What is branding?
Branding isn’t just a good-looking logo. Branding is a strategy to create a connection with your consumers and generate revenue for your business. The visual identity is the part that comes after your strategy within your branding. The brands identity conveys your strategy to your consumers which creates a strong and positive impression on them so they begin to engage with your brand. Branding is knowing the habits of your consumers and what will trigger them. What will they love to see and hear, and how are you going to captivate them?
Branding creates trust.
This is one of the most important points of branding. This can be difficult to achieve if you miss some crucial steps from your branding. Your branding strategy consists of your story, mission, values, target market, personality, vision and position within the industry. To create the trust you need to convey your brand story, explaining to your consumers why you exist and what created the purpose of your business. Being honest and transparent with your consumers can build that trust for them to invest. The identity also plays a crucial part to this too. Is your visual identity a true representation of your brand, is it consistent? If you’re up against a brand that has invested time and money into this when your business has not, then the consumer is going to have more trust in the brand that has invested. This isn’t to say you need to spend thousands on your branding straight away but you need to cover all bases to begin to make an impression.
Your business becomes memorable.
This is one of the biggest impacts branding can have. It’s all about first impressions, you want to make a positive impact that sticks in your consumer’s mind. This can be achieved with consistent messaging and a strong cohesive visual identity. What colours are you choosing to represent your brand? Which typography have you chosen to speak for your brand. If applied correctly and consistently you can have that memorable impact. This can be influential enough for them to engage or invest in your brand straight away. If they aren’t ready, that’s ok, you have made a positive and memorable impact so that when they are ready, they do come back to you.
Increase business value.
Branding is great to create a good future for your business. Creating a business into a brand gives it strong foundations to build and grow from. Increases in population and demand gives your brand a strong reputation which results in brand growth and revenue. This then translates into brand value. This effect can open up other business opportunities for external investment opportunities, collaborations with like-minded brands and further brand expansions. This further increasing the value of your brand to build better services and products for your consumers.
Benefits your employees/team.
Strong branding can bring in employees who are prepared to stand behind it, who have similar beliefs and vales with your brand. They truly believe in your brand, what it stands for and what it’s offering your consumers. Not only are they proud of working for a brand with a great reputation and high value but eager to help the brand grow and improve. After all, your employees are ambassadors of your brand and the first line of communication with your consumers. If they are aligned with the brand the consumers experience will be positive, creating trust and loyalty.
Next Time
Next week we will have a breakdown of what is included in branding and a description to how you can plan to each component within it. I hope this article has given you a better insight into how important it is to brand your growing business. This is the start of your business era, let’s make it a good one.
