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When you are setting up a business, there are a lot of areas that you will need to look into to ensure you do it right. And one that is always going to be important here is the branding of the business, which you need to focus on if you are going to have the best chance of success. The question here is what actually goes into a brand, and how can you be sure that you are going to be able to get it right?
In this post, we are going to try and elucidate this, primarily by discussing what the main elements of a brand are and how you can hope to bring them about. As long as you have thought about some of the following, you should find that you are going to have a much stronger brand and therefore a business with a brighter future.
The Name
One of the very first things you will need to decide upon is the name of the brand. Distinct from the name of the actual legal business itself, the brand name is what people are actually going to be faced with when they find your product or come across some of your marketing. It needs to be chosen wisely in order to fit in with whatever image you might be hoping to bring to the table, and for that you have to consider a number of factors.
For instance, as is the case with much else that we will discuss here, you need to have a strong awareness of the customer and who they are. The better an idea you have of this, the better it will be to direct your branding, and when it comes to the name that makes a huge difference. It is best if this decision is achieved through the use of actual data-driven naming research, because that makes it a lot more likely that you will end up with a name that actually works for your specific audience.
It’s not only about the audience, however. You also have certain other considerations you need to think about, such as what kind of connotations you are bringing about as a result of a particular name, or whether there are any legal restrictions on it. As long as you come up with a good name, however, and it’s one you can use, that is a strong start to your branding.
Color Scheme
This might actually be the first thing that you think about when you are coming up with a brand, especially if you happen to be quite a visual thinker. Having a strong sense of the colors that you are going to use in your branding is something that is going to help you get an image of it clearly in your mind, so you should certainly try to get clear on this as soon as possible. There are, again, all kinds of considerations you might find it important to think about in doing so, however.
It could be a good idea to find out a little about the psychology behind colors, for example. There are certain associations that we have culturally and naturally with certain colors, and you at least need to be conscious of them – if not actively making use of those associations in your decision making. While it might seem strange, this is something that can actually have quite a strong effect on how the brand is perceived in general, so you should definitely make sure that you are thinking about it.
Once you do have your basic color scheme in mind, you should then draw up a style guide. This is a guide that can be used across your organization to help ensure that the colors are kept to, and it’s something that you are going to find very useful in terms of keeping everything as on-brand as possible.
Voice & Style
Beyond the name and the choice of colors, however, you also have just a general voice and a style that you need to try and get across too. Having a style that you can be happy with is the kind of thing that is always going to be useful here, and it’s going to mean that you are much more likely to have a brand that really works for you. With that in mind, you should make sure that you are thinking about what kind of voice is likely to work, and the question of how to do that can be quite an interesting one.
Voice can be seen to be especially important when it comes to some of the more modern forms of marketing, such as the use of social media. That’s somewhere where you really do need to have the strongest possible voice, which simply means that it should be as unique as possible and one that you know how to adopt easily. If you develop a voice that is strong and makes sense for the brand, it’s going to make social media creation so much easier.
It’s not just about social media, though. The brand voice comes into play everywhere, including how you speak to customers and what you write in letters to them and emails. So you can see how important it is to make sure you have a voice that you are happy with.
Sticking With It
One of the most important things of all, however, is simply that you are sticking with your brand as closely as you possibly can at all times. If you can do that, you’ll make it more powerful – in fact, a brand is only as powerful as its consistency, so that is a major thing that you need to bear in mind here. If you can stick with it as best as you can, you’ll find that your brand is so much more powerful and will do a lot more for your business in general.
Those are the main things to bear in mind when it comes to making a brand that works.
