How Brands Can Greatly Impact a Business And How To Build Your Own
In 2015, Nielsen conducted a survey to determine how companies can successfully launch new products. In this report, Nielsen noted that today’s market is filled with choices, because this is what consumers are expecting. More than six in ten respondents say that they like new choices being provided by manufacturers, and more than half say that they purchased a new product during their last grocery trip.
However, Nielsen also reported that because of these myriad choices, brands are competing for shelf space and the attention of their consumers. With all of this competition, one of the most reliable solutions is brand recognition. Branding, therefore, can affect the success of your business, no matter what industry you are in, how huge your profit margins are, or how big your company is.
However, many of us ignore the power of branding. We forget that brands can be one of the most important parts of your business. But building a brand is something that you can’t do without thinking about it well. Figuring out your brand can be a hard task. Thankfully, there are a few steps you can take to make your brand something that you can be proud of; here are some of them.
- Understand what brand identity is
Some people think that your brand is made up of your name and your logo. While they may be right, it isn’t just those two things. Your brand is a combination of everything about your business that can be accessed publicly. This includes the logo’s color palette, the look of your office, and even the style of your social media marketing.
With all of these aspects, the most important thing that you would need to remember is to keep everything consistent. If your color palette is made of bright, bubbly colors like pinks and bright greens, your content should also be written in a fun and bubbly manner.
- Determine your target audience
Of course, one of the things you should consider when building your brand is your target audience. If you’re in the insurance industry, you’re targeting an older generation; you definitely don’t want to be using a pink and green color palette. Instead, notice how insurance companies rely on dark, solid colors, like deep reds and dark blues. These colors make us think of maturity and stability, which is something that we want from an insurance company.
When determining your target audience, it’s important to get as specific as possible. While this may seem counter-intuitive to a growing business, targeting a specific demographic can be more helpful than trying to cater to everyone. Remember that you can only meet the needs of a specific number of people.
Some good examples of a specific demography are ‘teens who recently started college’ for a company that sells textbooks, or ‘middle-class mothers’ for a company that sells house-cleaning products. Knowing who your audience is can help you understand who they are so that you can catch their attention with your brand by being relevant and relatable.
- Research other brands in your industry
Researching brands from other industries can help you understand what everyone else is doing. It’s always a good idea to observe which brands are working well at present, and which brands seem to be having a problem. After all, a brand that may have worked well fifty years ago may have a problem connecting to its audience at present.
When you’re studying your competitor’s brands, you should consider their brand’s style and message, and how they are connecting to their target audience. Can their audience relate to them, and is their brand effective? What about their products? Looking at what their audience is saying about them, such as product reviews, as well as complaints can be a good way to understand the effectivity of their brand. If they are active on social media, it’s also a good idea to see how they are interacting with their audience, and vice versa.
- List down the aspects of your brand
Now that you understand what everybody else is doing, it’s time to see what you can provide that others in the market aren’t providing. Listing down what’s unique to your own brand can be a great way for you to understand what you have, and how to leverage this.
To start your list, you could think about the most important thing you would want to offer your customers. This can be a dedication to productivity or helping your customers with their savings. If you’re having trouble, think about the last time you thought about an important purchase. What made you choose one brand over another? People often cite ‘quality’ or ‘good customer service’ as reasons.
- Create a logo and tagline
Now that you have thought about all the things that you would need to create a good brand, you can now make a logo and a tagline. While there are many things that are included in your brand, the logo and tagline are the two things that every brand will need. As it will appear with your business all the time, you will need to think well and hard about your logo and tagline. In this regard, you can hire a design company to help you create your brand, and direct you to the best design choices for your business.