Are you struggling to develop a brand identity? In today's crowded consumer market, a strong brand identity can mean the difference between positive growth, engagement, and generating meaningful sales, or constantly falling short.
4 Steps to Designing a New Brand Identity
1. Run a Brand Audit
2. Conduct Customer Research
3. Develop a Strong Mission Statement and Unique Value Prop
4. Refine How Your Brand Appears
1. Run a Brand Audit
Before you can begin revamping your brand, take a step back and look closely at the current aspects that make up your brand identity.
This exercise is there for you to ask questions, take a holistic view of all things related to your brand and identify things you think work, and things that maybe hurt you from a recognition, authenticity, and relatability standpoint. It's also the perfect time to look at your top competitors, and the industry as a whole. Who are the major players? Are there any signals that a disruption is on the way?
Using social listening is a great way to get started with a brand audit. Curious?
What should you audit?
- Your social media bios, logos, banner images
- Social media posts that get the most traction
- Email open rate, subscribe rate, and click rate
- Blog posts: Does your brand voice match other areas of your site?
- Are customers routinely abandoning carts? What is the drop off point?
- Competitors
Once you have thoroughly audited your brand, you’ll be able to use it to craft more relevant messaging and encourage stronger customer retention.
2. Conduct Customer Research
It's absolutely critical that you not go about a branding exercise based only on what you think customers want, or even worse who you assume your customer is. Do you really know for sure? Perhaps there's an entirely untapped market for your products that you hadn't even considered.
Comprehensive consumer insights can help you move forward with crafting a brand identity that will resonate with your ideal customer.
3. Develop a Mission Statement and Unique Value Prop
Once you have a clear picture of who your customer is, the next step is to identify your core company mission and value proposition. These together shape who you are, the promise you make to your customers, and create a foundation that will allow you to build a brand representative of your company mission and what you’d like to present to the world.
Example: Let’s say you own an HVAC repair company in Arizona. Your mission could be that you never want your customers to go without air-conditioning for more than six hours. So the unique value that you offer is 24/7/365 emergency air-conditioning services. You work hard every day to make sure you fix your customers’ broken ACs quickly and efficiently, setting your company apart from the competition by showing up when needed, day or night.
With a strong brand identity and clear mission such as this, your company will definitely stand out.
Tip: Consider analyzing the data around your brand to help tell your story and where it is going. Check out this infographic for help!
4. Refine How Your Brand Appears
Analyze your brand aesthetics and tone of voice. Do they match the intentions of your mission statement and values?
Remaining competitive in your market is crucial to success, so be sure to check in on your branding regularly. You likely don't want to make big changes, unless you're going for a full re-brand, but you can always finesse things within the parameters of your branding guidelines.
Is it still unique? Or have many of your competitors adopted the same attitude? Is the competition now providing the same level of service?
If so, refine the promises you make to your customers and do something new to stand out and attract their attention. Perhaps a PR campaign or renewed dedication to keeping your products affordable, despite there being more players in the market than when you started..
As you can see, brand identity is crucial to the success of any business. Take this process seriously and follow these steps and you'll greatly improve your ability to stand out in your market.
This article originally appeared in Bookmark, it was written by Aleah Taboclaon from Business2Community, and legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
