolise nature or money, but also trustworthiness. These are all things you should consider when picking a colour scheme.
Typology
In the same way that colour should reflect your brand values, so should your typology. Ask yourself how you want to come across. Will you use a traditional or modern font? Once you have a font you should consider using it consistently across all platforms. Don’t forget you are still a business, you shouldn’t keep things too casual or difficult to read.
Logo
The word ‘brand’ originated from the idea of marking cattle, but it has since evolved to mean more than just a symbol. The terms ‘brand’ and ‘logo’ are used interchangeably. Despite this, the logo is not the entirety of a brand, but it is still a crucial aspect of a strong brand identity. It is the most recognisable part of a brand, being on everything you put out, for example, business cards, social media, and advertisements. You must be sure your logo captures the essence of your brand and is a strong design featured in the same way over all your platforms, to present that unified look.
Personality
Another important part of your brand identity is how you directly come across to your consumers. Your brand ‘personality’ must be directly infused into your social media presence and content messaging. Your online presence especially acts like a spotlight, so you want to come across as engaging and authentic as possible, and personify your brand. Humans connect with storytelling, our brain is naturally wired to try and relate to stories, especially emotional ones. A great brand experience is one that people can relate to, this could be the staff, values or even your unique background. Social media is an important way to directly get your story across and create a relationship with consumers. It also allows for users to comment and get directly involved.
Authenticity is very important to consumers; research shows 86% of people consider how authentic a brand is before they support it. The language you use can show how genuine a brand is. For example, if you are a high-end brand, you should use professional language but if you’re a more laid-back brand, use a conversational tone. You could come across as polite, or cheeky, even using the first-person plural helps to make you sound like a team, rather than just a business. Researching something as small as the language you will use will make you appear more transparent and allow consumers to trust you and believe they’ve made the correct choice. Research has found that 66% of consumers have said that a company’s level of transparency is what attracts them to a brand, as it makes them feel more at ease.
Consistency across platforms
Maintaining consistency is vital, it directly influences how a consumer perceives you. A brand that establishes its identity consistently over time will develop trust and credibility among its competitors, and this is what will give you that edge over your competition. It can make or break your brand identity. Giving your consumers mixed messages will mean they can’t predict what’s coming next, something that humans don’t appreciate.