Beginner’s Guide to Building a Brand

In today’s market that is flooding with neck-to-neck competition, the one thing you want to do for your business is to build a brand identity. It is a crucially important step in the business world today. 

Studies show that 90% of small business owners are now believing that they could only sustain the tough competition because of their unique brand identity. It helped them stand out from the crowd and portray professionalism. 

Today’s generation identified ‘good’ products by their brand name. If it is famous and well-known, it automatically becomes a hero for the new customers as well. Catering to this mindset of the audience, we need to develop a brand. Here are 4 ridiculously easy steps to begin your branding journey. 

1.Set a perception 

Who says it isn’t you who decides what others think of you? The impression you leave on people will decide their perception of you. This stage is the first one where you decide how you want to end the customer’s journey. That is, how do you want your customers to feel after they have tried your product or service?

For example, if you own a restaurant, what do you want the customers to feel after they have had their meals. Do you want them to go like, “That was a generous plate of food!”, “The chefs really knew their way around the flavors, huh.”, “We have got to come back here with our friends!”, etc. 

If those are the comments you are dreaming about, you need to work in that direction. Hence, setting a perception is the first step as it will give you a direction of work.

2.Working on the promises 

As we discussed in the previous step, setting perception means you are promising the customers that you will deliver quality flavors and generous portions. Hence, your next step would be to work towards fulfilling these promises. 

You need to make it clear to the chefs that the portions should be generous enough, you need to design the ambience in a way that is suitable for a group of friends, etc.

This step is where the actual execution of ideas happens. You create the business model that works for you and aligns with the promises that you have made. Your winning formula is to deliver what you dreamed about. 

3.Marketing 

The third step is to announce your business and communicate what you are serving. This stage is where you gather all the ideas and promises to mould them into one astounding brand. 

In this step, you decide on all the elements of your brand. This will include logo designs, color palette, packaging, marketing platforms, a fixed theme to represent the brand, etc.

Your brand identity should be aligned at every step and nothing should look like it is not a part of the group. This brand image should be the center of all your advertisement campaigns. Your brand motto is what you are delivering with every advertisement and hence, this should a part of every campaign.

This stage will also include generating an online presence on various social media platforms. You will have to plan and strategize the platform displays according to your brand identity. If you are looking forward to having Instagram and Facebook pages, they should be aligned and follow the color palette and designs of the brand. 

The content that you post on these platforms should be delivering the central idea of what your brand believes in. For example, continuing the restaurant case, if the central idea is to deliver flavors, then your content should clearly communicate that the brand believes in producing fresh dishes with intricate attention to flavor combinations and balance of spices. 

4.Consistency is the key 

Everybody loves an iPhone. Why? They’re innovative and they are pretty. Because of these high expectations and selling points that are now deep-rooted in the market, Apple cannot afford to make a single piece that is not of the same level. They cannot afford to stoop down their level of innovation, attention to detail, and visual aesthetics. If they fail to deliver, they will be breaking the promises they made and not standing by their level of the brand. That would cost them their impression in the market. 

This is why we believe that consistency is the key to long-term success. The idea behind staying consistent is to build and foster trust among the customers. You need to be a brand that people can put their faith in. If they see that you are not standing true to your words, they won’t be able to trust you. 

Consistency is often a difficult part to manage but is also one of the most rewarding ones. When you develop a strong brand image, you will be attaching the customer’s expectations to it. That will be a responsibility you need to handle. 

There can be plenty of restaurants on the street, but people will only walk into the one that they know serves immaculate flavors. 

The biggest advantage of consistency is that people will be loyal to you even if you increase your prices by a small margin. They won’t complain about you being expensive. They will trust that you must be developing something new and they will happily pay for it. They will pay because they will believe that you are worth the amount. And that will be your greatest achievement.

And that’s how you build a brand that will not only sell but also create beautiful customer relationships along the way.