Keys to Building a Successful Brand
The idea of branding is still nebulous for many business owners across the board. Whether you’re a new entrepreneur or a seasoned executive, developing and maintaining a strong brand for your company is crucial and often overlooked during the business planning process. While individual products have a finite life span, strong brands can live on indefinitely.
Building a successful brand helps establish your identity in a cluttered marketplace and helps to tell a story that connects with your consumers on an emotional level. A company may have all the conventional elements of a brand – a logo, a website, nice packaging – but can still be lacking the most important element: a brand purpose.
Your brand purpose is your reason for being in people’s lives, not your reason for selling to them. It’s your personal “why” for starting the company to begin with. Below are questions to ask yourself to guide you on establishing a strong brand.
1. What makes us unique?
What is the white space opportunity for your brand? Take a look at how competitors are positioning their bands and define a unique vision for your company. Sephora differentiated itself from the many beauty brands in the marketplace with the mission to build the most knowledgeable and professional team of product consultants in the industry, while other brands were still lagging behind in the shopping experience.
2. Why should people care about us?
How are you adding value to consumers? Are you helping, entertaining, or generally enriching their lives in any way? Apple commands attention from consumers as the brand that empowers creative exploration and self -expression. This idea is present throughout the brand experience, from product design to after the sale.
3. Are we part of a higher social purpose?
Is there a broader social cause that you are contributing to or enabling people to be a part of? Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes, claimed his personal “why” for starting the company was to use business to improve lives of children through the brand’s One for One program, which is embedded throughout the brand experience.
4. Who is not part of our audience?
Knowing who your brand is and isn’t for helps to shape a clear point of view and identity for your company. You can’t be everything to all people and it’s critical to put a stake in the ground when it comes to defining your story so you can build loyal relationships with your key audience, and let others decide whether they want to join the tribe or not. Marmite’s brand includes the pointed message that it’s “not for everyone,” leveraging the insight that people either love or hate the product.
Building a brand is more than just an immaculately designed logo and sleek advertising to go with products. It’s a journey that requires thoughtful strategy to establish credibility, relationships and cultural relevance in today’s world – and it starts with defining your brand purpose, your personal “why.”