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When two companies sell products that are almost identical in terms of features, quality and pricing, they’ll find themselves competing to sell to the same customer.
So how will the customer make the decision to purchase from one company over another? In all likelihood, the customer will choose to support the brand they feel offers them the best experience possible or the one they have the best perception of.
This is the power of branding.
The creation of an effective brand identity that’s easily recognizable and resonates with your target market is one of the most powerful tools available to your business.
What Is Brand Identity?
Brand identity is the culmination of a set of styles and specifics a brand uses to create a unique personality that allows customers to recognize and identify with them.
Brand identity comprises various elements such as the colours, designs and language a brand uses. The visual aspects of a brand, such as font choices, colours and logo, work together with personality and brand voice.
Brand is the perception of the company in the eyes of the world.
Any and every business can curate a brand identity. Your business doesn’t need to be well-established or bring in tons of revenue.
You need consistency, vision and a deep understanding of your target audience to create an effective brand identity.
Consistently convey your brand’s values and personality through messages across all your marketing channels.
This will help increase customer loyalty, brand recognition and trust and ultimately help establish your business.
Suppose you implement brand identity right when you start your business instead of implementing it as an afterthought. In that case, you will have loyal customers right from the start helping you grow even faster.
Why Does Brand Identity Matter?
Did you know that Apple has the highest brand value in the world? Their brand is estimated to be valued at over 350 Billion US Dollars.
In terms of brand value, Apple is closely followed by Amazon and Google.
What do these brands have in common? Think about what you know about each of them. Can you picture their logos?
Think about Apple. Most people immediately recognize their familiar logo: a round apple with a bite removed.
If asked, they would describe the brand with words like innovative and sleek. They’d talk about the way Apple has redefined technology.
Apple has worked hard over the years to position its brand identity as a leader in the technology space. A disruptor and leader of a new status quo.
And in return for their continuous efforts, they’ve been rewarded with an incredibly loyal user base who are just as dedicated to Apple products as they are to the ideas the brand represents.
A strong brand identity can help you gain your customers’ attention, trust, and loyalty.
Today, consumers experience brands in many different ways.
If you truly want to build a successful brand, you must ensure that your target audience recognizes you. The only way to achieve this is if you can make their experiences memorable.
A strong brand helps sell a business to the customer.
Let’s look at some of the essential elements of brand-building. We’ll also share some simple tips that you can use to build a successful brand identity and effective brand image.
What is the difference between brand identity and brand image?
Even though they sound like they mean the same thing, brand identity and brand image are completely different.
Simply put, brand identity is how you want your customers to see you and brand image is how your customers actually see you.
Brand identity consists of the images, logo, colours, message and voice you use to bring your brand to life. You create this to give your brand a personality you anticipate your customers will respond to.
On the other hand, brand image results from the effort you have poured in; it is how your customers perceive your brand.
If done correctly, your brand identity will drive your customers to see you exactly how you want them to see you, establishing your brand position and image.
1. Consider your brand’s attributes
If a brand positions itself as having relatable attributes, consumers are more likely to identify with it strongly. Your brand must connect with consumers at a personal and emotional level.
The quality of your products, the nature of support you provide, your organizational culture, and your values will shape your brand’s identity.
Make sure to leverage all of these aspects as a way to connect with your audience meaningfully and leave a lasting impression.
With some research, you can identify what your customers feel strongly about. What social causes are important to them, do they respond to humour or authority?
Understanding the values and interests of your target customers is vital to ensuring that these same values are reflected in your vision and brand identity.
Ensure that your values are clearly articulated in every interaction with your target audience. This includes the content on your website, social media accounts, emails, press releases, ads, and even what you communicate at brand events.
This will help you build an identity that instills trust among your audience and makes your brand stand out.
2. Create a logo
Once you’ve identified your brand’s values and attributes, you need to create a logo for your brand. Think of your logo as a visual embodiment of your brand.
A logo has the power to be etched in a person’s mind. So, make it unique and memorable with colour and font. You can easily design your own using a free logo maker such as Tailor Brands.
There are various types of logos you can choose from. Whichever you choose, make sure that it has an emotional appeal that connects with your audience.
3. Font
When creating a brand, font is one of the most important design aspects to consider. This is because different fonts give the person reading these materials a different feel.
Font choice goes beyond logo design as well. You must also consider the fonts used on your website and any marketing materials you produce.
Considering your font is the first thing your customer will notice when interacting with any piece of content you publish, it’s essential to keep your font consistent across all channels.
If you change your font from one content to another, it will not look consistent and may make your customers wonder if they are interacting with the same brand.
The main idea of selecting a font is to make sure no doubt arises when they interact with your content, they should never wonder if it’s the same brand.
4. Color and shapes
When your customer looks at a piece of content published by you, the one thing that immediately registers in their mind is the patterns. The colour, shape and style. That helps them recognize your brand.
A brand tries to take advantage of this pattern recognition system our brain uses to help the person identify the brand immediately.
Every brand has a unique style, shape, and colour for its logo.
This is also why you can immediately recognize a brand like Nike by seeing their swoosh logo or McDonald’s from the famous golden arches.
Effectively designing your logo is one of the most important things you can do to give your brand instant recognition.
5. Brand voice
What do you want your brand to sound like? Is your brand casual and humorous, witty and informative? Authoritative and knowledgeable?
You can choose whatever you’d like if it goes in hand with the personality you are trying to build for your brand.
Let’s say you want your customer to see you as a very experienced professional brand. You may want to sound intelligent and confident to show that you know what you are talking about and have enough experience to take care of any situation.
6. Design a website for a great user experience
A website that has a unique design can help you create a successful brand identity. Your website is where you’ll showcase your products or services to gain the trust of your customers.
A website with a clean design will make people want to visit your site more often. Place your logo strategically on your website to build your brand identity.
People have short attention spans, so a great user experience (UX) can make your website stand out. Easy navigation, checkout, and fast loading speeds provide a great user experience.
7. Optimize for Mobile
As of 2022, roughly 70% of all web traffic worldwide comes from mobile devices. If you want to build a successful brand identity, you can’t afford to ignore mobile devices.
Your website needs to be optimized for mobile. You can even develop a mobile app to provide an even better experience to consumers.
A mobile app can set your brand apart from your competitors. It also helps to boost credibility and trust among your audiences.
A user-friendly app allows people to browse your products and buy more easily and efficiently.
8. Create Valuable Content
One of the most crucial factors in building a successful brand identity is the content you use to promote your brand.
Great content can help you boost the visibility of your brand. Create unique and engaging content to drive traffic to your site.
The more informative and valuable your content is, the more it will help drive traffic to your site. That’s why you need to plan a content marketing strategy that will provide you with measurable results.
You can create blog posts, videos, infographics, or social media posts to engage your audience.
Be consistent when posting and ensure that your content always delivers value.
9. Focus on SEO
Simply creating a website, no matter how great it looks, is not enough. If people can’t find you, you can never build brand identity or a successful e-commerce business.
Search engine optimization (SEO) ensures that your website shows up when people search for something related to your business.
Optimizing your website for search engines (especially Google) will help build your brand identity and increase your ROI.
Develop a robust SEO strategy based on proper analysis of your competitors, keywords that can drive traffic, and other factors.
10. Be Active on Social Media
Social media plays a huge part in shaping the way consumers perceive brands today. This is even more true in North America, where social media penetration is 82% compared to the global average of 58.4%
54% of shoppers use social media to research products. That’s why reviews go a long way in building brand identity.
For brands, the stakes are high on social media. So work on a solid social media strategy for your brand. Post content consistently and make sure that your posts are attractive and engaging.
Don’t forget to engage with your followers regularly.
How to build a brand identity?
To create a strong, consistent brand identity that can convince your audience to form a bond with your business, you can follow these steps:
1. Market Analysis: Understanding the market before building your brand identity is essential. You can follow a SWOT analysis to help you identify your weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats against your competitors.
This will give you an idea of where you are and your goals, helping you determine the steps to achieve them.
2. Select your business goals: The principle idea behind brand identity is to create memorable experiences for your customers to achieve your business goals. So, knowing what your goals are is crucial.
3. Know your customers: Your brand identity should help your customer identify and connect with you. So they must understand what you are conveying through your brand.
Knowing your customers is vital before you create your brand identity.
4. Creating your brand identity: Now that we have a good understanding of our market, goals and customers. We can proceed to use different brand elements we had discussed earlier in this post to create your identity.
5. Trademark: Once you develop your unique brand elements, it’s best to trademark them. This way, no one else can impersonate you and leverage your brand image to make some quick money.
This is very bad for your brand image.
6. Be consistent: This is perhaps the most critical step. What is the point of going through the trouble of creating a brand identity only to forget about it while publishing content?
This may even happen unintentionally. For example, your employee may not be aware of your brand voice and may use a different tone on your blog content.
Or the marketing agency that takes care of your ads and other creatives may use a different colour, shape or design element, making your brand look inconsistent.
This is why you should ensure your brand identity is used in all the content you publish.
7. Measure your progress: Now that everything is set up and your brand identity is in motion, the next step is to measure how you are performing and check if everything is going as planned.
You can use various web or digital analytics tools like Google Analytics, surveys, customer feedback, emails and social media to know what is working great and the areas you’ll need some improvement.
Conclusion
Although the above elements and tips are crucial in building brand identity, they’re not the only ones to follow. Develop a holistic digital marketing plan encompassing content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and advertising.
A powerful digital marketing strategy can help you build a brand that will have customers keep coming back for more.
Want to improve your brand’s online reputation? TechWyse Internet Marketing has the tools and expertise to help you build an authoritative brand online that exponentially grows your lead generation.
Learn how! Call TechWyse today at 866.208.3095 or contact us here.
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