Building a brand from scratch that stands out is not easy. What should it look like? How should it make people feel? Will it resonate with your target audience?
Step 1: Research Your Target Audience and Competitors
Before you start making any decisions about how to create a brand for your business, you need to understand the current market, including potential customers and existing competitors.
You can do this by researching online about your product or service category and analyzing direct and indirect competitors that show up. Check related sub-communities where your target customers hang out, listen to their conversations, and product recommendations. Talk to people within your target market and ask them about the brands they buy from in your niche. Look at relevant social media accounts that your target audience follows and engages with. Shop online or in physical stores and get an idea of how your potential customers browse and purchase products.
During your research, take note of:
- Who are your easiest potential customers to sell to?
- Who are the key competitors in your customers’ minds?
- How do your customers talk and what do they talk about?
Step 2: Choose Your Focus and Personality
You can’t be everything to everyone with your brand, especially at the beginning. It’s important to find your focus and ensure that all parts of your brand support it as you build it.
Here are some questions and exercises to help you think about your brand’s focus and overall tone:
- What is your positioning statement?
- Who is the target audience for your product or service?
- What is the added value you provide?
- What words are associated with your brand?
- What metaphors or concepts describe your brand?
Step 3: Choose Your Business Name
Your brand name is not just a name. The personality, actions, and reputation of your brand identity are what give the name meaning in the market.
When you’re a small business owner, your company name is likely one of the biggest commitments you’ll make. It will affect your brand’s logo, domain name, marketing, and your trademark registration if you decide to go that route (it’s hard to register generic trademarks that precisely describe what you sell).
Ideally, you want a name for your shop that is difficult to imitate and harder to confuse with existing players in the market. If you plan to expand the product lines you offer in the future, consider keeping your business name broad so it’s easy to pivot, rather than choosing a brand name based on your specific product category.
You can use our free business name generator to brainstorm some names, or try one (or a combination) of the following methods:
- Choose a made-up word, like Pepsi.
- Rework a non-related word, like Apple for computers.
- Use a suggestive or metaphorical word, like Buffer.
- Describe it literally (Warning: easy to copy), like The Shoe Company.
- Modify a word by removing letters, adding letters, or using Latin-inspired endings, like Tumbler or Activia.
- Create an abbreviation from a longer name, like HBO (Home Box Office).
- Combine two words: Pinterest (pin + interest) or Snapple (snappy + apple).
Since your brand name will also affect your website domain/URL, be sure to shop around to see what is available before deciding on your brand’s domain name.
Step 4: Write a Tagline
An attractive tagline is a desirable asset – something brief and descriptive that you can use as a slogan on social media, website headers, business cards, and anywhere else you have just a few words to make a big impact.
Remember
that you can always change your slogan over time as you find new angles for marketing – Pepsi has changed its logo more than 30 times in the past few decades.
A good slogan should be short, catchy, and leave a strong impression to increase brand awareness. Here are some ways to write your own slogan:
- Define your position. Example: Death Wish Coffee: “The World’s Strongest Coffee.”
- Make it metaphorical. Example: Red Bull: “Red Bull Gives You Wings.”
- Adopt your customers’ perspective. Example: Nike: “Just Do It.”
- Leverage classifications. Example: Cards Against Humanity: “A Party Game for Horrible People.”
- Write a jingle. Example: Folgers coffee: “The Best Part of Waking Up is Folgers in Your Cup.”
- Describe it literally. Example: Aritzia: “Everyday Luxury to Elevate Your World.”
Step 5: Choose Your Brand’s Look (Colors and Fonts)
Once you have a name, you’ll need to consider your brand design – how you will represent it visually – particularly colors and fonts. This will be helpful when you start using a website builder to create your site.
Choosing Colors
Colors not only define your brand’s look but also convey the feeling you want to communicate and help you stay consistent in everything you do. You’ll want to choose colors that distinguish you from your direct competitors to avoid confusing potential customers.
Color psychology is not an exact science, but it helps guide the choices you make, especially regarding the color you choose for your brand’s logo.
Choosing Fonts
At this point, it’s also a good idea to think about the fonts you might want to use on your website.
The best way to build a brand in terms of fonts is simplicity. Choose no more than two fonts to avoid confusing visitors: one for headings and one for body text (this does not include the font you might use in your brand’s logo).
Step 6: Design Your Brand Logo
Designing a brand logo is one of the first things that come to mind when thinking about building a new brand. There’s a good reason for this: it’s the face of your company, after all, and it can be everywhere your brand is present.
Ideally, you’ll want to create a logo for your brand that is unique, distinctive, and functional at all sizes (something that is often overlooked).
Consider all the places where your brand logo will need to appear:
- Website
- Social media profile picture
- Product packaging
- Video advertisements
- YouTube channel banner
- Favicon (the small icon that identifies open tabs in the browser)
If you have a text logo as your profile picture on Instagram, for example, it will be almost impossible to read. To make your life easier, create a square version of your brand logo with an emblem or icon (called a logo mark) that remains recognizable even in smaller sizes.
Invest in a logo that can be displayed anywhere, both online and in physical print.
Note how Walmart’s logo has the “spark” symbol and brand name, which can be used together or separately.
Step 7: Apply Your Brand Across All Aspects of Your Business
Applying your brand across all aspects of your business gives it a cohesive brand story. A brand story represents “who” your company is and what it stands for. It sets the stage for every interaction customers have with your brand, whether in-store or online.
In Shopify’s research on what wins buyers’ trust, we found that first-time online shoppers often look for a company’s mission and purpose to see if they share any values with the company (e.g., sustainability). They will turn to the “About Us” page to learn more about whom they are buying from and, for customers concerned with social issues, how the company operates. If you have a brand story, share it, as it can help reassure shoppers that your business is legitimate.
When
Building a new brand, there is much to be gained from TOMS. It provides excellent examples of brand marketing through unforgettable designs, fonts, images, and colors.
Whether you focus on a mission or values in your brand or not, you may want to give your customers a story to see themselves in and share with others about your brand.
Building a brand does not stop at creating a logo or tagline, or even after brand awareness post-launch. You must continue to shape and develop your brand’s design and identity as more customers are exposed to it and learn more about your customers and how to speak to them.
You have to realize that you won’t have 100% control over how people perceive your brand identity. You can guide customers in the right direction and make a great first impression and manage your reputation, but you cannot control the individual impressions that exist in each person’s mind (e.g., if they had a bad experience with customer service).
All you can do is put your best foot forward on every occasion and try to engage with your core audience. But hopefully, at this point, you have the tools, knowledge, and resources to start building your brand today.
Leave a Reply