No matter how you analyze it, a brand is the most critical marketing asset of all. Without a clear brand – your company’s unique identity – you won’t be able to appeal to your ideal customers with any semblance of success.
Far too many young entrepreneurs nowadays start their business with high hopes and a fat marketing budget, but not long into their journey, they notice that customers aren’t reacting to their products and services as expected.
Sometimes, the hardest thing to do in marketing is grabbing a consumer’s attention, hold on to it, and position your company as the best option to fulfill their needs – and do it without resorting to a corny, “salesy” angle.
You know that your products contain only the most robust materials sourced from a quality manufacturer; you know that it works and works well, yet consumers still aren’t buying.
But why not? What makes another company more attractive than yours?
The answer is this: a strong, catchy brand that distinguishes and differentiates businesses from one another.
Recipe for Creating Your Company’s Brand – 5 Healthy Ingredients
You’ll find plenty of information online about what a brand should and shouldn’t be like, but few resources online actually outline how to sketch one.t33
It would be fantastic if we could all sell ice-cold water in the Sahara for a living, but most entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury of an endless, untapped market.
You have to make the most of what you already have before committing to additional marketing investments. The easiest way to do that is to take the time to build a brand and outline it in writing.
A brand synopsis doesn’t have to be an essay or a business report plump with statistics, but it will still need to:
- Determine an audience
- Establish a mission statement
- Differentiate products and services
- Include visual media
- Create a brand voice
Think of each of these requirements as the five recipe ingredients you need to bake a tasty marketing pie that your customers can’t get enough of.
Determine an audience
Who is your target market? Who do you want as customers? If your answer is, “anyone who sees my stuff and wants it,” stop immediately and narrow it down much, much farther.
Ask yourself what emotional biases (beliefs) do consumers have before they even see your product? If you’re positioning your products or services as affordable and low-priced, only certain consumers will likely respond to that angle.
No matter how you analyze it, creating a brand must initially begin with a well-defined, narrow audience.
Establish a mission statement
What is it that you value as an individual?
Typically, entrepreneurs are ripe with ambition and hope for a better future. They value hard work and are a meticulously fastidious bunch.
But what does your company value, not you personally?
Sometimes, value propositions are the same as how the business owner views the world, the market at large; however, this situation isn’t always the case.
That’s where a mission statement goes into the recipe. The key is to be open, honest, and forthright about your intentions.
If your mission statement literally is, “I want to buy a new boat and a Lamborghini in three years,” you’ll fail in six months with that kind of attitude.
It also can’t be a vague, general cliche like “I want to make the world a better place.”
If your company manufactures products for infants and toddlers, a better mission statement might be, “we want to help raise happy, healthy families on a tight budget.”
The most effective mission statements are neither exaggerations nor overtly financially motivated. The best are genuine, genuinely seeking to help a consumer solve a problem.
Differentiate products and services
What makes your products or services unique? What makes them special?
Do they come in different flavors and colors?
Or to say it more bluntly…why should consumers even care your company exists at all?
If your company isn’t distinct and unique from your competitors, there’s no way you can achieve the success you want.
For example, if you’re a fruit vendor operating an absolutely adorable stall in a weekly farmer’s market, what makes buying your apples the best choice? Anyone visiting the farmer’s market will have a wide range of fruits to buy, so why should they buy yours instead?
What’s the hook?
Maybe it’s your sustainable farming practices, or perhaps it’s your commitment to non-GMO preservatives. Consumers won’t know this unless you tell them, so that’s where visual media come into the equation.
Include visual media
It’s a mistake to begin to make a company with a logo because there are bigger fish to fry in marketing. Undoubtedly, logos are mission-critical, but you can change a logo quickly, easily, and cheaply too.
Also, making a logo is only step one of 100. That’s not an exaggeration for a comical effect. You’ll really need about 100 visuals to execute a full marketing plan over the course of a year.
The essence of visual media is the emotional impact it communicates to consumers. A cool logo is one thing; 90 high-resolution, on-brand photographs for social media promotion is another entirely.
Create a brand voice
Creating a brand voice is by far the most challenging aspect of all. It sounds counter-intuitive because your company can’t speak for itself, but your consumers will perceive that it does.
The only way they can make those kinds of judgments is to “listen” to how your brand communicates messages, your voice.
You can’t add brand voice to the branding recipe until all other ingredients go into the pie.
It’s OK to toot your own horn in your brand voice because that’s what your advertising will essentially do.
If your product is a brand new type of ratchet wrench, you don’t want your voice to be overly empathetic and emotional. You’d like a brand voice with a “rugged” personality as your target market will likely be male automobile owners.
Businesses like auto manufacturers and insurance companies are fantastic at identifying which brand voices resonate most with different consumers.
At the end of the day, creating a brand should be a fun and exciting journey from start to finish, not stressful and challenging.