A brand, or more accurately, a brand identity is the way your business is perceived by both your customers and noncustomers. It’s the story you choose to tell about your business to create an identity for it.
All types of businesses can benefit from creating a strong brand identity, and it’s a lot easier than people may think. Still, it’s important to put a lot of thought into your brand identity in order for it to be successful. Here are some of the benefits that come with a strong brand identity.
1. Your Business Becomes More Memorable
When your business is memorable, more people will recognize it, and when more people recognize your business they’re more likely to do business with you over your competitors. Larger companies can spend billions of dollars in advertising to make sure that their brand is being recognized all over the world. For smaller businesses, simple social media marketing can also create global recognition. Even in-store marketing can help increase brand awareness.
2. You Build Trust with Current and Potential Customers
The more well-known you are, the more likely people are to trust you. There are many (online) companies out there that try to scam people into buying their products, and customers never hear from them again once they’ve paid for a product— whether they’ve received the product or not. These types of businesses don’t usually have a strong brand identity, and they often change the name of their business. When you establish your company brand in your industry, potential customers know that you’re trustworthy and your current customers will continue to trust you.
3. You’ll Have More Successful Product Launches
If you’re trying to introduce a new product, it can be pretty hard to do if you don’t have a loyal customer base. Consumers won’t be interested in a new product from you if they aren’t familiar with your current products. With a strong brand identity, you’ve become recognizable, you’ve gained the trust of consumers, and now you’ll be able to catch their attention with new product launches. This will help you become more successful in your sales and marketing.
4. You can Find New Hires Through Branding
Creating a strong brand identity isn’t just about attracting customers. Of course, customers are an important part of running a successful business, but you’re also going to need trustworthy employees to work for you. Many businesses post their vacant job positions on job sites such as Indeed, but this doesn’t always give you a targeted group of qualified candidates to choose from.
A recruitment marketing agency can help you develop your company brand and market it to the best talent. This hiring strategy significantly reduces employee turnover, and also allows you to build a talent pipeline or a pool of qualified candidates that you can easily call on to fill a vacancy.
How to Create a Brand Identity
So how exactly do you create a brand identity? As mentioned above, you can hire a recruitment marketing agency (especially if you want their help in hiring qualified candidates), but there are a few things that you can do on your own to begin building your brand.
Do your Research
First and foremost, you must do your research as a small business owner. You’ll need to research your target market and also your competition. When you understand who your customers are and what your competitors are doing, you’ll be able to see what traits you’d like to include in your brand identity.
Craft the Visual/Tangible Aspects of Your Business
Once you’ve done your research, you’ll be able to come up with a company name (if you haven’t already), logo, and maybe even a slogan. These are all of the tangible aspects of your business and are some of the first things your potential customers will see. Keep in mind that you want to be memorable, yet easily recognizable, so try not to make any of these too complex.
Work on the Abstract
The more abstract components of your business are your company’s voice and personality. If your business was a person, what would it sound like, and what type of personality would it have? This is what really drives your brand’s identity because it makes your target audience associate positive (or negative) feelings with your company.
Creating a brand for your business has many benefits that will help your business become more successful. Really put a lot of thought into your company’s brand and apply it consistently on business cards, your social media platforms— everywhere you market.
