Effective Strategies to Establish a Powerful Brand

Zoi Kotsou -

Anyone who has a business or provides a service understands how crucial it is to establish a brand.

In this article we’ll talk about strategies that are sure to help you develop one that will make you stand out!

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What is Branding?

Branding is essentially an identity communicated through advertising and design. It’s not only who you are and who you’re here to serve, but also the overall personality.

Why is Branding Important in Your Business?

Branding is the aspect that helps your business to stand out. Like we mentioned above, it’s your personality.

It’s crucial to establish a personality with your potential audience, so they know who you are and what you stand for.

6 Strategies to Establish a Powerful Brand

Communicating a personality can be difficult when a potential client only sees a thirty-second ad, or a billboard, but here are 6 strategies for how to build a strong brand. Keep in mind there are many ways of branding, but these are our top practices.

Discover and Develop Your Brand Identity

First and foremost you have to develop your brand identity, and this comes with a list of possible questions.

Here are some we like to present in the beginning:

  • If our company was a person you saw on the street, what would they look like?
  • If our company could speak, what would it say? What words would they choose?
  • What kind of personality does our company have? Are they light and funny, or are they dark and serious?

If you want to begin developing a brand identity you do have to start treating your business as an individual that has a style and dynamic. The idea of a brand is to communicate to the world so focus on the personality.

When you see a person walking down the street you quickly assume the kind of person they are. It’s just how human nature works. The same is true for any kind of advertisement or logo.

Once we see a particular feature we assume a particular dynamic and personality from it. This helps us to know if the product or service is for us, or if we’re not interested.

When you ask questions about the actual personality now you can start developing the brand.

So you’ll want to think about:

  • What colors come to mind?
  • What shapes?
  • What type of fonts?

These are basic structural features that can begin to communicate your brand to the outside world.

Know Your Target Audience

Understanding what product or service you are giving to the world will then lead to the question of, well who needs this service or product? Don’t just assume everyone needs it.

You have to clarify the particular audience you believe needs this product or service.

This can be very difficult because as a business owner you want to be open to as many people being interested in your business as possible, but painting with broad strokes makes it far more difficult to grab onto an audience.

This is where you can start to find the specific language that works for your particular audience to draw them in.

The benefit of understanding this is your choice of language. Different demographics approach language and communication differently. A twenty-year-old college student speaks and interacts differently than a forty-five-year-old father of three.

Not only that, but their priorities are different. You aren’t going to try and sell financial planning for families to a twenty-year-old college student, so don’t waste energy or time attempting to communicate to that audience.

Further Reading: How to Foster Work-Life Balance in Remote Work Environment

Study Your Competitors

Now that you know what product or service you have to offer as well as your target audience it’s time to take a look at what your competitors are doing.

Keep in mind that your competitors are looking to hook that same target audience as you, so they are using the language and style they believe are most beneficial to spreading their brand.

  • Where do you see them being successful?
  • What aspect do you feel you can improve on?
  • What sets you apart from them?

It’s not about copying them, that is crucial, because if you are copying their work then you aren’t creating an individual brand for yourself.

However, it’s important to look at what your competitors do well and to see where you could do even better.

In fact, it’s important to study your competitors to see how you stand out. If you’re an individual brand, what is something that you offer that is different? Do you communicate or present yourself in a different way?

These are important when thinking of building strong brands in marketing management since they will individualize your brand.

Create a Brand Logo & Tagline

So this is where all of that work of discovering the kind of colors, fonts, and shapes comes in. All of these aspects are going to help you to hone in on a particular dynamic that your brand holds.

This dynamic and message is established to an audience with a logo. We are familiar with many logos and taglines in our day-to-day lives. “Just Do It” is a tagline that will constantly remind us of a large check mark emblematic of the Nike brand.

The Apple logo coupled with “Think Different” will make us think of Apple. Now obviously the quality and ingenuity of these companies were the main features that made them successful, but without the proper logo and tagline, would they have gotten that far?

Also, when you look at these particular logos and taglines, the one aspect that stands out is simplicity. They are unbelievably simple, and therefore memorable.

A tagline communicates what your brand does, while at the same time giving a simple message to the audience. “Just Do It” communicates a drive and discipline, and therefore says to the audience, go with Nike and you will get that kind of discipline.

What does your brand want to say to the world? How can it help the individual achieve their goals?

These are the key aspects of how to build a strong brand image. It’s especially crucial since these are the main features your target audience first observes.

Build a Brand Story Through Consistent Messaging

We as humans connect to the story. It’s no wonder we are constantly looking for the next binge-able series on Netflix or Hulu. We all want to connect to the human experience. This is why your brand needs a story.

So what is your story?

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself to begin developing one for your business:

  • Why did you develop your product or service?
  • What did you find was lacking in your particular niche that you felt you needed to offer this service?
  • What did you hope to achieve?
  • What does your product or service give to the individual, the community, and the world?

It can start to sound a bit grandiose, but it’s important to root it in truth. Our products and services may be small, but the goal is to make a great impact.

Once you have that story it’s important to make sure each aspect of your branding carries that message with it. Does the logo speak to this story? Does your tagline, or each particular ad?

We should see your story in every aspect of your branding even if it’s small. This is where simplicity and specificity are crucial. Don’t overwhelm your target audience, just give them bits and pieces that speak on their own.

Let Your Brand Shine

Once you have all the fundamental pieces the best thing to do now is get it out there! There are many ways to put your brand out there and make sure to think outside the box.

What are some fun ways to expose your logo, your image, and your story to the world? Here are some basic ideas to get you started:

  • Create stickers that can catch the eye of your target audience.
  • Print business cards that peak the interest of people.
  • Think of social media platforms and what striking images and words can really grab the attention of people scrolling through.
  • Make the branding of your company visible to your clients in all of your events and marketing strategies (i;e;  if you are hosting a hackathon make sure all of the computers and banners of the event show your logo)

Remember that those are just basic ideas. The way you put your brand out there is also a part of your brand and personality! It’s a part of the consistent messaging that we mentioned earlier.

Your brand is an individual, and you want that individual to be the kind that convinces your audience to lean in with interest when they speak. Let it be someone interesting and individual that would make your target audience say, “Hmm tell me more!”

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Further Reading: How to Use Social Media to Find a Job

Conclusion

If you want your brand to stand out, these are 6 practices that will get you started on the right track. Remember that if you have fun and keep it simple your brand will communicate to your target audience in an enticing way!

About the Contributor

Veselin Mladenov is the Content Manager of ThriveMyWay. He has more than 10 years of experience in the field of corporate marketing and sales, and decided to pursue his passion - digital marketing and content creation.

LinkedIn: Veselin Mladenov

Twitter: @VeselinMladeno6