How to build a brand from scratch?
A brand is as important as a product or service. People mostly recognize products from the brand. How a brand maintains its identity among the people and over the years can greatly impact its business revenue.
That leaves us to the conclusion that building a brand is an integral part of any business development.
But how to build a brand? You might be just starting as a start-up or even brewing the idea of your new business.
Continue reading this article to know how to build a brand from scratch and enable it to stand and compete with your existing competitors.
What is a brand?
In the most broader sense, a brand is a name or a logo that distinguishes a business from others. However, the meaning of a brand goes much beyond this generalized definition.
A brand actually gives your business a unique identity by which people perceive everything about your business. When we say perceive, we mean both positive and negative. Yes, you heard that right. Sometimes people have negative impressions about your business, and you can't control that.
Another thing that is associated with the brand is brand voice. In fact, brand voice is an inseparable part of branding. What exactly is it?
Brand voice is a unique way of representing your brand to the customers. In other words, it is the personality of a brand. Therefore, it must always be consistent, no matter where, how, and who is promoting your brand.
Research your target audience and your competitors
Every business has a different target base or potential customers who are most likely to buy the products. Before building a brand, it is important to identify the target audience. You can build a successful brand only when you know your target audience because the target audience is the nucleus of brand building.
What happens If you target the wrong audience?
Targeting an irrelevant audience will result in a scarcity of lead generation and more scarcity of conversion. That is why you need to invest significant time and resources in identifying the most potential buyers group and how to attract them. Leave the brand building for the next step.
But how to identify the target audience?
Here are four verticals for finding the right audience:
- Location - where the potential buyers are
- Age - which age group is most likely to buy your products
- Behavior - how do they spend, what they talk, etc.
- Pain point - what caused the problem to them
Now coming to competitors, a good and well-planned competitor analysis helps you fix many shortcomings that your competitors have not been able to solve. It also gives you a fair idea about their success strategies that you can capitalize for your success.
Remember that based on business type, the target audience may be small. But having small but relevant potential buyers gives you the edge to strategize other factors like content and marketing.
Choose the right brand name
Just like the name of a person impacts his/her life, apply the same to your brand. Treat it as a person while selecting the name. Since the name will be the key while promoting your business choose a name wisely. Choose a name that is short, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember.
Design your brand logo and look
Right from planning to executing, your brand essentially needs to resonate with the target audience. So pay utmost attention to designing the best logo for your brand.
Along with the logo, the look also matters a lot. Hence, choose the color combination, fonts, designs, and theme very thoughtfully.
Write your slogan
While a slogan is not required, it can help your brand to create the brand voice. Over time, it can be a useful tool for conveying your brand's essence to the audience.
Therefore, take time to come up with a catchy tagline. But remember, it should reflect the core idea of your business. Although there is no limit to how long a tagline you can choose, a short and sweet tagline is always preferable.
You may use it on your website, business cards, social media profiles, and other platforms. Many times people are attracted and get connected with your brand just because of your tagline, resulting in creating a community around it.
Use customized products to promote your brand
A brand is known for consistency. However, that does not limit it to offer the same range of products. Especially when the customers are more aware and particular about their preferences, you must resort to customized products.
Every customer finds something or the other that matches his search criteria when you offer customization. That means it acts as an important marketing tool, providing your brand with more potential to grow.
Take the example of myairfreshener, which sells customized air fresheners. The range of customized air fresheners it offers to its customers is incredible. Although it offers primarily four categories of fresheners, customers can even design their own range of products. That itself makes it a more preferred brand over its competitors.