Branding Establishment Tips for Startups

Emma Sturgis

May 19, 2015

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Effective branding gives businesses a distinct advantage over their competition. A brand is more than a logo or a tagline, it is the promise you make as a business owner of what consumers can expect from doing business with you. Your business identity is derived from your own, the one you want to have, and the one people have given you themselves. You may be a plucky upstart with a new product or an experienced voice in an existing market. Your business may emphasize value above quality or efficiency over effectiveness. A good brand strategy takes advantage of every aspect of the way you want to do business and incorporates that identity in every customer interaction, product, and press action.

Establish an Identity

When first determining the nature of your brand, consider the qualities of your business and what kind of consumers it caters to the most. Think of your business as a person, decide what kind of friends that person would have, then tweak your business's identity to facilitate the creation of a strong connection to those kinds of people. A good branding strategy will align with the emotional and rational concerns of your base and will help build long lasting relationships with clients and customers.

Find Your Voice

The identity of your business should determine how your web content is phrased and how you and your employees interact with customers. An informal “Do-It-Yourself” attitude has a place in some businesses, just as the professional approach does in a similar field with a different brand. Don't be false or redundant, but find an attitude that suits you and your consumer base. If a particular tone feels unnatural to use or out of place, experiment with other approaches. If you lack sincerity, people will notice and it will hurt your brand more than it helps. Don't try to imitate the success of others. Instead, execute your branding strategy in a way that suits you.

Maintain a Consistent, Unique Presence

The branding strategy you choose should remain constant throughout all levels of your business's media. Once you have a distinctive logo, incorporate its color scheme in your store and web content, and dress appropriately to your brand's theme. Find where to order cheap checks that can be customized according to your brand and use these for relevant business transactions. The entire point of branding strategies is to boost the individuality of your business and make it easy to recognize. Even if your product or service isn't new to the world, make your presentation of it bold. People will be drawn in by commitment, purpose, and personality. Even the biggest corporations in the world try to appear as grounded and local as possible. In this effort, a small business owner has the advantage because they don't have to pretend.

Let Consumers Draw Themselves In

If your business has a lot going for it, you may want to put as much information as you can anywhere you can. However, too much information all at once is off-putting for many consumers, who already live in a world of information overload. Try to highlight as many of your brand's benefits as you can without being too rich in detail. All you need to create is intrigue. If your business has intrigue, people will learn more about it voluntarily and feel more engaged in the content of your website and press releases.

Creating a brand is a matter of self-awareness and discovery. It may take some trial and error before you find a brand identity that perfectly encapsulates the qualities of your business in a way that communicates easily. Staying self-aware of your brand's originality, sincerity, and consistency will help your business stand out from your pool of competitors.