How to Brand building? Always remember that the brand name that is well known and loved is the most valuable asset of the company. According to a Nielson survey, 59% of customers prefer to buy new products from brands which are familiar with them.
As a small business, you may have to compete with many large firms with a loyal customer base and a huge budget for marketing. That’s why you need to find a way to make a difference with a solid branding strategy.
Which branding method do you apply to your business?
Is the brand encapsulated in an impressive logo or promo post in the most prominent position? No, you need more than that to build a strong brand!
What is the brand?
A brand is defined by a general perception of your customers about your business. A successful brand must be consistent in communication, experienced through many factors such as:
- Environment (showroom or office)
- Leaflets, signs, packages
- Website and online advertising
- Content published
- Sale and customer care services
Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, once said that “Brand is what others say about you behind your back.”
In short, brand = reputation.
So is branding easy?
The truth is that brands cannot be built in one night, or even for several months. Strict branding is a process. However, unremitting efforts will be able to build long term relationships with customers.
This can help grow sales, pull in projects, word of mouth and compliments for your product or service.
What is branding?
Branding is about building business awareness with marketing tactics and campaigns with the ultimate goal of creating a unique and solid image in the market.
In 2019, you can build your brand image through many digital marketing activities such as:
- User experience (such as on a website)
- SEO & Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Paid advertising (PPC)
These communication channels will support each other to increase brand recognition and development. Later in the article, I will talk in more detail about each of these channels.
For now, I will present the process of branding for businesses or individual brands to have more loyal customers.
Apply the following steps on your branding journey!
The process of Brand building with 11 effective steps
Identify brand target customers
To build a brand, you first need to identify the target customer. Never forget who you are targeting, and outline your mission and message to accurately meet their needs.
The secret is to be specific. You must understand consumer behavior and habits. For example:
- Single mother who are working from home
- Technology-savvy customer group
- International students
- Professional recruiting officers
Clearly depict the picture of consumers, then find ways to build brands that are appropriate and relevant to this group of customers.
Branding must be based on a deep understanding of the customer portrait (buyer persona).
Here is some information you should know when describing an ideal customer portrait:
- Age
- Gender
- Address
- Income
- Academic level
Alternatively, you can dig into details like:
- Motivation for action
- Target
- Pain point
- Affect
- The level of brand preference
The competitive advantage when building a brand is how to narrow the target audience. As a result, you can make sure your brand message is delivered to the right person most clearly.
Identifying the target customer of a product or service is a step that influences and supports every activity in the branding process, especially a marketing campaign. You want the right audience to read the content, click on the ad or be present in your email list … Identifying the right target of your business is an important step for a successful digital marketing campaign.
Create a Brand building mission statement
Have you ever thought about your brand’s mission yet? Simply to say, you must have a good understanding of what your company is chasing after.
Before you can apply a branding process that is trusted by your target audience, you need to know what value the company can deliver.
The mission statement is basically to clearly state the purpose of the company’s existence, thereby deciding to every other aspect of the branding strategy.
Everything from logos to taglines, voice tones, messages and personalities must reflect this mission. So when someone asks what you are doing, you can use the brand mission statement to answer them.
Illustrative example: Nike
We all know Nike’s slogan is Just do it. But do you ever find out what their mission statement is? Let’s take a look:
“Bringing inspiration and creativity to every athlete in the world”
You can see that Nike fulfilling this mission everywhere. They focus on athletes who use Nike products to perform at their best.
Nike even broadens its brand mission by adding this sentence “As long as you have a body, you are an athlete.”
You can see with such a slogan, how Nike’s target customer base is expanded. The airline has constantly built a reputation and gained the customer base to gradually reach the goal of reaching all audiences, as long as they are humans, of course.
When building a brand for the business, you should start from a small step and do not forget to focus on the target customer first. Then, as your number of loyal customers increases, you can expand your goals.
Now step back a bit. Before drafting a mission statement, you need to make sure you identify the right audience. This is one of the most important steps in the branding process.
Research other brands in your field
Never imitate the same big brands in the same industry. But you should find out how well they are doing and how they fail so that you can be different and you can persuade your customers to buy your products instead of competitors’.
We always think about how brands stand out. Do not skip this step. Research key competitors or major brands in the industry.
For example, find out how they build brand names. It must be added that a standard brand name that needs to be easy to identify and remember.
Create excel spreadsheets to research competitors
Rival research is an inevitable step in brand development. Start by creating a rival brand comparison sheet using Google sheets, Excel or notebooks.
Then answer the following important questions:
- Is the opponent consistent in the message and identifiable image across the media?
- What is the quality of their product / service?
- Does the opponent review from customers or mention from social networks for your reference?
- How do competitors run both online and offline marketing?
Choose a few opponents (about 2-4 names) to put into the board. It can be local businesses or even judges compared to the big names in the industry.
Make a list of the highlights and benefits that your brand brings
Firms with larger budgets and resources will lead the industry. And your products, services and benefits only belong to you.
Starting a memorable brand means you have to dig deep into what products you are offering that no one has. Focusing on quality and benefits that make your company brand stand out from the competition.
Assuming you know what your target audience is, give them a reason to choose you over another brand.
And you need to remember that you not only give them a list of features that your product or service has. Instead you should focus on thinking about how to bring value that can enhance the quality of life of users.
For example:
- Quality and transparent customer service
- Support customers to increase product efficiency
- Reduced costs with affordable options
- Save time on everyday tasks
Illustrative example: Apple
Obviously, Apple is not just a computer company. One of the highlights of this brand is its clear design and the main benefit it brings to customers is its ease of use.
From unique packaging to announcements, Apple has repeatedly said its product is different. Remember the Apple slogan from 1997-2002? “Think different”. Think differently. This orientation remains to this day.
Create logos and taglines for Brand building
When it comes to branding, image is the first thing that comes to mind. At this step you may need expert help.
Creating a logo and brand tagline is also one of the most interesting and important steps. This logo will appear everywhere related to the business. It can be the identity image or the brand’s business card.
Therefore, be ready to spend money and time to create a unique logo, thereby strengthening the corporate identity. You can hire a professional designer or an experienced brand agency to help the brand stand out. They have enough expertise to make a special and lasting impression on your business.
Moreover, a professional designer will know the standards for brand development, which can ensure consistency when using future logos such as colors or fonts.
The standards required of a logo include:
- Size and layout of the logo
- Tones
- Font
- Icon
- Image style
- Other web elements
We are halfway there. If you’ve completed 5 steps before, congratulations! Now let’s move on to the remaining steps
Building brand tones
The tone of voice depends on the mission, the customer and the field. This is considered how you communicate with customers and how they respond to you.
Brand tones can:
- Profession
- Friendly
- Service oriented
- Reputation
- Skill
- Advertising sales
- Conversation
- Provide information
You have a lot of options to build a nuance of your brand’s message. But in the end, you also want to choose a tone that suits your target audience (step 1 again).
You will see that if you use the correct tone, the chance of connecting with customers is higher. This is most important when you are posting your blog or social networking post. Remember to keep the tone consistent so that the brand image can be easily identified on many different channels. The community of followers, readers, subscribers will want to recognize a certain tone and brand personality when reading your content. (continue to step 8)
For example: Virgin America
Virgin America is well known for friendly, reliable customer service and their tone is consistent with this characteristic of the brand.
On Twitter, you can find a humorous, charming writing based on each region. They also promote core values by ensuring to provide passengers with electrical sockets.
Brand building message according to elevator pitch
Elevator pitch is the most minimalist and concise message, but it can explain what your product or service offers.
When building a brand, be concise and succinct. Use the tone that you selected in step 6.
Your message should be relevant to the brand and be presented in 1-2 sentences. The message differs from logo and tagline in that it covers the following aspects:
- Who are you
- What do you provide
- Why should everyone be concerned
Brand message is an opportunity to communicate with customers, create a direct emotional connection. This means that if the way you convey hits the customer’s feelings, they will immediately understand your message. Make it as simple and clear as possible.
The most important thing is: When creating a brand message, do not emphasize what your product can do, but focus on explaining why the product is important to customers.
Illustrative example: TOMS Shoes
TOMS Shoes has built a huge following on social media and has been extremely well received. They make clear the message right in the middle of the website: “Improving life. With everything you buy, TOMS will help someone who needs it. A purchase is a help.”
Let the brand personality shine
Customers are not looking for a company just to get a product. They look for companies that can produce products that are “tailored” to their needs, along with sincere service.
Ask yourself how brand positioning is different. Make your personality stand out in every aspect of the branding process. Do not forget the brand personality must be consistent. It is simply:
- Pay attention to tones of communication (using “me” and “you”)
- Share content related to behind-the-scenes
- Tell stories about real experiences
- Describe your product / service in a smart way
Branding all aspects of your business
The branding process never ends.
Your brand should appear clearly on everything that customers can see, hear, and read.
Let me clarify this!
If a customer enters your office or store, your brand image should be displayed in that space as well as through human interaction.
Everything from business cards to advertising, packaging and products must have a logo. On the digital platform, it is important to ensure that the brand is equally recognized everywhere. Read the branding guide to create uniformity in images such as colors, how to use logos, fonts, images, etc.
Website is the most important tool to promote your brand. When designing a website, add tone, message and personality to your content.
Social profile pages should add images that related to the brand and use the tone chosen to attract users.
Video is also a powerful tool. YouTube, Facebook Video, Facebook Live, Snapchat, and Instagram Stories are all content-driven platforms with bold voice and brand personality.
If you use an audio podcast, be loyal to the topic that encompasses the brand’s message, value, and tone.
Warby Parker has quickly developed a unique brand and is the industry leader. Innovative products, experience the model house, display space, digital content marketing, all in accordance with the lifestyle of the customers that they target.
Be loyal to the brand
If you’re not going to rebrand your product to a better product based on user feedback, keep what you’re chasing after from the beginning to the end.
Once you’ve chosen a branding tone, apply it in every piece of content you write. (see step 6 again)
What does branding mean if you’re not consistent. Don’t change your branding strategy often because it will confuse your customers and make long-term branding more difficult.
Illustrative example: Starbucks
Starbucks is one of the world’s leading coffee chains and their brand is committed to connecting people.
What is Starbucks mission?
“Inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup of coffee and one neighborly love at a time.”
That’s why every store is equipped with free wifi, a big table and soft music so people can easily talk. They also write customers’ names on their glasses to make a personal impression.
Although Starbucks once changed its logo in 2011 (omitting the company name), it still feels the same. When you see the blue mermaid logo, what do you think? I am sure it will be a very familiar feeling.
Be the most loyal brand advocate
When building a brand for a small business, you and your employees must wholeheartedly support the branding. Because no one knows the brand better than you, it all depends on how you convey it.
When hiring people, make sure they are in line with the company’s culture in terms of mission, vision and brand value. Encourage employees to build a personal brand associated with the company branding process.
Give loyal customers a chance to speak up by encouraging them to post reviews or share your content.
Brand building awareness in 2019
You already know the steps to build a successful brand. I will share the necessary tools to build a solid digital foundation.
Website user experience
Website is the most important marketing tool you have for business development and branding. This is where consumers will visit when they want to know more about the business and take action when they are ready. Not only do your user experience make a difference to your conversions, your message also needs to convey the brand’s story.
You need to pay attention to every detail when creating a website from domain name registration to web hosting, CMS (I recommend using WordPress)
On top of the website, there must be a fast and friendly download speed on the mobile version. This is one of the best ways to optimize user experience on websites that any webmaster must know!
Most brand marketing activities pull traffic to the website. Besides the beautiful and professional design interface, you also need compelling content. Referring to the content, I will refer to the next digital brand tool: SEO & content marketing.
SEO & Content Marketing
One of the long and effective ways to increase brand awareness and generate organic traffic related to the website is SEO and standard content.
There are many ways to get high rankings in search results. But in general, set the goal of a comprehensive SEO campaign that meets the factors which affecting the website ranking as well as creating high quality content that satisfies the user’s search purpose.
In a nutshell: The content marketing campaign will help you better connect with your target customers and support them throughout the customer journey – building brand credibility to the end result of converting.
The most important foundation of SEO and content is always the blog of the website. When building a blog for your website, you should consider:
- Which content will hit the target customers?
- How is content found on organic search results?
- When should new posts be posted once?
- What is the content promotion plan?
Do not just stop at blog posts but also infographic, video, podcasting, case study, whitepaper, lead magnet (forms of attracting leads on the website) …
Social Media
Smart consumers often use social networking when deciding to buy products from certain brands (accounting for more than 74%)
How can your brand introduce, communicate, and interact with customers through social media effectively?
Effective social media marketing campaigns include:
- Select related content
- Post original content
- Interact, build community
- Paid advertising
Well-done social media helps determine what to do to connect effectively with your community.
Every company should appear under a unified image on all social media channels through quality and related content. With social media, your first goal is to create trust with your customers. Then turn them into loyal customers then make them support your products and services.
Email Marketing
Do you know the highest click through rate from an email you send to an existing listing?
Don’t underestimate the importance of emailing lists early in the branding process. Think of email marketing lists as tight community and treat subscribers like that.
Implementing an email marketing campaign helps increase the click through rate to the website.
You can create subscriber lists by many forms on the website such as:
- Pop Up
- Sidebar
- Scroll Mat
- Slide-in
- Forms of lead magnet
- Landing page forms
Standard content, good, right time, right place, right people is essential to pull traffic to the website and increase conversion rates from email. And not every email message is for sales because customers are at different stages of the buying journey.
Use the following types of email campaigns when targeting specific customers in your marketing funnel.
- Sales advertising (standard / seasonal)
- No sales (blog)
- Newsletter
- Welcome letter
- Email dripping
- Abandoning shopping carts (ecommerce)
“Email is king” when the data proves that email marketing can generate ROI of $44 when investing $1.
Paid advertisement
Building successful paid advertising campaigns for brands is challenging. There are many factors that affect the effectiveness of PPC advertising.
A powerful paid campaign on platforms like Google Ads or Facebook is based primarily on:
- Set smart advertising goals
- Accurate positioning of target customers
- Clear campaign / organization structure
- Keep a close eye on the situation
- Write articles, images, impressive designs, creative
- Perform split-testing to optimize
- Use the right keywords
Remember:
Paid advertising on your own can exhaust your budget. And once the ads are no longer running, the lead and sale may stop. The power of paid advertising is to achieve results in a short time. Make sure it works, but you need PPC campaign along with other inbound marketing channels for long-term ROI goals.
Analysis & Reports
Next, you will want to track the process monthly, annually. From this data, you can adjust your branding campaign and marketing activities to promote the tactics that work best.
Analytics reports should effectively support strategic goals and KPIs of the business. And surprisingly 75% of small businesses do not use analytics to track business performance.
The first step is to install Google Analytics for your website. The tool is completely free and provides dozens of valuable information about user behavior. You can also set up goals to track conversions.
You now have a comprehensive view of branding strategy through marketing, interaction and community building. Combine all in one strategy and be consistent in all activities that every business needs to build a successful brand in the digital age.
Conclusion
Branding is one of the essential things to do for businesses, whether new or established for a while. Strong branding can turn businesses from small players into a formidable opponent.
You will see that customers will gradually trust your brand and buy your product. So develop a consistent message and identity to reinforce your mission. Branding all aspects of user experience: from offline stores, online websites and even personal interactions.
Now it’s time to review what we learned through the branding process with 11 steps:
- Identify target customers
- Create a mission statement
- Research other brands in the field
- Make a list of the highlights and benefits that your brand brings
- Create logos and taglines for brands
- Building brand tones
- Building brand message and elevator pitch
- To brand personality shine
- Branding all aspects of your business
- Be loyal to the brand
- Be the most loyal brand advocate
What branding method did you apply? Please tell me!