What name comes to your mind when you think of a place to buy a pair of shoes or a nice jacket? If a brand name popped up in your mind, you would know how powerful branding is and how it controls the buying decision and narratives of people. But it’s also hard to build a brand from scratch.
As you sail more deeply into the business world, you start to realize how small things significantly impact your brand creativity. These small things affect your business long-term and ultimately create a firm brand name for you.
Elements of Branding
Branding elements include six basic categories that depict your brand voice, the identity of your brand, what your brand promises, and what USP it offers. It also showcases what principles and values the brand focus on, what target market you aim for, and where your brand stands in the consumer’s eyes.
Let’s look at Amazon in this case. Amazon manages to be one of the greatest eCommerce stores the world has ever seen while revolutionizing how people shop on the internet.
But how did that happen? The eCommerce platform reported net sales of over $138.41 billion in the last quarter of 2021. Their focus on user experience, which includes startups, small businesses, and extensive internal businesses, narrates a lot about their brand values.
Similarly, companies like First Colour Printing have built a strong brand by focusing on quality printing services and exceptional customer service. Their commitment to these values is reflected in their business model and the trust they have earned from their customers.
We also see an exceptional business model and how it evolved for the giant company over the past 20 years. They offer what their target audience wants and stick to their values, which are necessary elements for any brand.
But how do you build an entire empire from scratch that successfully attracts a large audience and resonates with their requirements? Let’s find out.
Brand Building Guide from Scratch
While starting from scratch to build your brand identity can be daunting and time-consuming, the effects compound to create a stronger and more capable business. With time, you see how a brand helps you to nurture long-term goals and builds trust among your target audience.
So, if you’re up to taking your business to the next level, we’ve rounded up seven comprehensive steps that help you build your brand with utmost efficiency and give quicker turnarounds.
While you may find yourself going to and fro between the same steps, the key is to stay consistent and consider every aspect as you define your brand’s framework.
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you jump on the bandwagon and build your brand from scratch, you need to see whom you’re trying to reach. Narrow down your niche, see whom you’ll target, and serve as a business. For instance, targeting youthful dry to normal skin can be your niche if you own a skincare brand. A specific topic will give you less competition to compete against.
You can use different metrics to know more about the target audience and use that information to examine your existing audience while devising strategies to reach more potential consumers.
Keeping your competition in view also helps to see how they target consumers. It also enables you to identify loopholes in the system and work on them through your products.
Position Yourself
Branding helps your potential customers improve decision-making and activates positive attributes related to your brand. Developing a mental connection with your audience helps to play a crucial role in defining core dimensions for your brand’s personality.
Positioning your brand in the marketplace is a challenging task, which is why a positioning statement can help you stake your claim in the market. For example, if you deal with skin care products for youth, you know the main differentiator is “skincare for youth.” When you know your unique selling point, you can market campaigns and branded content that helps you position your brand and speaks directly to your audience.
That is where brand equity comes into place. Brand equity showcases the value of your business name in the real world beyond what your finance records depict. Realizing that value helps you to project and position your products or services properly to your target audience.
Your Business Name
One of the most crucial brand-building strategies is your business name. After all, it will be the first thing customers come across when they see your brand. You can choose any name as long as it resonates with your brand values and describes your brand’s vision perfectly.
Your business name is probably one of the biggest commitments you can make due to its massive impact on your trademark, marketing, brand logo, and domain. In an ideal situation, you’ll have to come up with a business name that is difficult to imitate but communicates the notion of your brand. Let’s look at some types of brand names and how real-world businesses make use of them.
- Descriptive: Brand names that elaborate on your business’s core competency are also a great way to name your brand. But, these brand names can be notoriously challenging to the trademark, too, as they rely on common words. Examples include “The Weather Channel” and “Bank of America”, which use descriptive names for their companies.
- Invented: These brand names find their roots in Latin, Greek, or other foreign roots. Examples include Google, Adidas, and Pixar. Each of these names has built monumental brand equity using the brand name over the years.
- Evocative: BMW, HP, and MTV are all brand names that are nothing more than an array of uppercase letters with no relation.
- Acronym: Names like Nike, Amazon, and Patagonia are unique and creative and leave room for interpretation. They’re generally easier to trademark too.
- Lexical: Brand names for this type include clever branding. Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme are examples of lexical names that rely on wordplay to help audiences remember the brand.
Slogan
An attractive slogan is an optional element of your brand-building process, but it adds valuable information to your business and helps consumers understand what the company does. For instance, Nike’s slogan “Just do it” serves as a motivational quote for the athletic brand while showcasing the brand’s attitude. A slogan should be a unique element that uplifts your brand identity on another level.
Create Your Brand’s Story
Your brand story depicts your brand’s “why” and “how.” Engagingly narrating your story says a lot about how you value your brand. It also shows customers what value you provide and the expectations they should set for your brand.
You might have heard “consistency is key.” This statement holds since you cannot expect to create a brand that reflects its story without maintaining consistent effort that spreads through every part of your business. However, establishing what “consistency” should look like for you is crucial to working on your business goals and brand story from the beginning.
A good story will reflect positively on your audience and make them respect and value every aspect of your brand. There are different ways to build your brand story. You can create your brand story on your website, social media, and other digital platforms.
There are no rules when it comes to social media brand storytelling. Get creative and experiment with different formats and styles. For instance, you can use images, videos, and infographics to tell your story to your target audience in a visually appealing way.
If you own a sports gear company, you can tell stories about athletes overcoming challenges and achieving their dreams. These stories resonate with your target audience, who are passionate about sports.
Create Your Unique Logo
Your branding is not just about choosing a suitable logo or a catchy name. Proper branding helps to build a positive image of your business. It also shows your customers what to expect from your company.
However, a creative logo is crucial in helping consumers recognize your brand and the name. Therefore, your logo should be full of personality and meaningful. With the use of a logo creator such as Looka, you can choose several options to design an impactful logo, from brand emblems to letter marks.
Remember that a great company logo design is memorable, relevant, and versatile. It should be adaptable across various platforms, from print to digital. Additionally, your logo should be timeless, maintaining its relevance and impact over the years. It should align with your company’s industry and target audience, effectively communicating your company’s message and core values.
Advertise With Every Possible Mean
Online and offline marketing both play a pivotal role in devising the branding strategy and ensuring it works. You need to make sure everybody sees your brand. Using online social media campaigns help to constantly update consumers about the brand and encourages them to purchase. Developing a website also adds to the professional look of your brand.
Traditional marketing tools like outdoor signages, including, billboards, banners, posters, etc., also help your marketing effort and demonstrate a positive brand image among the local audience.
Printed materials can help you create a consistent brand identity. When all of your printed materials use the same colors, fonts, and logos, it creates a cohesive and recognizable brand image. That way, your customers can easily remember your brand, boosting brand loyalty and customer retention.
Smartphone brands like Samsung advertised their “The future unfolds” campaign by displaying large billboards worldwide. The constant signs engage foot traffic and remind the audience of the brand.
These signs help to build an impression within 2-3 seconds. Mundane and meaningless advertising signs are ignored due to their generic nature. Traditional signs are also adaptive to any area and enhance the experience of the potential consumer with your brand. That is why luxury brands and big companies consistently work on campaigns through practical traditional marketing tools.
Conclusion
Building a brand from scratch may be daunting, but it is a must-have to survive in today’s competitive arena. The right branding can do wonders for your business and help develop an emotional connection with your customers.
An emotional connection builds trust and earns customer loyalty. So your customer will never leave your products or services for another business. A brand identity gives customers a reason to return to you and remain dedicated brand advocates.
Hence, building a brand from scratch and the brand identity while taking care of the small details proves to be a fruitful investment in the long run.
