A brand is successful rarely just because of its products. Consumers always prefer to buy from brands that they recognize and love. Like how Coca-cola is more than just a soda. Apple is more than just a smartphone. Gucci is more than just an expensive bag. These products provide an experience that only their brands can create for customers.
This is why a loved and recognized brand is the most valuable asset a company can own. Out of a long line of other options on the market, the brand with the strongest impression will win the consumers’ hearts. But it is not an easy thing to do. From the packaging materials to the color palette on a billboard, or even the words used in an Instagram caption, a brand’s spirit needs to live in everything it creates.
In this guide, I will show you the way to create an impactful brand that will help your business be remembered, admired, and preferred. For a small business, your branding is the way to differentiate from giants with unlimited marketing budgets. For a big business, your branding is the way to stand tall in the game.
With that in mind, let’s get started.
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I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Why Having An Impactful Brand Matters
A brand is a set of features that distinguish one company from another. It is what consumers think and feel when they consider a product, a mission, an experience the company provides. A brand’s assets include a name, tagline, logo, design elements, voice, and more. Besides that, branding is the process of shaping the audiences’ perceptions of an organization to establish a significant brand’s presence in the market.
We all know why brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, Gucci, and Nike are popular. Their brands are impactful so when they do the selling, the consumers are willing to buy from those names. A survey by Nielsen suggests that more than 60% of shoppers actively buy from brands they recognize.
By having an impactful brand, your company can have a memorable identity that encourages consumers to buy from you. Your branding also supports your marketing and advertising effort, as well as brings pride to your employees. And when the market or public shows negative feelings towards your industry, it is your branding that can save your company’s reputation.
All of those benefits can only come by building an impactful brand. With strategic investment in the branding effort, your brand will be able to influence buyers in the way you prefer.
How To Create An Impactful Brand
In this section, we will see how you can begin the process of creating an impactful brand. There is a lot to consider for your brand, so keep a notebook in hand to write down any ideas as you read through. Branding is an ongoing process, so you may have to go back to these steps once in a while to renew your strategy, a task that can be expertly managed by a branding agency.
Identify your target audience
If your brand can’t resonate with your audience, your branding effort won’t lead to awareness, trust, and sales. This is when the target audience research comes in. You will find that the competitive advantage when building a brand is narrowing your target audience. So you can ensure that your brand message reaches your audience crystal clear.
So the first thing to do is research your target audience – who your brand will interact with. Who does your product serve? Why did you create your business? Who is your ideal customer? It’s important to be specific. Find out the detailed behavior, lifestyles, and needs of your consumers.
What you learn about your target audience will influence your branding decisions later, so make this step a top priority.
Establish A Mission Statement
Every successful brand has a powerful mission to pursue. And so should you.
It’s what you love to do for others through your product or service. Four questions you should ask yourself when defining a brand’s mission are:
- Why does your company exist?
- What problem can you solve?
What is different about your product or service? - Why should anyone care?
Your mission statement should cover why your organization exists and why people should care about your brand. If you can convey the purpose your business offers, every part of your brand (logo, image, tagline, voice, and personality) can reflect your mission towards the audience.
Outline Your Brand Values And Benefits
There will always be brands with more resources and bigger budgets to dominate the industries.
But your product, service and benefit are yours alone, and they make you stand out to gain loyal customers. Creating an impactful brand means you dig deep to find out what you have to offer and no one else can do it.
What you need to do is focus on the values and benefits that make your brand unique. If you know exactly who your target audience is, give them a good reason to choose your brand over others.
Take a moment to jot down a list of the factors that set your business apart from competitors. Don’t think about product features (like appearance, capabilities, and components); try thinking of how your products or services improve lives and contribute to people’s success.
Create A Unique Brand Voice
Your brand voice depends on your company’s audience, mission, and industry. It is the way you communicate with your customers to get a response. What would your brand sound like if it can talk or text?
Ultimately, you want to create a unique brand voice that makes sense and can resonate with your target audience. You will find that the right brand voice gives the best opportunity to connect with consumers. Otherwise, they probably won’t give a second look at your brand.
From advertising campaigns to blog posts, brand story, and social media captions, make sure your tone of voice is consistent across all of your written content. Give your audience the opportunity to get acquainted with your brand and learn to recognize your voice. A community of readers, subscribers, and followers will expect a certain brand voice when they consume your content.
Build A Brand Visual Assets
At this point, you have understood your target audience, mission statement, values, and a unique brand voice that make up your business.
If you can confidently say you’ve mastered the above steps, then it’s time to move on to the next part of branding – visual design. Which includes your logo, color palette, fonts, icons, and other visual elements. These will become your identity and the visual recognition of your brand.
As you create these elements, build a set of brand guidelines to let your employees know how to use your visual content. This will also ensure that anyone using your brand’s visual assets, such as designers and agencies can do it correctly. Consider hiring a professional when designing your virtual assets.
Integrate Branding Into Every Aspect
After you finish designing and create a new brand, it is time to integrate it into every aspect of your business. Pay close attention to ensure it’s displayed wherever your business comes into contact with customers. Your brand should be visible in everything your audience can read, see, or hear.
From business cards to advertisements, products and packaging – they all need to at least have your logo. On other digital platforms, make sure your brand has a uniform look. Your branding guidelines will help create consistency in visuals with the usage of colors, logos, fonts, photography, and more.
Your website is perhaps the most important marketing tool for your brand with regular traffic from customers. When you design your website: make sure you have your voice, message, and personality in the content. If you decide to make an app for your company, the same rules apply.
Profile pages for social media channels should have obvious branding elements and use the unique voice you have chosen to interact with the audience. And don’t forget to use videos! YouTube, Facebook Video, Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat are all platforms that need platform-relevant content that projects your unique brand voice and personality.
For those who want to try with podcast audio, use themes and topics that support your brand’s message, values, and mission.
Keep A Consistent Brand Image
Unless it is time to change your brand into a more effective one based on measured consumer response, you need to keep a consistent brand image. Once you have used your branding in every piece of content you create, document the brand guidelines and distribute it internally for reference even outside of the company.
You will need to have a consistent brand image for at least a few years. Don’t constantly change elements of your brand, or the inconsistency will confuse the audience and make long-term brand building harder to achieve. You will see some big companies change their branding once in a while, but it is often after a long time and they want to adapt to new branding standards; while the core missions and values often remain unchanged.
Some Tips For Creating An Impactful Brand
Looking for the best and effective tips for creating an impactful brand. Check out these.
Treat Your Brand As A Real Person
The purpose of branding is to create relationships with the customers. The easiest way you can do this is by treating your brand like a real person and understanding that you want your customers to react to your brand like that as well.
Give Back To The Community And Employee
Nothing creates a good brand image better than kindness. Your company should prioritize giving back to the employees personally and professionally, while also building and growing a community. It is also how your brand can impact people in a positive way.
Have Goals And Inspire Growth
Branding is a continuous process, so turn it into a well-oiled practice that keeps your brand moving toward long-term goals as the organization evolves. The goals should revolve around purpose, emotion, competitive awareness, flexibility, and employee growth.
Know The Brand Values And Live Them
With the core values established, you should keep asking yourself if there is a way to make the company even greater. Your organization should seek opportunities to invest in new improvements that can help the market. This way, you can make your brand impact even stronger.
Conclusion
If you have a business, you already have a brand. But if you want to create an impactful brand, it will require planning, organization, and process. This guide can give you the most fundamental of the brand-building process, the next thing you need to cover are resources, tools, and services that can help grow your business as a unique brand.
What kind of brand would you create? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
About the author: Chance is a content specialist at Avada Commerce – a specialized eCommerce solution provider from Vietnam. His enthusiasm for content creation has spanned over two years, accompanied with in-depth knowledge about eCommerce. He always strives for a knowledge-rich article, and never boring.
