Define your brand

It’s been said that if you take care of business, work hard and be kind and considerate, then your brand will take care of itself. The implication being that the main influencers in the overall success of a brand are the leaders and owners who are making key decisions. Effectively, you are your brand and your brand is you. 

The vision, values and culture that you set out and project through your products, services and passion are essential to realising your brand’s overall potential. Consequently, your brand values will have a direct influence on brand association and how it is perceived by your audiences.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

Perception and association are emotional values which, when aligned to create an emotive brand, are an extremely effective way to connect you to your product. This, in turn, creates a strong connection with your customers’ needs and aspirations. Once you generate an emotional connection, you are one step closer to creating a loyal customer base.

When you first create your business, you want to go to market and start generating revenue as quickly as possible. You have developed a product, set up your supply chain and, if required, built a team. But you have only had minimum exposure, and as a consequence, very few people will be aware of you or any of your offerings. So how do you set about selling the products and services that you’ve spent many hours deliberating over and perfecting when you have yet to generate adequate brand awareness? This is a question many business owners ask themselves.

Creating positive brand awareness is a challenging undertaking for many businesses. IFP, (Insights for Professionals) 2018, revealed that almost a quarter of ready-to-trade businesses acknowledge that brand awareness is their most demanding obstacle to overcome – even more challenging than lead-generation or securing an appropriate budget.

An obvious and pertinent approach is to create a distinctive look and feel. If considered and tested, this can help you to make your proposition stand out as unique. Likewise, a USP (unique selling point) is highly desirable within overly saturated and competitive markets. Consequently, if your proposition looks and feels exclusive you will have an improved chance of it being noticed and coveted.

Ready-to-trade businesses acknowledge that brand awareness is their most demanding obstacle to overcome

IFP, 2018

It cannot be overstated how essential it is to define the values of your business. This will help designers and writers to characterise how your customers and the general public perceive your brand. For example, you may want your branding to reflect a corporate vision, or you may want to reflect an edgy, more disruptive personality.

Which values would you like to be associated with your business? Most people want to be associated with quality, innovation, respect and other emotive depictions that indicate a caring and understanding business. However, you may feel that your business values are more closely aligned with alternative adjectives, such as brave, mercurial and unpredictable.

Ultimately, you must decide how you want your business to be portrayed and what language you use to talk to your audience. It is important that this is fully considered as it could have an impact on determining your uniqueness to your audience. Professionals within the design industry can assist you in this process. Their experience will you help you to effectively reflect and communicate what your brand stands for.

As a business leader, you should have an understanding of what you originally set out to achieve, where you want to be and how you are going to get there. It’s your vision for the future. Ask yourself if you can effectively communicate your strategy, both internally and externally. Is your business organised to help you achieve your objectives? If you fully understand and communicate your goals, which for example, might be to improve or enrich lives with your products and services, then you are better placed to be able to achieve them.

It sounds simple, but many owners don’t consider writing a mission statement, let alone periodically reviewing and understanding if it is still fit for purpose. Businesses do evolve due to internal and external influences. Maybe a business loses an important employee to a competitor or gains one, markets change, technology influences operations. There are many reasons for a change to your vision, but fundamentally, most businesses should stay true to their original goals.

If you would like to read more and understand what effective brand design can do to help your business stand out from the crowd, then we have put together 5 Essential Tips to Create a Successful Brand. You can download this helpful white paper for FREE by clicking the button below and completing a few steps.

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