If you are starting a new business or rebranding an existing one, this article gives you some hints and tips on where to begin.
A strong brand will help you stand out in the market and will set up apart from everyone else. It will also give your customers a message about the type of business you are and whether they fit with you or not.
I’ve worked with a lot of financial services companies who are all selling very similar products so their brand is a key way of differentiating themselves. All of the high street banks offer a bank account, savings, mortgages and insurance products. But while you probably haven’t been a customer with all of them, you will probably have an opinion about which one is better or worse and which one you would or wouldn’t buy from. That will be influenced by the brand.
Brand Strategy
So where do you start when it comes to defining your company’s brand? I’ve provided an example below which is for Relish marketing but the principles apply to any business.
The Brand Strategy underpins everything you do – the way you go about your business, how you behave and how you express yourselves through your communications. Brand Strategy consists of the following:
Brand Essence
This is your vision for the business and is the heart and soul of your brand. It’s what you are working towards and is the one constant across all of your activities. If you imagine this might be the strapline that sits under your logo that explains what you do for your customers.
Generating business for entrepreneurs.
Brand Values
These articulate your true beliefs and how you facilitate those beliefs through your day-to-day activities.
Providing bespoke solutions – we get to know your business so that we can tailor recommendations to your specific needs
Creative thinking – we add value by providing creative solutions that surprise and delight
Great service – we provide outstanding service to ensure a customer is for life
Personality
This is a set of words that sum up how you behave but demonstrate your intended personality based upon your aspirations.
Passionate, positive, enthusiastic, driven, fun, enterprising, forward thinking.
Once you have this in place, you can then move forward with developing the visual identity for your brand. This would include a logo, colours, font, tone of voice and strapline. Look out for our next blog post which will go into this in more detail.
