No matter how good your products or services are, you’ll still need to build a strong brand identity to ensure your company’s growth and success in today’s ever-competitive market. In fact, it has been proven that brand identity is an essential component of any business’ success.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that brand identity is one of the most valuable assets of a business, as it represents your business and helps you get recognized as well as remembered amongst your competitors, prospects and customers. Brand identity helps you communicate better with your audience.
What is brand identity and why is it important?
In simple terms, your brand identity is your business’ visual identity. It is the face of your business and how it is perceived by your consumers and prospects. Your brand identity represents almost every element that differentiates your products, services and overall brand from others in the market. It includes everything from your company’s custom logo design, to your website to your business cards to your brochures.
Your brand identity allows your target audiences to know who you are, how your products and services are different from others and what your values are.
The four essential components that craft brand identity include:
- Visual brand identity
- Brand voice
- Brand values
- Brand personality
But remember, building a strong identity from your brand doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort.
Are you planning to nail down your brand identity strategy? Here are 10 questions that you must carefully examine:
Do you know your customers well?
Perhaps the most essential element of building a strong brand identity is analyzing who your ideal customers are, what their needs, demands and preferences are, and what they essentially demand from businesses.
An article published by Forbes reveals that gathering information about your customers, including what your prospects like, how much they usually spend, what goals they wish to accomplish and what their purchasing behaviors are, will help you weave a strong brand identity for your company.
To do that effectively, you need to create buyer personas. Given the stiff competition in market, you’ll need to be customer-focused in order to outperform your competitors. So if you’re planning to craft a perfect brand identity, do well to find out what your buyer personas seek from a brand such as affordable prices or quality. Find out their choice and pain areas. See how their needs are changing and evolving.
Also on StartupNation.com: Building and Sustaining Brand Equity
How are you beneficial to your customers?
If a customer is looking out for your product, it means that they are confident that your products might solve their problem. Your customers need you and therefore your brand identity should be such that it communicates to your customers how you would solve their problems.
You need to show that you would take care of all their pain areas and inevitably bring them some relief. It does not matter how you connect with them as long as your products and services are able to solve their problems and issues.
Do you know your competition?
Tim Berry suggests in one of his blogs published at Entrepreneur.com that knowing and understanding your competitors could help you formulate a strong brand identity for your business. There is no denying the fact that knowing market is vital to success. It pays to spend some time researching the market and competitors in order to understand what works in the market and what doesn’t.
Similarly, keeping a keen eye on what’s new and trending will help you stay ahead of your competitors. It also helps you stay consistent across all social media platforms. Doing this would help you build a brand identity that is better than others in today’s ever-so-chaotic market.
What makes you unique?
You need to convey to your customers how you are different from your competitors through your brand identity. You need to communicate to your prospects your brand’s USP and the specialities of your products and services.
Remember, uniqueness is what differentiates you from your competitor. You’ll need to make your brand stand out from the rest. But just being different is not enough. Therefore, try and differentiate your brand by constantly adding value to your products and services.
What is your brand story?
Storytelling is one of the most important components of branding strategy. By sharing the story of how and why your brand was founded, you’ll be able to make an emotional bond with your customers and prospects.
The way you narrate your brand story will determine whether or not people will spend on your product or services. After all, a brand is just what people perceive about you. If your brand story is authentic and convincing, chances are that you’ll easily be able to turn your buyers into your admirers and patrons.
Does your logo communicate your brand?
A blog published at Designhill reveals that logos are the face of a business. A logo represents your company, and a powerful one is easily recognized and remembered by the audience. A thoughtfully designed logo must be simple, timeless and modern. Make sure that you create your company’s logo design only after a conducting a thorough research of the market in order to ensure that your logo makes a long-lasting impression.
Your logo must yield enough power to attract people from the get-go. Ensure proper usage of fonts, colors and images in your logo so that it communicates your brand clearly and effectively.
How do you interact with customers?
How you interact with your customers and the tone of your brand also forms a major part of your brand experience. Also, make sure that you are available on all social media channels your customers use in order to have a wider reach. To make things easier for your customers, you could include instructions for social media and other interactions in your brand guidelines page.
How will you measure your brand perception?
After you’ve developed a brand identity, it is important that you measure its impact and show the results to your customers and prospects. There are chances that your customers would suggest some things that you might have missed out on. It is essential that you know your customer’s honest perception about your brand and make changes if required.
You can run A/B tests on how different colors, fonts and other aspects of brand identity (as discussed above) are perceived by your audience. Testing your brand perception will help you plan better for the future.
Do you speak your audiences’ language?
If you want to attract customer attention, you’ll need to speak their language. You could visit Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn to find out the specific words and phrases people use when posting or commenting about products or services in your industry.
For example, one would obviously not post “enterprise productivity solutions” if one wishes to know about “startup apps.”
Will your customers be satisfied?
Try to find out if your clients are satisfied with your products and services by talking to them personally or organizing opinion polls. They could tell you how they feel about your brand and how you could better your services and products.
Ask them if your products and services are able to solve their problems and bring them relief? Or does your product provide inspiration? Use all the information provided by your customers in crafting a strong identity for your brand and business.
The bottom line of brand identity
Crafting a brand identity is a key component of taking your business to the next level. It helps you develop trust for your brand amongst your customers and prospects. It is your visual identity that stays in people’s minds, who then become your regular customers.
