How to Create a Successful Brand Identity

Your business is a lot more than just the services and products you provide, alone. It’s more than the team that makes it all possible. There’s an intangible quality about your business that, when used well, can do most of the heavy lifting of attracting your customers and keeping them with you for longer. This is your brand. If you don’t have a brand identity, then it can be difficult to know exactly how to use it. As such, we’re going to look at what it takes to create a brand identity that is distinct, but most important, successfully forges connections with your customers.

A Unique Idea

Whether you’re trying to determine the ideal business arena for you, or you’ve started your business and you’re trying to think of what will set you apart from the competition, a unique value proposition is vital. It can be a unique product or service that you offer, but it can also be your expertise in targeting a specific market or demographic and its unique needs. It can even be in offering familiar services but in a new format, such as with dedicated account managers in B2B businesses, or a subscription service in B2C markets. Having a totally unique product or service is the strong UVP (providing there’s a market and a need for it), but even if you can’t create that, find what makes your offerings unique,

Define Your Mission And Vision

The unique value proposition is the ‘what’ of what your business offers. Next, you have to think about the ‘why.’ All companies are driven by a need for profit, but that has to be joined with true purpose and long-term goals. For instance, a furniture company may have the aim of providing long-lasting designer furniture to meet the needs of customers seeking luxury living standards or might seek to make certain kinds of furniture more affordable and available to those who might not be able to get them otherwise. Other values that can drive your business include a dedication to sustainability, fulfilling your obligations to your local community or employing artisans and experts in the field.

Demonstrate Your Leadership

This isn’t about your leadership amongst your own team, although that certainly is important to the success of just about any leadership. Rather, you need to focus on thought leadership in your industry. Being able to demonstrate your expertise and to provide insights that your market needs, to your customers but also to others in your field, can help you build your reputation as an expert. With a content marketing professional, you can create a content plan that ensures you’re always putting out insightful and helpful content that reacts to the needs of the day. It can also demonstrate an understanding of your target market, which is vital for the growth of any business.

Know Your Target Audience

Everything that we have covered so far, from the unique value proposition of your business to the values that drive it, and the insight that you demonstrate, has to take your target audience into account. If you’re talking right past your audience, then they’re not going to see the relevance of what you’re putting out, causing them to look elsewhere. If your customers are, for instance, predominantly young families, then you need to put out content that speaks to the needs and wants of young families. Putting together an ideal customer profile can help serve as an avatar that you keep in mind whenever putting together product ideas, marketing plans, or content briefs. It hones the focus of your messaging to the people that it’s really supposed to reach in the first place.

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

There are few things more detrimental to strong branding than inconsistency. If you’re putting out one kind of messaging in one space, and a different message with a totally different look in another, then you can end up undermining yourself. Often, this happens not on purpose but because not everyone you’re working with is working to the latest standards. As such, having a brand bible can ensure that everyone who delivers messaging on the behalf of the business, from internal marketing teams to freelancers, is using the same playbook, using the same language, visuals, and values behind their work. Ensure consistency across the board for the best results.

A strong brand is what separates a simple provider of goods and services from businesses that have relationships with their markets. Work with your brand and it will do a lot for you.

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