When people think about building a business, they are filled with huge aspirations and visions of making a ton of money. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can be rather challenging in such a competitive world.
The world is changing, and consumers expect far more than they once used to when it comes to the people they purchase from. With the internet available at their fingertips, consumers have multiple options for the same product, and the decision will always come down to trust.
Simply starting a business is no longer enough, in order to succeed, you need to build something people can relate to and trust; you need to build a brand. In this post, we are going to go over a few ways you can give your business the edge it needs, and become the brand that consumers trust.
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Find Your Brand’s Audience
The first thing you should establish when it comes to building your brand is to find the demographic you are going to speak to. While you, of course, will target specific groups whatever your business model is, it’s even more important when you are building a brand, as your brand story will reach them best.
One thing to take into account when considering your target audience is that after you have conducted market research, your audience may turn out to be different from what you originally thought.
With this in mind, this should tell you the importance of getting out there and talking to people of all ages before you start creating your directly aimed marketing material. Why this may seem like a time-consuming step to take, it’s crucial to the success of your business. You should always remember that you cannot give everything to everyone.
Establish Your Brand Story
One of the most important things a modern business can do is to build a brand story. For those who aren’t familiar with what a brand story is, this section will explain.
A brand story is something that explains the brand, why it exists, who it’s there to serve, and why it wants to serve. While this may sound incredibly simple, it’s essential so your customers can empathize with your business cause, and they find you relatable.
For example, if in your town you have two shops next to each other that sell identical items, for identical prices, it can be a come down to the simplest of things when you choose which one to use. What if one of those shops was more aesthetically pleasing to you? What if one of those shops were to be driven by an eco-friendly movement? You would be more drawn to the one with more to it, right?
As the example has shown, most of the time, something incredibly simple can set you apart from the competition. One thing that is important to mention when creating a brand story is; it should be genuine, if you have a brand story that doesn’t legitimately mean anything to you, consumers will pick up on this, and it will have the opposite effect to the desired one.
Establish Your Brand Mission
Equally as important as the brand story is the brand mission, and often, the two are synonymous with each other.
When you are creating your brand mission, you are simply telling the people what you are passionate about and getting that out into the world in the clearest way possible. Before people buy into your brand, or its story, the consumer needs to know what you provide.
When creating your brand mission, everything needs to be done right from the image and colors of your brand, all the way to your logo font. These may all seem like simple things, but they help to take your message and convey it in the best way possible.
One of the most important things to remember is this; when people ask what your business does, you should be able to answer them with your mission statement, and they leave knowing precisely what your business offers.
Research The Competition
Researching your competition is incredibly important, but you must be careful not to draw inspiration from their success. Doing this can leave you in a lot of hot water and will certainly be the demise of your business.
The idea of researching the competition is knowing exactly what they do, and more importantly, knowing what they don’t do. You should approach your research from the eyes of a consumer and see where the company fails.
Once you are armed with this information, you should then make it your mission to offer every service that is not offered by the close competitors in the market. By doing this, you have found your niche entry point that will not only satisfy the customers in need, but it may also even see the customers of the competition migrate your way.
Creating Your Logo & Tagline
While we briefly touched upon the importance of your logo earlier, we are going to examine it in more detail in this section.
While for some, a company logo is just something they can apply to letterheads and business cards, a logo should itself be able to tell the story of your brand. For a brand, the logo can be one of the, if not the most important part of building the brand.
The logo will generally be the first thing that catches the eyes of the consumer, and it will always be the primary means of association with your brand. When creating your business logo, you should really put in a great deal of thought, and if your logo can tell a story, that’s also something quite impressive.
For example, Toyota has one of the smartest logos on the planet. Don’t believe us? Go and take a look, that famous badge actually spells out the word Toyota.
Something as smart as this managed to go unnoticed for years, but as you can imagine, the amount of thought that went into that badge must have been incredible, and while it may seem simple, it’s actually rather brilliant.
Equally as important as the badge is the tagline. The tagline should reinforce everything your brand stands for and also help to announce a short and clear message. When you combine the tagline and the logo, together, they should work together in synergy and also encourage people to think about what your story as a brand really is.
To Conclude
Hopefully, this short post has been able to encourage you to see the benefits of creating a brand, rather than just starting a business. While many people often believe a brand and a business are the same, they are, in fact, two very different things.
This post just goes over a few of the essentials when it comes to building your brand, and there are many more things to consider, these essentials should, however, get you well on your way to creating a brand that your consumers will relate to, and love.
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