Are you starting a business? The most important first step you will take is creating its brand. This will include the visual assets, stylistic choices, and resources you will put together to create a cohesive experience for everyone who interacts with your business, including your customers, competitors, employees, and beyond.
A brand is more than just a logo and a website. It includes everything that affects the way the world perceives and interacts with your business — from the tone of voice you use on your social media channels to the policies you have in place for your employees. Strong branding is the key to building a business that has longevity.
81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying
62% of consumers say that their purchase decisions are heavily influenced by a brand’s values
77% of organizations see employer branding as an integral and crucial part of their overall business strategy
Now that you understand just how important and foundational crafting an impactful brand is to have a successful business, you might be wondering…
“Where do I start?”
This blog post will walk you through our five absolute musts for crafting an impactful brand that will stand the test of time. If you follow these steps, then you will be able to create a consistently positive experience for anyone who interacts with your brand while also growing your business, attracting new customers, earning more money, and eventually, creating loyalists who advocate for your brand everywhere they go.
Step 1: Research Your Market Extensively
Before you do anything else when it comes to your branding, you need to do market research. This includes understanding who your brand is for and who you are competing against for their attention.
Market research also helps you avoid wasting time and money on the wrong people or opportunities and instead helps you make strategic decisions that help grow your business. This could include everything from identifying the best places in town for your products or services to choosing the right marketing channels to spread the word.
Things To Consider:
Market Size
Audience Demographics
Market Segmentation
Industry Dynamics
Top Competitors
Pricing Models
When focusing on crafting a brand that is effective and impactful, the two most important considerations are identifying your target market and understanding who your competitors are.
Who is Your Target Market?
Knowing exactly who your target market is will help you craft a brand that resonates with them. One way to identify who your customers are is to create buyer personas. A buyer persona is a rough sketch of the ideal person you hope to reach. It includes basics such as age, location, education, and income to more in-depth things like their wants and needs, political views, visual preferences, and more. These buyer personas will naturally develop over time as your business and brand evolve but having a strong idea of who your target audience is in the beginning will help you make better choices that will resonate with your ideal customers right now.
Who Are Your Competitors?
No matter what industry you find yourself in, the market is often saturated with countless brands trying to carve out a niche for themselves. When you understand who those brands are and what their strengths and weaknesses are, you will be able to leverage those insights into your branding.
When researching competitors, be thorough. Look at everything from the components of their visual brand to their website, brand tone, services and products, pricing models, the various customer service experiences they offer, marketing strategies, and more.
By understanding who your competitors are and how your brand compares, you can craft a brand that effectively differentiates itself and carves out a space in the marketplace.
Step 2: Develop A Strategic Visual Identity
Visual identity refers to all the visual components of your brand. This includes your logo, colour palette, fonts, typography, shapes, patterns, icons, illustrations, style, and any other visual element that helps someone identify your brand. When done right, all the components of your visual brand will work together to reinforce your brand story and values.
Branding professionals and designers conduct their own market research before creating your brand. This includes understanding the visual preferences of your target customers, the various styles of your competitors, and current trends, and strategically blending this information to create a strong visual identity that properly represents your brand.
Also Read: Why Design and Visual Branding MatterNailing the visual component of your brand is crucial. Investing in your visual branding from the beginning can seem like a pricey endeavour but it will save you money down the road! Having to redo your brand because you took shortcuts the first time is an expensive task and can include redoing everything from your logo to your website, business cards and signage, merchandise, and more.
Step 3: Craft a Brand Voice and Tone
Brand voice and tone are how you communicate with your target audience but there are distinctions between the two. Brand voice represents what you are saying and brand tone is focused on how the message sounds. A common way to describe the differences between the two is that brand voice is what you say and brand tone is how you say it.
Think of your brand voice as your business’s personality. Personality is one of the most important aspects of your brand and will dictate your brand tone.
Are you a fun and flirtatious beauty brand?
Are you a confident and powerful sports brand?
Are you a light yet informative health food brand?
Establishing your brand personality will naturally help you determine your tone and how you like to communicate with your audience.
Consistent brand voice and tone are essential to crafting an impactful brand. Your content needs the same care that other elements of your brand receive, and it should be consistent across all mediums — from your email marketing to your website copy and social media captions.
Research what types of personalities your target audience most identifies with. Then craft a personality that aligns with their interests and also aligns with your business goals and values. Then begin to lay out the language and style your brand plans to communicate with. This will mean identifying specific words and phrases as well as language styles.
Once you have established your brand tone and voice, consistency will be crucial. Consistency will help your customers build brand recognition over time, understand your values and goals, and establish trust. Consistency will help your internal team better understand how they should interact with your brand and one another.
Keep in mind — while brand voice should remain consistent, brand tone can change depending on the situation. For example, how you style an Instagram caption might be different than how you craft your internal newsletter. However, there should be consistent themes and styles throughout your content that keep everything aligned.
Step 4: Establish Your Brand Story
A brand story tells your customers who you are and what motivates you. Powerful brand stories help customers build an emotional connection with your business which ultimately drives sales.
In other words…
When customers relate to your reason for being, they are far more likely to engage with your brand long-term! A powerful and impactful brand story creates lifelong customers.
The simplest way to craft an effective brand story is to think of a problem and detail how your brand solves that problem, and why it matters. This journey to the solution and the payoff at the end connect your audience to your story and give them a reason to care.
Example of an Impactful Brand Story: Patagonia
Patagonia is an American retailer that specializes in outdoor clothing and equipment. They are dedicated to creating high-quality and dependable products that are good for the environment. Their mission as a brand is to do better for the planet and help slow the process of global warming.
The Problem: Fast fashion companies are producing millions of pounds of low-quality clothing items that ultimately end up in landfills around the globe. In fact, the fast fashion industry is responsible for as much as 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions making it a significant contributor to the climate crisis.
How Patagonia Solves The Problem: Patagonia has created a Worn Wear program that takes previously owned Patagonia products, restores them, and then resells them at discounted prices. This prevents their clothing from ending up in landfills, giving their products multiple lives while helping the environment
To tell its brand story effectively, Patagonia makes sure to explain why programs such as their Worn Wear matter and how they benefit communities and the planet. The video below is an excellent example of how they are telling their brand story through their marketing:
Step 5: Integrate Your Brand & Business
The difference between a good brand and an impactful brand is that an impactful brand seamlessly translates its branding throughout the business.
To do this, you will need to create a comprehensive brand guide outlining how your brand should be represented everywhere. This includes everything from how to use your logo to examples of your brand tone and voice. This brand guide will help both your internal team, as well external collaborators, consistently represent your brand across every medium including your website, social media platforms, and marketing channels.
Integration goes beyond just consistent visual and content choices! It is also about creating a consistent and positive experience across all customer touchpoints, including their online and offline interactions with your brand.
Strong brand and business integration also means aligning your team across all departments. Create processes within your business that ensure that everyone who is collaborating on your business, from your customer service team to your sales and marketing team, is on the same page. This will ensure everything that everything that comes out of your business looks, sounds and feels cohesive.
Have Questions About Creating an Impactful Brand?
Impactful brands stand the test of time. By giving everyone who interacts with your brand a consistent experience, you will establish a powerful brand presence that will set you up for longevity and growth.
Are you creating a new brand?
Start by conducting market research, developing your visual identity, creating a consistent tone and voice, telling your story, and integrating all the components of your new brand seamlessly throughout your business. And remember — brands that are consistent gain customers for life. While your brand can and should evolve, consistency will give your brand the foundation it needs to make the right choices down the road.
Big thanks to Spark & Pony, a creative agency based in Edmonton, for creating this blog post dedicated to Web Design and Branding. We hope you enjoyed reading, and if you would like to find out more you can access their site here.
Stay tuned for a series of unique content covering the digital marketing industry from a range of Canadian agencies.