How To Create a Brand For Your Business Success
- July 31, 2023
- Nicole Andrew
Table of Contents
If you’re wanting to know how to create a brand, the underlying truth you initially must know is that a brand is much more than just a recognizable name or an eye-catching logo. A brand is an entity that embodies the identity, values, persona, and core of your business. So, before you begin actively building your brand, understand first the importance and benefits of branding.
In this blog post, we explain what a brand is, why it’s important, and guide you in how to create a brand. We’ll delve into defining your brand purpose, understanding your business and target audience, developing your brand identity, designing your visual identity, and personifying your brand.
Overall, we explain what the entire brand building process is in 4 key steps. If you’re ready to embark on the exciting journey of building a brand that resonates with your audience and sets your business apart, keep reading.
What is a brand?
A brand is the perception people have about a company, service, or product. It’s the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, when taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.
It is the representation of the promises a company makes to its customers, and the expectations it sets. It carries emotional and symbolic connotations, fostering an intimate connection between consumers and the product, service, or organization it represents.
The necessity of creating successful brands cannot be stated enough. They serve crucial functions that contribute to their profitability and longevity. These are some of the functions they serve:
Recognition and Recall
Firstly, branding enhances recognition and recall, facilitating consumer decisions in an oversaturated market. It provides a clear and consistent message about the company’s offerings, guiding customers’ perceptions and expectations.
Differentiation
Secondly, effective branding allows for differentiation, helping a company stand out in a competitive landscape by emphasizing unique features, benefits, or values.
Customer Loyalty
Thirdly, branding builds customer loyalty and encourages repeat business. Through positive experiences and consistent delivery on brand promises, customers form emotional bonds with the brand, leading to loyalty and advocacy.
Premium Status
Lastly, branding can command a price premium, since customers are often willing to pay more for brands they perceive as high-quality, reliable, or status-enhancing.
The Importance and benefits of branding
Branding is not just about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but about convincing your prospects to perceive you as the sole provider of a solution to their problem or need. As you read further on how to create a brand, these benefits of branding below will appear throughout the process:
Customer Recognition
Creating a brand name and logo helps keep your company image in the mind of your potential customers.
Competitive Edge in Market
Your brand is what differentiates you in the marketplace. When customers recognize and back your brand, it helps lend a competitive edge to your company.
Easy Introduction of New Products
When you already have a strong brand and loyal customers, it is often easier and less expensive to introduce new products or test them out in the market.
Customer Loyalty and Shared Values
The recognition and elevation that a strong brand builds upon all rest on greater customer loyalty. Customers are attracted to brands that they share values with.
Enhanced Credibility and Ease of Purchase
Having a strong, well-known brand enhances your credibility with customers, your industry, and the marketplace as a whole. As you build your credibility, you also build recognition, loyalty, and competitiveness. Everything goes hand-in-hand, and you’ll find that your credibility has a direct connection to customers’ ease of purchase. We want to buy from companies we like, know, and trust.
Attracting Talent
A strong brand can also help with recruitment. If your company is presented as a good place to work, people will be more likely to consider you when they’re looking for jobs. If they understand and agree with what your company stands for, they’ll be more likely to apply.
81% of consumers need to a trust a brand to consider buying from it (Edelman)
What are the 4 steps of branding?
As you gain insight on how to create a brand, you’ll soon discover that the process of branding can be complex and multifaceted, involving numerous stages and activities. However, it can generally be distilled into these 4 KEY steps:
KEY Step 1: Brand Strategy Development
This is the first and most critical step in how to create a brand. It involves defining your business, its mission, vision, and values, and understanding your target market. The brand strategy serves as a roadmap, guiding all subsequent branding activities. It includes elements such as the brand’s unique value proposition, brand positioning, and brand personality. Thorough market research is needed to understand your audience‘s needs, desires, and behaviors, and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
KEY Step 2: Brand Identity Creation
Once your brand strategy is in place, the next step is to create your brand identity. This includes the visible elements that distinguish your brand, such as your brand name, logo, typography, color palette, and any other distinctive design elements. These should reflect your brand’s personality and appeal to your target audience. The brand identity also includes your brand voice, which should be consistent across all communications.
KEY Step 3: Brand Implementation
After creating your brand identity, the next step in how to create a brand is to implement it across all aspects of your business. This includes integrating your brand into all your marketing materials, your website, your social media platforms, your customer service interactions, and even your internal communications. It also involves training your employees to understand and embody the brand, ensuring that the brand promises are delivered consistently at every customer touchpoint. The key tool to implement your branding strategy and identity is in a brand guide and brand style guide.
KEY Step 4: Brand Management and Evaluation
Branding is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process. It requires regular monitoring, management, and refinement to ensure that the brand stays relevant and competitive. This involves tracking key performance metrics, gathering customer feedback, and conducting periodic brand audits. If necessary, the brand strategy may need to be tweaked or the brand tagline refreshed.
Each of these steps is crucial in how to create a brand that is strong, successful, and that resonates with customers by standing out in the marketplace.
However, we break these 4 KEY steps down even further:
How to Create A Brand - Building in 7 Steps
If you’re then asking yourself, ‘How do I start my own brand from scratch in 7 easy steps?’, starting a brand from scratch isn’t easy, because it involves research, data, careful planning, and execution from these 4 KEY steps above. These are the 7 steps to guide you through the the more granular brand building process:
STEP 1: Define Your Brand Purpose
The essence of a business is anchored in its foundational belief, and responds to the question, “What is our purpose?” It underpins the mission, vision, and core values that define the company’s core DNA.
This foundational belief could be seen as:
- a dedication to unparalleled quality,
- a fervor for exceptional customer service,
- a pledge to sustainable operations, or
- any other fundamental principle that the business deems indispensable.
Upon establishing your core belief, the aim should be to foster deep emotional bonds and cultivate enduring relationships with your customers by:
- narrating compelling stories,
- establishing shared values,
- and kindling emotions that harmonize with your customers’ feelings.
When your brand purpose impeccably mirrors your customers’ values and dreams, you ignite more than mere loyalty; you instill a sense of belonging and purpose. This is your core ideology. Your customers will perceive your brand not just as a purveyor of goods or services, but as an integral part of their own identity.
Successful brands such as Patagonia, Nike, and Tesla have aced this strategy. They are not just trading in clothes, shoes, or cars; they are offering ideals of sustainability and ambition — potent notions that evoke deep emotional responses from their customers.
Read our related article:
How To Write – Business Purpose Statement Speaking From Heart
Tesla’s mission — to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy — is deeply ingrained in its branding and marketing. This mission, coupled with its innovative, high-performance electric vehicles, resonates strongly with customers who value sustainability and innovation. Consequently, Tesla customers don’t just buy a car; they join a movement towards a more sustainable future.
By forging these emotional connections, your brand taps into a deep, enduring facet of human nature, rendering your brand not just memorable, but unforgettable.
STEP 2: Understanding Your Business and Target Audience
This is the specific group of people at which your product or service is aimed. They could be defined by demographic characteristics like age, gender, or income, or by behavior, interests, and lifestyle. Understanding who your target market is crucial in all aspects of your business, from product development to marketing. For instance, if you’re a high-end watch brand, your target market might be affluent individuals who appreciate luxury and craftsmanship.
By thoroughly understanding your audience, you can tailor your products, services, and marketing messages to resonate with them deeply. This involves conducting market research, gathering data on their buying behaviors, lifestyle, values, and preferences. By empathizing with their problems and aspirations, you can create offerings that solve their problems and fulfill their aspirations, thereby making your brand relevant and valuable to them.
Read our related article:
How To Find Your Target Audience: Connect And Resonate
By deeply understanding their target audience’s needs for convenience, variety, and personalized content, Netflix was able to position itself as the go-to service for on-demand streaming. They identified early on that viewers were growing frustrated with traditional television’s rigid schedules and lack of choice. In response, Netflix provided a service where viewers could watch whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and tailored recommendations based on viewing history. This customer-centric approach has made Netflix one of the most successful and recognizable brands in the world.
STEP 3: Developing Your Unique And Human Brand
A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer’s needs, and what distinguishes you from the competition. To create a UVP, you need to have a deep understanding of your customers’ pain points, desires, and needs, as well as an understanding of your competitors. Once you gather insights and information on each of these, you’ll gain a more intimate knowledge of your product or service’s features and benefits.
Your UVP should be simple, clear, and easy to understand. It should communicate the unique value your customers can expect to receive when they purchase your products or use your services. This forms the core of your brand identity and helps guide the development of your brand personality, voice, name, and visual elements.
This involves defining the set of human characteristics that are attributed to your brand. This can include traits like being fun, serious, innovative, traditional, luxurious, or down-to-earth. Your brand personality should be reflected in everything from your marketing messages to your customer service interactions, helping to create a consistent and recognizable brand identity. It should resonate with your target audience and be differentiated from your competitors.
Your brand voice is the way you communicate with your customers and should be consistent across all platforms and touch points. It’s influenced by your brand personality and can be professional, friendly, authoritative, playful, or any other characteristic that fits your brand. Consistency in brand voice helps build recognition and trust with your customers. It ensures that regardless of where or how your customers interact with your brand, they have a consistent experience.
Your brand name is often the first point of contact potential customers have with your brand, so it should be distinctive, easy to remember, and reflective of your brand’s essence. It should also be easy to pronounce and spell, and not have any negative connotations in the markets you operate in.
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Transform Your Business With Your Unique Value Proposition
Its unique value proposition of innovative, user-friendly technology solutions sets it apart in the tech industry. The brand personality is cool, innovative, and premium, resonating with consumers who value design and technology. Apple’s brand voice is confident and aspirational, maintaining consistency across all communications. Lastly, the brand name “Apple” is simple, memorable, and symbolizes knowledge and discovery. All these elements work together to create a robust and distinctive brand identity that has made Apple one of the most valuable brands in the world.
STEP 4: Designing Your Visual Identity
The human brain processes images faster than words, making visual cues crucial for first impressions and quick judgements. Your visual identity, which includes your logo, color scheme, typography, and imagery, forms an integral part of your overall brand identity. It offers a quick, visual representation of your brand’s personality, values, and offers. It’s essential in catching the attention of potential customers, making your brand memorable, and differentiating your brand from the competition. In a world saturated with content and advertisements, a well-designed and consistent visual identity can make your brand stand out and be easily recognized.
Your logo is often the first visual element that people associate with your brand, so it should be distinctive, memorable, and representative of your brand’s personality and values. It should also be simple enough to be recognizable at a glance and versatile enough to work across various mediums and platforms. You may choose a logo that is purely graphical, or one that includes your brand name. If your brand name is unique and short, you could use a word mark. If it’s longer, you could consider an abstract icon, or a combination of both.
Different colors evoke different emotions and associations, so your color palette should align with the emotions you want your brand to evoke. For instance, blue often signifies trust and reliability and is commonly used by financial and tech companies, while red can signify excitement and passion and is often used by brands in the food and entertainment industries. Your color palette should include a primary color that represents your brand, along with secondary colors to complement it.
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Typography includes the fonts you use in your logo, tagline, headlines, and body text. It should be legible and reflect your brand personality. For instance, serif fonts often convey tradition and respectability, while sans serif fonts convey modernity and simplicity. Your imagery style includes the type of photos, illustrations, or graphics you use. These should consistently reflect your brand personality and resonate with your target audience.
The logo, with its distinctive red and white color scheme and stylized script font, is instantly recognizable worldwide. The red color evokes excitement and energy, aligning with the brand’s vibrant personality, while the script font adds a touch of tradition, signifying the brand’s long history. The imagery used in Coca-Cola’s advertising consistently evokes feelings of happiness, togetherness, and refreshment, further reinforcing the brand’s identity. This strong and consistent visual branding has played a significant role in making Coca-Cola one of the most iconic and beloved brands in the world.
STEP 5: Writing Your Brand Story
Stories have a unique way of creating emotional connections and resonating with people on a deep level. They’re memorable, engaging, and help us make sense of the world. In branding, storytelling serves as a powerful tool to bring your brand to life, convey your brand’s personality, and differentiate your brand from the competition. It helps humanize your brand, making it more relatable and compelling to your audience. A well-crafted brand story can inspire trust, loyalty, and emotional investment in your brand.
It typically includes elements like your brand’s origin, mission, vision, values, and unique value proposition. It also involves describing your brand’s journey, challenges overcome, and successes achieved. The key is to present your brand as the protagonist of the story, striving to fulfill its mission and create value for its customers. The brand story should resonate with your target audience, evoke the emotions you want your brand to be associated with, and reinforce your brand’s unique identity and personality.
It should be consistently conveyed across all your brand’s touchpoints, from your website and social media platforms to your marketing materials and customer service interactions. It should also be weaved into your visual identity, brand voice, and brand experiences. A compelling brand story isn’t just told but is experienced by your customers through their interactions with your brand.
The story of TOMS begins with its founder, Blake Mycoskie, who, during a trip to Argentina, was moved by the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes. This inspired the creation of TOMS and its unique business model — for every pair of shoes purchased, a pair would be donated to a child in need. This story is consistently communicated in TOMS’ branding and marketing, resonating with customers who value social responsibility and making TOMS more than just a shoe company. This story not only differentiates TOMS from other shoe brands but also gives customers a powerful reason to choose TOMS over the competition.
STEP 6: Implementing Your Brand Strategy
Your brand should look, feel, and sound the same whether a customer interacts with it on social media, visits your website, reads an email, views an ad, or walks into a physical location. Each interaction should reinforce your brand identity, personality, story, and values. This consistency helps build trust, recognition, and loyalty among your customers. It ensures that your brand is immediately identifiable and memorable, differentiating it from the competition and making it easier for customers to understand and connect with your brand.
Your employees are your brand ambassadors — they represent your brand to the world and deliver on your brand promises. It’s essential that they understand your brand strategy and are equipped to embody and convey your brand identity, personality, story, and values in their interactions with customers and stakeholders. This can be achieved through regular brand training and communication, which can include workshops, handbooks, meetings, and online training modules. Employees who are aligned with your brand are more likely to deliver consistent, high-quality customer experiences that reflect your brand.
This involves tracking key performance metrics, conducting customer research, monitoring market trends, and obtaining feedback from customers and employees. Based on these insights, you may need to tweak aspects of your brand strategy, such as your brand positioning, personality, or value proposition. You may also need to refresh your brand identity, voice, or story to better resonate with your audience or stand out from the competition. Regular evaluation helps ensure that your brand strategy continues to support your business objectives and create value for your customers.
Nike consistently delivers on its brand promise of inspiration and innovation across all touchpoints. Whether it’s through their iconic “Just Do It” advertising campaigns, social media interactions, or innovative products, Nike consistently conveys its brand identity and story. Furthermore, Nike’s employees, from retail staff to corporate employees, are trained to represent the brand’s values and mission. The company also regularly evaluates and tweaks its brand strategy to stay relevant and competitive, such as embracing digital transformation and championing social issues. This consistent, comprehensive, and responsive implementation of its brand strategy has made Nike one of the most recognized and valuable brands globally.
STEP 7: Building Brand Awareness and Reputation
Once you nail down how to create a brand, and build it, your main goal is to then make your brand known and recognizable to your target audience. There are several strategies to increase brand awareness. These include leveraging digital marketing channels like social media, search engines, and email marketing. Offline strategies can include traditional advertising, sponsorships, and public relations.
Content marketing, where you provide valuable, relevant content to your audience, can also be a powerful tool for building awareness and showcasing your expertise. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is another critical strategy, helping to ensure that your brand shows up in search results when potential customers are looking for products or services like yours. Lastly, partnering with influencers who align with your brand can help you reach a larger audience.
Your brand promise is the value and experience customers can expect from every interaction with your brand.
If you consistently deliver on this promise, you’ll build trust and loyalty among your customers, enhancing your brand reputation. Conversely, if you fail to fulfill your brand promise, it can damage your brand reputation and erode customer trust. It’s crucial that every facet of your business, from product development to customer service, works together to deliver on your brand promise.
Monitoring how your brand is perceived by your customers and the public, and taking steps to maintain and improve these perceptions. This can involve managing online reviews, responding to customer feedback, and addressing any issues or crises in a timely and transparent manner. Proactive communication is also key to brand reputation management. Sharing news about your brand’s achievements, contributions to society, and responses to challenges can help shape positive perceptions of your brand.
Apple’s brand is known worldwide, thanks in part to its consistent and innovative advertising and its commitment to product design and functionality. Apple has a strong brand promise that revolves around innovative, user-friendly technology, and premium quality. They consistently deliver on this promise, which has helped them garner a strong reputation and a loyal customer base. Even when faced with occasional product issues or controversies, Apple’s proactive and transparent approach to addressing these issues has generally helped them maintain their strong brand reputation.
The Takeaway
At this point, you might be asking yourself, “How can I accomplish all this?” That’s where we come in. As a dedicated branding agency, we bring 20+ years of expertise and a team of seasoned professionals who live and breathe branding. We’re passionate about helping businesses like yours transform their vision into a compelling brand.
Partnering with our agency means tapping into a wealth of knowledge, creativity, and strategic insight. Overall, we know how to create a brand that’s clear, authentic, and unique to you, and your audience. We’ll work closely with you to understand your business, your target audience, and your brand aspirations. We’ll help you define your brand purpose and translate it into a powerful brand identity that captures your essence and sets you apart. We’ll guide you in designing a visual identity that aligns with your brand personality and resonates with your audience.
What this means to you is that we’ll walk with you through every step of the branding process, providing guidance, support, and expert advice to help you navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with creating a brand. We understand that building a brand is a journey, and we’re committed to making it a great experience for you as well as giving you quality results.
So, if you’re ready to embark on the journey of creating a brand, consider partnering with us. We’re more than just a branding agency; we’re your partner in building a brand that embodies your vision, captivates your audience, and drives your business to ROARING new heights of success.
Nicole Andrew is a 20 year brand designer, Level-C certified brand strategist, educator, and co-owner of 28Lions, a branding & marketing agency that helps service-based entrepreneurs turn their expertise into powerful brands.