The 3 elements of a successful brand
The word “brand” it thrown around a lot in the business world. I hear people talking about branding allll of the time. Branding style boards, brand voice, brand design, brand yourself.
But what does “brand” really mean? If we’re talking about it so often like it’s important, then why doesn’t anyone really know what a brand is?
Brands that often come to mind are big corporations like Apple and Google. Those are recognisable brands that we all know. But you don’t have to be a big player to have a solid, recognizable brand. The truth is, if you don’t have a solid brand, you’ll never become a big player.
Another thing that often comes to mind is logos. Yup, a logo is an important part of a brand, but it’s definitely not your entire brand. As a designer I often see people putting way to much pressure on their logo design, and not enough attention to their other brand details.
So what’s the purpose of a brand?
The first main purpose of your brand is to attract your ideal customer. Having a solid brand instantly builds trust with your potential customers because they recognize you’re legitimate. It should attract them in a way that is specifically targeted to them.
Once you start attracting your ideal customers, your brand consistency is going to create recognition, which helps grow your business and build even more trust.
Again, think of those large corporations like Apple and Google. Whether you trust them or not is up to you, but you can’t deny that they’re both trusted by millions of people, you recognize them straight away and they have done an incredible job building their brands.
So what’s in a brand and how do I make one?
Today I’m going to break down a “brand” into three different categories. If you want your business and brand to be successful, you need to be thinking about these three things.
Vision
This is where you should start, think of this as the first building block. Your vision covers a wide range of business values, it’s what you’re offering to your customers, it’s what makes you unique.
Ask yourself these questions:
What does my business offer? What about my offering is unique? How am I helping my customers? What do I want for my customers? Who are my target customers? What are our company values? What sort of unique selling points do we have? What is our brand/business name and does it align with our target customers? What is our biggest vision for this business?
These are the sort of things that you should be able to answer, if you’re starting a business you’ve probably worked through all of these questions anyway.
But if you haven’t, you need to. Your whole brand should center around your Brand Vision.
Note: Your target audience is really important in this step, make sure you define them, otherwise all of this brand marketing is going to be wasted.
Related Post > How to Define Your Target Audience
Design
A brand has to have a design. The basics of this includes a logo, color palette and imagery.
The important thing here is that you have to use your design consistently.
This is probably the most common mistake I see with smaller business owners. They pay to have their brand designed and it looks great, but they don’t stick to the colors, fonts or imagery, totally defeating the purpose of having their brand designed in the first place.
Your design should be built around your vision, who are you targeting? Does this design attract them?
Brand design is about quality design, but is only effective if used consistently!!
Related Post > What’s in a Brand Design Package
Voice
The lesser talked about, rarely implemented, equally important: brand tone of voice. Yup, your brand comes down to your tone of voice.
How your write your copy, the words you use, your catchphrases are all a part of creating a solid brand, and attracting your ideal customers.
Just like your brand design, your voice should be targeted at your audience. Is your ideal customer a 16 year old female? Then talk like her, to her. Are you targeting a middle aged professional male? Then definitely don’t talk like a 16 year old female. I think you get it.
Related Post > How to Write Your Website Copy
Defining your target audience is hugely important. It’s hard to create a brand when you don’t have a target audience. Once you define your ideal client it’s much easier to narrow down your brand design and voice.
Make sure you get specific with this. Narrow your target audience down to one ideal client. Some people are scared of getting too specific, for fear of missing out on other customers. But if you take anything from this article today, take this: If you’re marketing to everyone, you’re actually marketing to no one.
When you define your Vision, Design and Voice, you will have an awesome brand foundation. The key thing here is to be consistent. If you’re not consistent with what you put out as your brand, you may as well stop trying to create a brand. Brand is all about consistency. Consistency builds trust and trust builds sales.
Have you built a solid brand? What is your best advice for branding? Let me know in the comments!
