7 Steps to Branding Success

After seeing this title you might want to ask: “What is branding and what does it mean?” Branding is used so that consumers can better identify the different companies and individuals. This applies to a company, individual and their products and services.

Let’s think about the largest and most successful brands in the world, such as Apple, Nike and Coca Cola. What do they all have in common? They have very strong branding in place. People recognize the brand colours, the logo and instantly know who the company is and even the tagline it uses. This highlights the importance of a well thought out branding in place.

1. The Face of the Brand

When it comes to branding, having a face of the brand is really important. You want to find someone who will be inspirational and will represent the company well. If you are a manager of a large company, you might want to choose a famous person that people know and want to aspire to. If you run a smaller organisation then go for someone, who you believe is going to represent your brand and its values the best.

Don’t miss out on opportunities for expanding your brand. Giving it a real face will make it more personable and will reach different customers. Make sure your brand represents your company as being distinctive, trusted, excited, reliable or whichever attributes are appropriate to your business.

2. Gives Associations and Perceptions to Others

Branding sets certain associations and perceptions in people’s minds. Therefore branding can be used to help your business perform better. Provide recognition to your customers; let them familiarize themselves with your business, product and services.

Absolute control over your branding and business is not possible due to outside influences. However you can work with the areas you do have control over, such as the design, advertising and marketing. This will help you generate associations in people’s minds to your product or service and will eventually benefit the company.

3. Create a Difference

Branding can help you stand out from the crowd and appear different and unique. This allows you to add value and engage with your customers.

Some people are complete brand addicts and they will purchase the products only because they are from a certain brand. People are willing to pay more for branded products rather than ones that are unbranded. Nowadays people eat brands, wear brands, listen to brands and are constantly talking about brands on social media. You can even go for the emotional appeal of creating a brand that people desire and cannot resist.

By choosing professional colours when it comes to the background colour of your branding and packaging, you allow your brand to stand out more. It will also appear more premium, distinctive and perhaps even as a threat to your competitors.

4. Define your Brand

Whether you are considering branding your products or just willing to rebrand the business there are certain things you should consider beforehand.

• What is the idea behind the company?
• What are the core values and principles?
• What are your future aspirations? Where are you trying to take your company?
• How do you want your business, yourself and the products/services come across?

Make sure you can answer the above questions thoroughly as they will help you build a basis for developing a strong brand.

5. Developing your brand

Now that you have analysed your company, its values and your future goals you can start designing.

One of the first questions that you want to ask yourself is – What image do you want to portray? This should encompass all your values and be able to summarise them clearly for your customers.

Once you have thought about the values and the image you want to portray, start considering other crucial questions, such as:

• What will help me stand out from the competitors?
• What makes me different?
• What do I offer and how can I illustrate that?
• What is my personality?
• The personality of the business?
• What colours, font and images best describe what I do?
• Is there a gap in the market?
• Have I undertaken a sufficient amount of research on the industry, my own business and the competitors?

We would advise you to get an outside perspective on your branding. You want to make sure that branding works and communicates exactly how you had envisaged. However this is hard to analyse by yourself.  Why not arrange a focus group? If you are unable to do that, you can always ask your friends and colleagues for an unbiased opinion.

6. Go Ahead

Once you have completed the earlier stages, work together with designers and specialists to bring your branding to life. It is advised that you have a good idea of the end result before meeting with your branding specialist. They will be able to advise you on great designs but only you know what you want the end product to look like.

If you don’t then make the specialist aware of the nature of the business, products and services that you provide and be detailed about the vision and values that the business has. By collecting all this information a branding expert will help you come up with a great branding strategy for your business.

Remember that there are different ways of branding your products/ services. It could be anything from a name, term, sign, symbol or design to a combination of the previous. Anything that is used to help others identify the products and services that provide.

7. Label on your Products

Depending on what industry you are in you may want to display your branding on various items such as carrier bags and packaging. Within fashion it is common to add your branding to the label, after all this is what the consumer sees. Consider your sector carefully and decide where you want to place your branding.

A label will highlight the branding of the company, you may also want to include your company’s name and design. However labels tend to differ from one to another. Within retail a label will enhance your product and make it stand out from the rail filled with loads of different outfits. This could become a unique selling point for your brand.

Your brand is used to differentiate yourself from the competition and be recognized by your customers. Tying your vision and values to the brand will give the brand a story and identity which customers love and want to associate themselves with. Follow these steps to brand success and remember to ask for feedback during the process to get an honest opinion of what your target audience thinks.

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