Company Branding 101: How to Evoke An Image For Customers

Did you know that 81% of consumers say trust is necessary for them to purchase from a brand? With more and more companies popping up every day in the digital sphere, gaining the trust of customers is becoming increasingly more important.

How can you accomplish this, though? Having authentic, compelling, and consistent company branding is one of the most important steps you can take towards this goal.

Are you wondering how to create a brand identity and image that supports your business and appeals to your customers?

Let's take a look at what you need to know.

The First Step in Company Branding: Discover Your Purpose

As a business owner, you decided to bring something valuable to your customers. However, you maybe haven't ever articulated exactly what your purpose is as a brand. Before you go any further into your business advertising plan, you'll want to ask yourself these questions:

• For what purpose does your brand exist?
• What differentiates your brand from the competition?
• What unique problem does your brand solve?
• Why should people care?

These ideas are going to help you build the foundation of your branding.

(Are you curious about design thinking? Check out our beginner's guide here.)

Research Your Competitors

You aren't going to copy your competitors, but you should know what they're up to. That way, you can differentiate yourself from them in a compelling way.

Identify Your Target Audience

The next step is to identify your target audience. These are the specific demographics of people to who you will be speaking to using your branding. Without a clear sense of your audience, your business marketing efforts will likely fail.

Establish Your Brand Mission and Vision

Now it's time to create a clear expression of what it is that your brand is most passionate about. You will create both a mission statement that looks at the present in addition to a vision statement that looks down the road at the future.

Outline The Benefits and Qualities Offered By Your Brand

There's a good chance you have competitors that have more resources and bigger budgets. Don't let that dissuade you, though. By digging deep and figuring out what exactly you have to offer that no one else is, you can build a loyal following of brand advocates.

This is an outline of the value that you provide consumers with. This might be that you help them save time on daily tasks, that you offer more transparent and authentic customer service, or that you help them to reduce costs by offering an option that is more affordable than your competitors.

Create Your Unique Voice

Once you have your audience and mission determined, it's time to find your unique brand voice. Your brand voice is also determined to some extent by your industry.

Your brand voice is how you communicate with your audience. There are countless different brand voice styles. Your voice might be:

• Authoritative
• Friendly
• Professional
• Technical
• Conversational
• Promotional
• Service-oriented
• Informative

The ultimate goal here is to choose the brand voice that resonates with your target audience and makes sense for your industry and mission.

Create a Logo and Timeline

When you are thinking about branding, logos are probably one of the first things you think about. However, you want to start working on this part of the process until you have completed the previous steps. Depending on your own skill sets, it's possible that you will want to find outside help to execute the more creative parts of branding.

Create Consistency

Once you have created the visual aspects of your branding and determine your voice, it's time to apply your company landing consistently. This means that your logo should be on every tangible item, including packaging, products, advertisements, and business cards.

When it comes to the digital sphere, you want to make sure that your brand looks exactly identical everywhere is located. You'll want to create a brand style guide that allows you to be consistent with all of your visuals. This includes your fonts, logo use, color, photography, and more.

In this day and age, the most important tool for marketing your brand is your website. This means that you will want to incorporate your personality, voice, and message into the content of your site when you design it.

You also want your social media network pages to be visually branded in a consistent way. Posts on your profile pages should be made using the brand voice you have outlined earlier.

If you are engaging in video marketing, you also want to employ your company branding to create consistency in any YouTube videos, Instagram stories, Facebook Live, Facebook video, and Snapchat videos. If you're also producing a podcast as a part of your business marketing campaign, you want to make sure that your theme is consistent with your brand values, voice, and message.

Is It Time For You to Invest in Your Company Branding?

Company branding is an upfront investment that you make that pays dividends down the road. It doesn't matter whether you're a service business, a brick-and-mortar store, or an online shop. Your brand image is a major part about what helps you stand out from the competition and establish a sense of authority in your niche.

It's our goal to bring you leading-edge knowledge and in-demand skills to help prepare your workforce for the future. We want to help you accelerate your business by bringing you the latest technological skills. If you have questions for us at Teccelerator, contact us today!