Whilst the process of creating a brand, or re-branding your business may seem overwhelming at first, with enough research and careful consideration it can be a relatively straight-forward process. Here are some starting points of what to bear in mind while trying to build a successful brand identity:
Target Audience and Brand Perception
First things first – identify your target audience and carefully consider how you would ideally like to be perceived by them.
Is this rebrand an attempt to reach a new audience? Maybe your company has evolved over the years and it’s time for you to branch out to encompass a wider target audience – a rebrand can be particularly helpful in this respect. You need to consider what you want to portray with this new brand – a more corporate, clean look to attract bigger clients? Or does your business need a more creative, fun aspect in order to inject some energy into your branding which is perhaps a little outdated or simplistic?
Real Business is a blog that recently underwent a rebrand – they offered individuals a preview of the new website and asked them their opinion – it’s important to assess how your brand translates before committing to it. If you do poll your target audience’s opinion, ensure you have enough a relatively large amount of data so you aren’t basing your brand decisions around a small and therefore easily skewed and probably unrepresentative sample.
Physical Brand Appearance
Branding is as much as about your company’s values and ethos as it is the appearance – however the physical representation of your brand will be the first impression your customers/clients have of your business, so you want to make it count and ensure it conveys the message you want. Important aspect of your brand’s physical appearance are your logo, colour scheme, website design and your offices themselves.
Brand Personality
Successfully projecting you’re desired brand personality is another key aspect of creating a strong brand identity.
Social media and emailing campaigns can be useful tools when trying to establish your brand personality with your target audience. Your brand personality should be easy for your target audience to relate to and something that appeals to them. The copy in your advertising and on your web-presence should also convey your brand personality.
Including videos as part of your website and social media can help to enrich your brand personality and really show consumers what your company’s about.
Celebrity Endorsements
If you can afford it, getting a celebrity to endorse your brand can instantly give your brand a recognisable association. So choose the celebrity carefully because the way individuals perceive that celebrity is how will also begin to view your brand.
A good example of this is QMS International Plc. – specialises in ISO 9001 -recently appointed Nick Hewer as their celebrity ambassador – this was a great example because Nick Hewer personifies both a solid business sense but also innovation and supporting new businesses.
Multi-Channelling
Utilising your resources to promote your brand on every available and relevant channel is a modern day must. There are a range of platforms to cover, online alone there’s social media (Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit etc.) paid google search, organic google search even Bing if you’re being thorough.
However, you must remember to keep your branding and style of copy consistent throughout the various mediums and channels. Brandy identity is a lot less value able when it’s inconsistent – the aim is for your branding to be instantly recognisable not matter the platform it’s being viewed on.
