Who you are as a business is communicated to your customers through your branding.
Let your sense of humour and fun shine, through your imagery and vibrant colour choice! Or, if you are a serious business with a powerful message, take a bold, formal approach with your topography and slogan. Make it stand out! Although the branding process is lots of fun, it is important that you get it right.
Branding can make or break your business. Below are key steps that we at TBD encourage companies to follow when taking on the exciting steps of building a successful brand from scratch.
1. Idea
First, it's time to start defining your fabulous business idea.
What services are you providing or selling?
What problem are you solving for the consumer?
Who’s your target audience and why?
What do they like? Having the answers to these questions gives you all the info you need to confidently head over to the next step. Click here to find out about this step in more detail.
2. Market research
Market research is a key and often overlooked step in the process. Specifically, primary and secondary research.
First, you need to collect your own data. For primary research, reach out to your audience, send out surveys and find out what they want. This will help you find out more about the gaps in the market.
Similarly, secondary research is also important. This information allows you to back up or adjust your own conclusions.
Secondary research gives you more knowledge about your target audience, such as their buying habits, their interests and, of course, which brands they are currently using so you can plan to get ahead of the competition!
3. Brand ideology
After coming up with a brand name, it's time to think about your messaging.
What is the brand ideology that makes this business different from others like it?
Brand names affect audience perception and communicate your core message just as much as a tagline or a logo. A good example of this is Greenpeace.
Their name gives a clear idea of what they’re about whilst their logo, tagline and other branding reinforces their brand message pretty effectively.
Getting a sense of the brand message is the first step in coming up with a solid design brief.
4. Design process
Having developed the brief, the design process, sometimes referred to as the double diamond, begins.
This is when your brand starts to come together. Remember that branding extends out to things like packaging, email signatures and letterheads. They all contribute to the unity of your messaging.
Another part of this is to make a brand guideline so that any designer will create content that matches your brand parameters and ensure continuity in all the artwork. We go over things like this and other issues in more depth here.
5. Implementation
Last, is implementing your plan for advertising and showcasing your brand.
How can you best position your brand so you can reach your audience?
What is it about your brand that will make your audience come to you? It will depend on your business what kind of marketing strategies work best, like targeted ads for an online audience or billboards for an audience that commutes.
Sometimes it can be tricky knowing what to choose, so seeking the help of a marketing expert could be your best bet! With a solid process completed at step 2 your market research should give you a good idea of where your ideal customers are and how to target them.
These five steps form the basis of an effective brand development process. This isn’t a linear process, but one that moves back and forth among each step, improving further, allowing total exploration. TBD are experts at creating a brand from the ground up and can help with any point in the process.
Need support starting your own brand? Get in touch with us today!