There’s a common misconception among many business owners that effective branding is as simple as designing a logo, having a website and making a few social posts. Actually, the process of building a brand is considerably more complex and involved, requiring careful planning and discipline across your entire business.
What is branding?
In simple terms, branding is the perception and impression people have of your business. This can encompass everything from your website to the style of your advertising or even things as simple as how you answer the phone. Effective branding runs through an entire company, from the shop front to the board room and everything in between.
As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, so succinctly puts it: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Building a brand is not an overnight process – in truth, it can take many years to hone your message and build a ‘personality’ for your firm. However, if you do it right, the benefits can be substantial. Branding should filter through all areas of your firm, including:
- A consistent message and approach in your sales and customer service
- A measured and consistent style to all your content publishing
- Consistency across your website, online promotion, social channels and branded email communications
- Paying attention to your firm’s environment i.e. office accommodation or shop front
- Establishing internal branding (often forgotten but it’s equally important to make sure your staff members are aware of your overall message)
- Deciding on a style for printed materials – letterheads, packaging, signage, etc
- Having a consistent style and feel in promotional goods like t-shirts, staff uniforms, free giveaways, etc like those supplied by Anthem Branding.
How to improve your firm’s branding
As mentioned, effective branding takes time and there’s no one-size-fits-all, quick solution to building or improving your company’s brand. Most industry experts suggest effective branding requires three specific phases as outlined below:
Brand strategy: Having a clear strategy for how you’re going to build or improve your company image is an absolute must if you’re to have any level of success. Brand strategy should encompass researching your target audience and competitors, establishing a brand ‘voice’, working out your branding message/story and deciding on your marketing and sales channels to aid brand discovery.
Brand identity: For beginners, brand identity is perhaps the clearest aspect of the branding process to understand. A strong company identity should be immediately recognizable and consistent across all media (for a great example, think about how strong Apple’s branding is). Within the brand identity phase, you should decide on a logo and choose design, color and font elements that will be carried through your website, all published content, advertising, packaging and print materials (letterheads, business cards, etc). Brand identity is the first association most people will make with your firm so you should spend considerable time on this part of the process.
Brand marketing: Or, in other words, how you’re going to promote your message and raise awareness of your products and services. It’s at this stage that you bring a voice and personality to your firm by using a mix of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and online marketing, the User Experience (UX) of your website and associated online tools, social media profiling/advertising/marketing, email marketing strategies and other off- or on-line advertising you might to commission.
