The first thing to realise is that the definition of branding will change depending who you ask. The term ‘branding’ is used widely among people who work in marketing companies, entrepreneurs, designers, corporate influencers and educators.
A marketing agent might define branding as:
“An emotional association that a consumer makes when engaging with your company, product or service.”
Whereas, a designer might say:
“Branding is ensuring that all your public facing media (website, business cards etc) is well designed and consistent to present a unified message and image”.
Actually both are true, however neither is a complete answer, those definitions are just part of what the term branding covers. The designers answer is a practical step that can be implemented by any business to help build a better and stronger brand.
Whereas the marketing definition is an explanation of what happens when a customer interacts with the brand you are building. The complete definition of ‘branding’ is more complex. For me branding is best explained in when broken down into more easily understood actionable phases.
PHASE 1 – RESEARCH AND TARGETING
Before you start building your brand by envisioning your visuals such as your logo, business stationery or website you need to research exactly who your target audience is.
A designer cannot successfully design suitable visuals to represent your business, product or service without first knowing who they are designing for. So the first part of successful ‘branding’ must be to determine your target demographic as this is the foundation of everything else.
PHASE 2 – CREATING THE RIGHT ‘FEEL’
Once you know who you are targeting with your brand your designer will be able to create effective and cohesive visual communications that will appeal to that exact audience.
However this phase isn’t just about visual appeal, many people make the mistake of assuming that branding is just the style of your logo or business card but it is much more than that.
Phase 2 is also about establishing an overall ‘feel’ for the brand. You should also consider the ‘voice’ of your brand. What this means is deciding what tone you will use when writing all the copy for your marketing material and/or packaging.
For example your copy could be written with a playful, corporate, energetic, youthful or authoritative voice.
Again this should be decided by research into your target demographic to find out which tone of voice appeals to them. It is important that your brand visuals and brand voice complement each other and work together to produce a stronger more cohesive overall brand.
Tip: It is a good idea to read through some of your competitors marketing materials this will give you an idea of their brand ‘voice’. Websites are easily accessible and a good place to start. You could also follow them on social media channels to get a feel for how they phrase their communication.
PHASE 3 – MARKETING YOUR BRAND
Another important factor to consider is how you intend to later market your brand. There are many options when promoting any business, product, service or brand in general.
Once again that all important target audience will influence which marketing methods works best when building awareness for your brand.
If the demographic is younger and technically savvy then digital media such as websites and social media channels are well suited. If you are targeting an older market of consumers then more traditional methods such as print advertising might be better.
Look at where your competitors advertise; how do they reach the consumers you are trying to target?
Raising brand awareness and marketing your brand is really a separate topic which is too much to expand upon in this article fully, but when answering the question of ‘what is branding’ it is an important aspect of the overall definition.
PHASE 4 – MAINTAINING YOUR BRAND
It is important once you have launched your brand that you keep up your reputation; here are some examples of how you can do that.
1. Utilise great design to its full potential.
By selecting a good designer with a lot of experience working with and developing brands you can increase the chances that your logo and other visual communications are well researched, designed and implemented to give your brand the best chance of being initially positively received by your target demographic.
(Read on to see why I use the term ‘initially’, successful brand longevity is achieved by implementing the additional points of maintaining your brand below.)
2. Present a consistent image and voice.
By understanding and communicating to your staff that it is important that all your customer facing communications present a unified message doing this can help you maintain a strong brand image.
A practical example of this might be making sure that wherever your logo is placed from an email signature right through to the side of your delivery trucks that you make sure it appears consistently and at great quality.
To help with this large companies often commission a designer to create ‘brand guidelines’ this is basically a booklet or PDF that can be distributed to all staff to ensure that they have the right image resources when using the company logo and how the logo should be presented. Guidelines also detail what font should be used and at what sizes, along with what the company colours are etc.
Then when a member of staff produces a new mail shot or sends out any correspondence they can refer to the guide to make sure that what they are sending is ‘on brand’ and in line with the company’s brand image.
For smaller businesses this is overkill in my opinion and instead by just working with a quality designer from the outset the designer will be able to set you up with everything you require to ensure you present a consistent message.
Things you should consider when undertaking branding are:
- Logo
- Letterhead
- Business Cards
- Email Signatures
- Website
- Packaging
- Leaflets
- Flyers
- Brochures
- Invoices
- Advertisements
- POS (Point of Sale Visuals)
- Posters
- Event Stands
- Shop/Office Signs
- Vehicle Signage
- Mail shots
- E-Shots
The list goes on and to be honest is different for every company depending on what the company does and how it interacts with customers. But the general rule of thumb is anything customer facing should be consistent in its presentation of your brand image and voice.
3. The quality of the product, service or experience that you deliver.
Now this is the big one, you can create the best visuals in the world and you can develop the most engaging voice for all your marketing materials.
BUT…
If you do not follow through with a great product, customer service and/or customer experience your brand WILL FAIL.
WHY..?
Well it is because of that emotional association we discussed earlier. The association customers make with your brand can be positive or negative. And which association they make relies 100% on the experience they have with your company when they engage with you or your product.
If they have a great experience, receive excellent customer service or love your product then they will subconsciously make a positive association with your brand.
If however they hate your product, receive a poor customer experience or poor service then they will make a negative association. The kicker? Once made it is very hard to change that perception.
You have heard the saying…
“If someone has a good experience they will tell 2 people about it, if they have a negative experience they will tell 10 people, right?”
Well that is still true today and now via the internet, with the availability of online reviews and social media channels it is even easier for an unhappy customer to vent their frustrations. And those frustrations will travel further and much more quickly than ever before.
SUMMERY
Well, that pretty much sums up what ‘branding’ is and I have tried to give you a few pointers about what you can do as a business to help leverage branding to give you a competitive edge.
If you still think that ‘branding’ is just a ‘buzz word’ or ‘irrelevant’ to you and your business, I would urge you to think again. Every business and industry sector is becoming more and more competitive year on year.
According to bis.gov in 2012…
“20 percent of new businesses failed within the first year in the UK and 50 percent of the 400,000 that were setup 50% of them won’t be around by 2015″.
Obviously there are many factors that can cause a business to fail; I am not saying that branding alone will decide if a business succeeds or not.
But what I do want to stress is that all businesses (large or small) should seek to take every possible advantage they can over their competition. And properly implementing the principles of branding is one cost effecting way to help raise and maintain the profile of your business.
If you would like help and/or advice on implementing a branding strategy for your business please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and if you have enjoyed it or found it in any way useful then please consider sharing it by using any of the social share buttons on this page. Your appreciation is greatly valued.
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