A Guide to Branding a New Business
People are far more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand they recognize and trust. If you’re starting a new business, one of your goals should be to increase your brand awareness and recognition, but before you can do that, you need to properly brand the company.
If you’re a smaller company, you’re most likely competing against bigger, well-known brands that offer similar products or services as you. Don’t let this deter you – it just means you need to differentiate and brand yourself effectively.
Branding is much more than just a logo and a well-placed advert. You need to get your customers to have a positive perception of your business, and you do that by building trust, credibility, and establishing authenticity through your brand.
Here are the best ways to brand your new business.
Take the company seriously
If you don’t, nobody else will. Establishing your brand starts with your company first, above all else, so legitimize it before expanding your marketing efforts and you’ll see greater results sooner.
One way to establish your brand right away is to create branded merchandise for your employees as well as your customers. Getting branded mugs, stationery, and T-shirts for the office can help employees feel like they are a part of something great. Having branded stickers or tees to give away as freebies to each customer who makes a purchase can help establish an emotional connection between them and your brand. Customized T-shirts can be a cost-effective way to establish that connection, so consider T-shirt printing in Brum as part of your initial efforts?
Determine your audience
One of the foundations for building your brand is to figure out who your target audience is since you’ll be focusing on speaking to them and tailoring your message to suit their needs and wants. Get as specific as you can when mapping out your audience.
One good strategy is to come up with personas – list the person’s age, gender, location, income, education level, interests, and where they spend their time online and offline. Create three to five of these to give yourself a good understanding of exactly who you’re trying to reach. For example, single moms who live in the city but work from home, who spends what little free time they have browsing Pinterest and Instagram.
Establish your mission statement
Do you know what your company’s mission is? If you aren’t sure, your customers won’t know what your brand is about either, and won’t understand what value you’re providing. Your mission statement is essentially why your company exists, and what purpose it serves. Everything about your brand should reflect your mission statement.
Create a logo and tagline
Your visual brand is just as important than the ethos behind your company, and it’s the most exciting part of brand building. You should create a brand logo and tagline that reflects your mission, relates to your business in a clear and obvious way, and encompasses your company’s identity.
Investing time and money into your logo and tagline is wise, as great visual branding can elevate your business, while poor branding can sink it. Consider working with a designer to develop brand guidelines, so everything remains consistent across the board. Include aspects like the logo size and placement, your brand’s colour palette, which fonts you’ll use, and what kind of imagery style and iconography you’ll use.
