A strong brand is what distinguishes your competitors. And your brand is more than just a logo and a name. The more recognizable it is, the more trust consumers put in it.

A Nielsen study shows that 59% of consumers choose to buy from established brands that they know. Therefore, stronger brands bring in more sales. 

As a business owner, you’ll likely find yourself competing against the big names on the market, brands with unlimited marketing budgets, and dedicated customers. That’s why you have to find your own brand identity, your own way to stand out.

You can do that by building a strong brand. Now, let’s say you live in Chicago and need professional services. Don’t hesitate, do your research and hire local experts from a web development chicago company.

Here’s what brand building is and what steps are crucial in making your business successfully compete with the market leaders. 

What is a brand?

A brand is what identifies your goods or services as different from those of other businesses. It’s defined by the way a customer perceives your business and services and is made up of a name, logo, design, and other features unique to what you sell. 

In the modern oversaturated market, a successful brand is determined by consistency. It must show a unified front in advertising (online and offline), content, visual design, packaging, and internal applications. 

So, building a brand requires a strategy and time. But the effort and investment can result in a long-lasting relationship with your clients. A consistent brand can have positive effects on your leads, sales, and reach. 

A few words on brand building

The brand building uses campaigns and strategies to increase your brand awareness. Its ultimate goal is to create an original and long-lasting image for your business in the marketplace. 

• The key elements of brand building are strategy, identity, and marketing: Brand strategy is the foundation of your business’ branding efforts. Creating a brand strategy includes determining your target audience, researching your competition, and summarizing your brand’s mission. 
• Brand identity is how you visually present your business. It includes elements like logo, name, website design, brand voice, and personality, as well as colors and fonts. You apply these elements everywhere your brand is featured ‚ online, offline, in ads and packaging, and so on. 
• Brand marketing is how you strategically promote your brand. You do it by implementing SEO and content marketing strategies, email marketing, social media marketing, and paid advertisements. 

By implementing each one of these elements when building your brand, you will be prepared to take on your competition. Here’s how you can build your brand step by step. 

1. Find a purpose behind your brand

Your brand’s purpose will be at the very core of your brand strategy — defining it will be the first step of the brand-building process. To define it, ask yourself why you created your business, what makes it different, what issues it solves, and why the audience should turn to you. 

2. Know your competitors

To compete with market leaders, you have to know them and their strategies. You shouldn’t imitate them, but you should keep an eye on what they do and how they do it. 

Your goal is to be unique and different from your competitors. That’s why you should research what the building blocks of your competitors’ brands are, from names to colors and fonts. Check to see how consistent their visual identity is, how they market their products or services and what their quality is. 

Customer feedback and reviews are important. Is there anything you can learn from your competition’s social mentions?

For better results, choose up to 4-5 competitors, local businesses, or even market leaders, and research them well. 

3. Find a target audience for your brand

An important step in brand building is finding your target audience. Focus on certain niches to make sure your message is loud and clear for that specific type of customer.

Create a buyer persona by considering your potential customer’s age, gender, income, location, and education level. You’ll want the right person to find and purchase your products or services. 

Regular consumer behavior analysis keeps you on top of your game and keeps your consumers happy. If you fail to “read” your consumer’s minds, your competitors may find ways to steal them. 

4. Choose a brand name, voice, and story

After you figure out who your customers are, you can choose a brand name. It’s basically how customers recognize you online and offline. Choose your brand name wisely — remember, it will appear on all your products, communication channels, and promotional materials. 

Work on your brand voice — while it doesn’t define what you will communicate to your prospective clients, it defines how you communicate it. You can choose between types of voices, like professional, friendly, or promotional. You’ll want a voice that resonates with your brand and your audience. 

Your brand story gives customers a brief idea of who you are. Tell your story and purpose by using the brand voice you choose. Define who you are, what you offer, and why customers should choose you. 

The brand story is a way to communicate and make an emotional connection with your prospective clients. As such, you should keep the language simple and clear. 

5. Establish the specific benefits your brand offers

After determining how you will present your brand to your customers, focus on the reason they should choose your brand. Your brand is unique, so you should highlight your services and products. Focus on how they can benefit your clients. 

Show prospective customers why they should choose you. Your service might be more affordable or faster, or you might have better customer support, for example. Find something specific to your business that improves your consumer’s life and highlight it. 

6. Choose brand visuals

The most important brand visuals are the logo, fonts, and colors. Fortify your brand by integrating a strong color palette, logo, fonts and typography, image style, iconography, brand voice and personality, and other web elements. 

Your goal is to make your target customer instantly recognize your business by your logo. So, invest time and money in creating something that truly represents your vision and stands out. 

If you need help creating a logo, look for a professional designer or an agency that can build your brand identity with you. 

Make sure these visual elements are consistent throughout your branding. Packaging, ads, business cards, online webpages, or social media accounts – they should all follow the same guidelines. 

Visual consistency is key to making your brand recognizable. Keep the same font, the same colors, the same logo, and the same taglines on your website and on your social media profiles. It will be easier for clients to recognize you just by seeing your visual identifiers. 

7. Connect with your customers

Emotion has a huge role in sales. So, creating an emotional connection with your audience can improve sales and reach. One way of achieving that is through color and imagery. 

For example, color blue represents calmness, while green invokes environmental topics and red attract attention and invoke urgency. 

Even typography can predict emotions. Different font styles have different meanings. And they carry distinct emotions. For example, Serif fonts are considered stable and practical, whereas Script fonts are seen as feminine and casual. 

You can build a rapport with your customers through your website, too. If you’re located in Chicago, hire one of the best companies specialized in web development new york has to offer to help you create an up-to-date website. 

8. Keep your brand consistent

As soon as you establish a brand image and voice, use them for everything you create. Refrain from making constant changes because you can confuse your clients. And you can hinder long-term brand building, too. 

Make changes only if consumer response leans that way. Go back to your brand strategy whenever you feel the need to make a change in marketing strategy. 

Create a brand guidelines plan and send it to your teams. They can use it as a reference when it comes to design or customer support. They will understand your core brand better, so they’ll be able to communicate your core values to prospective clients. 

9. Focus on local and global markets

Market leaders adapt their strategy to local markets. In fact, every business that keeps an eye on competitors must try to expand locally and globally. 

In other words, trying to conquer the global market can be easier to do if you have a strong online presence. You can’t underestimate the power of local markets. 

10. What leads to brand failure?

Brand strategy is not infallible. Here are the four reasons why some brands fail at their brand strategy:

• They don’t focus enough on a long-term vision
• Their creative efforts are not consistent
• Their brand identity and message are not solidified enough
• They didn’t work enough to understand their ideal client. 

Conclusions

The brand strategy continues to evolve and adapt to new market conditions. And so does your business. 

By implementing a good brand-building strategy, with a focus on researching and understanding your customer, you can conquer local and global markets. Of course, you must also work on your brand identity, story, and visuals. 

Author bio

Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for DigitalStrategyOne.