How to Build a Brand

1. Determine your brand’s target audience.

The foundation for building your brand is to determine the target audience that you’ll be focusing on.

You can’t be everything to everyone, right?

When brand building, keep in mind who exactly you are trying to reach. You’ll tailor your mission and message to meet their exact needs.

The key is to get specific. Figure out detailed behaviors and lifestyle of your consumers.

I’ll explain with a few brief examples:

• single moms who work from home
• tech-savvy early adopters
• college students studying abroad
• executive recruiting professionals
• Solidify a picture of your consumers, then learn how to create a brand identity that they can understand and relate to.
  You may come to realize that the competitive advantage when branding your business is to narrow your audience focus. This can help ensure that your brand message comes across crystal clear.
  Identifying the target audience for your services or products is an exercise that will affect and benefit all areas of your brand building process, particularly marketing efforts. You want the right person consuming your content, clicking on your ads, opting into your email list, etc.
  Determining the right target audience will support your overall digital brand strategy for marketing. So it is definitely an important first step!

• 2. Establish a brand mission statement.

  Have you thought about your mission? In essence, you’ll have to craft a clear expression of what your company is most passionate about.
  Before you can build a brand that your target audience trusts, you need to know what value your business provides.
  The mission statement basically defines a purpose for existing. It will inform every other aspect of your brand building strategies.
  Everything from your logo to your tagline, voice, message, and personality should reflect that mission.

• 3. Research brands within your industry niche.

  You should never imitate exactly what the big brands are doing in your industry.
  But, you should be aware of what they do well (or where they fail).
  The goal is to differentiate from the competition. Convince a customer to purchase from you over them!
  We’re always thinking about how to make a brand stand out. Don’t skip this step in the brand building process.
  Research your main competitors or benchmark brands. Study how they have effectively, and ineffectively gone about building a brand name.
  For a brand name to be effective, it needs to be easy for consumers to recognize how valuable your brand is.....

• 4. Outline the key qualities & benefits your brand offers.

  There will always be brands with bigger budgets and more resources to command their industry.
  Your products, services, and benefits belong solely to you.
  You have to delve down deep and figure out what you offer, that no one else is offering.
  Focus on the qualities and benefits that make your company branding unique.
  Assuming you know exactly who your target audience is (see Step 1), give them a reason to choose your brand over another.
  It’s important to note that this is not just a laundry list of the features your product or services offer to the customer or client. Think about how you provide value that improves consumers’ lives (outcomes or results that are experienced).
  Here are a few examples:
  • More authentic and transparent customer service
  • A better way to support productivity
  • Reducing costs with a more affordable option
  • Saving time on daily tasks

  Brand Building Example: Apple

  Apple is obviously not just another computer company. One of their key qualities is clean design, and a key benefit is ease of use.
  From unique packaging to their announcement events, Apple always reminds customers that its products can be used right out of the box.
  Do you remember Apple’s slogan back in 1997-2002? It was “Think Different“. This notion continues to exist, today.

• 5. Create a brand logo & tagline.

  When you think about how to build a brand, visuals probably come to mind first. This step may be the one where you need help with execution.
  The most exciting (and arguably the most important piece) of the brand building process, is to create a brand logo and tagline for your company.
  This logo will appear on everything that relates to your business. It will become your identity, calling card, and the visual recognition of your promise.
  So be willing to invest the time and money by creating something exceptional to reinforce the visual identity for your business.
  Need help branding? Hire a professional designer or creative agency with logo and identity design experience, to help make your brand stand out.
  Their expertise will ensure that you get a unique and timeless mark for your business.
  A designer can also develop brand guidelines, to ensure consistency for any future application of the logo and associated color palette.
  A strong brand style guide will include the following things:
  • Logo size and placement
  • Color palette
  • Typography and fonts
  • Iconography
  • Photography/image style
  • Web elements