The branding of your business is renowned by many to be one of the most important aspects of doing business. After all, this is how your customers and clients are going to see and judge your business, and first impressions count.
Hand in hand with this, it’s important to make sure your branding is ideal for generating and connecting with leads that will enter your sales funnel to become profitable customers. However, this Is obviously easier said than done.
Nevertheless, while there are no hard and fast rules to remember when it comes to branding your business, there are some tried-and-tested steps to remember to ensure you’re getting the best results. Today, we’re going to explore these steps, so you have everything you need to know.
Let’s get straight into it.
Identify your target audience
This is the first and most important step you’ll need to take before you start doing anything else. Without understanding who your target audience is, you won’t be able to design your branding to connect with them effectively.
“It’s vital you make sure you’re not trying to target ‘everybody and anyone’ because this simply won’t work because it’s impossible and your branding will be too broad. Be specific and concise with your branding and potential markets” shares Nick Davis, a marketer for 1Day2Write and Brit Student.
Effectively summarize your brand
A brand mission statement is such a vital part of your branding because it defines for you, your employees and your customers exactly what you stand for and what you set out to achieve. This should only be one or two sentences that encapsulate your driving purpose.
Take Nike’s brand statement—To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
As you can see, this is concise and summarizes the brand perfectly. It also indicates the target market from the last step and easily helps everyone to see what the business is doing.
Deal with controversies quickly
“While a business will do what they can to avoid controversy, this isn’t as easy as it may seem. Whether the company puts out some controversial content or someone says something inappropriate, it’s important to make sure your business is responding as quickly as possible” explains Benjamin Green, a leads generator for WriteMYX and Australia2Write.
Remember back at the beginning of 2018 when social media influencer Logan Paul uploaded a video of a man hanging in the infamous Suicide Forest in Japan and the video hit the YouTube trending page? YouTube took over a week to respond, which resulted in hundreds of global advertisers pulling their ads from the platforms.
YouTube received a huge amount of backlash from this act, especially since the trending page can be accessed by people of all ages. One of the biggest problems here was YouTube taking so long to remove the video, and then responding in general. As a company, if you ever find yourself in a position, you need to make sure you’re working to address any issues as soon as possible to show you’re serious about dealing with it and to prove you’re proactive in making things right.
Think about the visuals
It’s important to make sure you’re thinking about the visual aspects of your brand because they are just as important as your text content and the overall image you’re sending out into the world. In this category, types of branding visuals include;
- Your logo (size, placement, visuals)
- Icons
- Fonts, typography and font sizes
- The photographic media, such as images, style of photos, filters and editing styles
- Videography styles, editing styles and formats
A picture speaks a thousand words, and this is vital to make sure you get your branding because this is one of the first things your potential leads will see, and this all comes together to create an impression of what your business is like.
Implement your branding into every aspect of your business
Once you’ve developed your branding, it’s important to make sure it’s implemented into every single aspect of your business so it remains consistent and anybody can look any part of your business and realize it’s coming from you.
From your website and marketing content to your social media pages and email banners, make sure you’re being consistent and thorough to ensure every part of your business is in line with the image you’re trying to present to your potential leads.
