When the majority of people hear the word “brand”, they instantly associate it with a logo. However, creating a strong brand involves so much more than that and it takes a lot of work, research and dedication.
Put simply, the quality of your brand closely determines whether your target audience will decide to do business with your company and whether your company will have relevance.
In fact, according to a survey conducted by Nielson’s Global New Product Innovation, “nearly six-in-10 global respondents (59%) prefer to buy new products from brands familiar to them, and 21% say they purchased a new product because it was from a brand they like” (Source: Nielsen.com, Understanding the Power of a Brand Name).
In today’s consumer society, brands are everywhere around us, so it is quite a challenge for businesses to distinguish themselves from the severe competition out there.
Unfortunately, not many people are familiar with the ways of creating a brand identity that will be really effective.
That is why we have created this article, to help give you some more insight into how to do some market research and come up with a strong brand from the very beginning.
Start with the Competition
The first and the most important stage in creating a brand is conducting a thorough research about your competitors. Analysing your competition and comparing their brands is essential for making your brand more authentic and relevant.
The best way to gain a closer insight into your major competitors’ businesses is to familiarise with what exactly they have to offer, what their marketing strategy consists of, which visual elements they tend to use, what their customers’ opinions about their products or services are, as well as what potential weaknesses they have.
This research should be used for further developing your own strategy, and it by no means implies that you should steal someone else’s ideas.
Establish Your Target Audience
After you have learned more about your competitors’ brands, the next step is to carefully determine who your target audience is. Instead of trying to present your brand to everyone, it’s usually recommended to focus on a specific group of people who can really relate to your brand and benefit from it.
In doing so, you will be able to make better use of your marketing efforts and create a brand in ways to suit your audience’s wants and needs, as well as to make sure that the message you are trying to send is clear.
Some of the best ways to establish your target audience are to conduct user surveys on a regular basis, analyse customer data, use social media platforms and Google Analytics, and interact with people who might be interested in what you have to offer via multiple channels.
Create Customer Personas
The easiest way to create customer personas is to talk with your existing customers in order to find out what exactly motivates them to purchase your products or services as well as what common problems they have, to help you profile the typical customer types.
If you have a sales team, they may also have further details to help you build out typical customer personas further. After you have gathered this data, it will help you to identify what your goals are to target these customer personas.
Establish a Brand Story
Effective storytelling is of a crucial importance when it comes to creating your brand, and transforming your identity and presence. Marketing experts claim that brand stories directly contribute to establishing trustworthy relationships with your potential and already existing customers. So, if you want to create an effective brand story, you should take the following into consideration:
- The story needs to be authentic enough to distinguish your company from your competitors.
- It needs to be personal enough for your target audience to be able to truly connect with it.
- It needs to be simple and offer a thorough description of how your brand can be the best solution for problems customers usually encounter.
Create the Visual Aspects of Your Brand
Brand’s visual aspects refer to your brand’s logo and its design. Since your logo is something that will appear on your website, your social media pages, and on pretty much everything else that relates to your company, it’s important to create a memorable logo.
In order to achieve that, you need to pay a special attention to colours, typography, graphics, and photographs you will use to visually describe your brand.
Keep Things Consistent
After you have managed to do an extensive research, put your results to good use, and come up with an attractive logo for your brand, it’s essential to remain consistent in everything you do. It’s not enough to just have a good brand and an eye-catching logo, you need to make sure people know what it means.
To help ensure your brand will bring success to your business in the long run, you need to advertise it effectively and on a regular basis, and to interact with your audience as much as possible to show them that you truly care about them and to find out if there are any improvements to be made.
Creating a strong brand doesn’t need to be a complex process at all, although it takes some time and dedication, following the steps above will help you on your way to meet your business objectives in a timely manner.
For more information on branding and creating a logo, you might enjoy these other related Marketing.com.au articles:
- Why Your Business Should Invest in Digital Logo Design
- Five Simple (and one complicated) Steps to Effective Market Research
- How to Use Web Design for Brand Recognition and Impact
- Become a Data Detective and Solve Your Own Marketing Problems
- Visual Identity as an Important Part of Any Marketing Strategy