If you want to know how to build a strong brand identity, it is important to note that this process is really important for the business overall, since it will allow you to increase the consumer base, sales, as well as to reduce costs and boost your business value.
In today’s guide, we are going to see exactly what brand identity is, why it is so important, and then explain the process of creating a brand identity step by step.
Definition of Brand Identity
A simple definition of brand identity would be that it is a way for a company to present itself and its core values to the world.
This includes everything, from the brand’s logo, your company’s website, as well as how you communicate with your customers.
Apart from that, several smaller, but yet important things, such as product shape and packaging, as well as text are also included in brand identity.
Why Brand Identity Is Important
In modern business, digital marketing holds high relevance in the online positioning of the brand. This is important for your website to be seen in the search engines, which is why you need to have great, interesting, and SEO optimized content.
Since this process requires great expertise, it is best to hire experienced and well-known SEO company, with powerful references, to conduct this process for your business and help with improving your brand awareness.
Of course, SEO is just one of the helpful activities that help to improve brand identity, but let’s see why brand identity even matters.
- A successful brand gives you premium price and quality – this is one of the reasons why people still buy iPhones. Some habits are hard to forget, and everyone knows Apple is a trustworthy company that provides great mobile phones, amongst other things. So, even though some other manufacturers might offer better and cheaper products, people still decide to buy from Apple.
- Strong brand identity leads to loyal customers – as, in the previous example, there are people who will buy your products anytime, no matter if there are better alternatives. This is because they are loyal to your brand, which wouldn’t be possible without a well-structured brand identity.
- Well-built brand identity creates a feeling of uniqueness and reliability – if you’ve done your homework, and made your brand unique, and reliable, you will attract more customers. Let’s take Apple as an example again. The unique thing about the iPhone is its processor, and operating system, which makes the device pretty fast and reliable. Of course, this is one of the reasons people buy Apple products, even though they are more expensive than some other alternatives. However, this doesn’t mean the iPhone has a superior processor than all phones in the world because it doesn’t. Thing is, Apple just has already built brand identity, while their competitors are yet to walk that path.
Steps for Creating a Successful Brand Identity
There are many brand-building strategies, but let’s discuss some of the most important steps you need to take when creating a successful brand identity.
Step 1: Analyzing the Behavior of Your Target Group
In order to know how to create a successful brand identity, it is important to find the right target group of customers, and analyze what is that they might expect from your brand.
This will help you design a brand that is capable of satisfying the needs of your target audience, which will make it easier for you to sell your products and services.
Step 2: Revise Your Brand’s Previous Position
The next step when creating a brand-building strategy is to analyze the previous position of your brand, in order to know how to proceed.
It is always a good idea to do check where your brand stands right now since it helps you to find strengths and weaknesses.
This will help you to identify crucial elements of your brand that need to be improved, which helps you to focus on the right activities.
What this revision includes is several key elements of the brand, such as the logo, the structure of the text, slogan, fonts of different shapes and colors, as well as choosing the best photos to add.
All this can be efficiently done via spreadsheets, where you can post any updates and changes you make to the existing elements, as well as where you can add new ideas and elements.
Step 3: Track What Your Competition Is Doing
“If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In order to have a successful brand, you need to watch what your competitors are doing, in order to defeat them.
This might give you new ideas on how to manage things, and what to do with your own brand, in order to make it better.
In this regard, you should monitor what marketing channels are used by your competitors, such as their main site, or their pages on social media.
Also, inspect their text closely, and try to see what is the way they are communicating with their customer base. This can give you ideas on how to approach your own target audience.
To get new ideas for your brand’s look, you can check your competitors’ logos, photos, website design, as well as slogans.
Apart from that, tracking you competitors might help you decide which audience to target in the first place, by monitoring what types of customers tend to turn to you, rather than to your rivals.
Step 4: Defining a Catchy USP
Unique selling proposition, or in short, USP is a message your Brand can send to the potential buyers, which tells them why they should buy your brand, and what makes it different and better than other brands.
In order to create an interesting USP, you need to combine previous steps, and learn about your customers, see what resources are at your disposal, and what would be the result of combining all those elements.
This can be done by product surveys or reaching out directly to your customers, and asking questions such as ‘Why do you buy product X, rather than product Y’, ‘What do you like or dislike about our products’, and things like that.
Step 5: Designing On-Brand Messages to Communicate with Your Customers
After you are done with making a creative USP, you need to present it, not just by words, but also visually, by using on-brand messaging.
This includes redesigning your website, improving slogan, making your logo to look more appropriate, and to better represent USP.
Apart from that, this process includes font shape and color selection, as well as finding the best photos of your products and services, to represent the brand and improve its identity.
Also, using the right writing style is important in this step, since it allows you to create a more personal bond with your customer base.
Step 6: Constantly Promoting Your Brand Identity via Different Channels
The last step consists of implementing the brand identity, and constantly promoting it via a wide range of different channels. Here, make sure to find those channels that might be the most lucrative for your business, or niche.
Furthermore, make sure your content is consistent on every channel you’re using. For example, you don’t want to have different information about your products and services on your website, and Facebook page.
That would be highly inappropriate and would lessen the trust your customers have in you, while it could also repel the influx of new potential clients in the future.
Conclusion
There you go, folks! In this guide, we learned what brand identity actually is, why it is important, and what are the most important steps when creating a successful brand identity.
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