4 essentials for your branding strategy
Every business needs a good branding strategy, no matter the size.
Branding is what gives your customers their first impression and what they can expect from you as a business. A brand isn’t just a simple logo, it is everything connected to it. Branding is image, tone of voice and more than ever a community. You can develop this in many ways, and the first obvious choice is starting with your website, leading to all digital and non digital strategies.
These 4 essentials for your branding strategy will get you started whatever your business.
1. Decide the image you want your business to portray.
This is the first step of the process. What image should represent you? What is your business’ identity?
To get to that, all you need to do is come up with a few simple pieces of information:
- Define your mission, values and goals
- If consumers choose your services/products, what sets you apart from your competitors?
- What should your messaging be?
- How are you currently perceived by the public? Is it the way you want it?
Market research is your best option here. Find out what the needs, desires and habits of your target audience are. In this way you will get a good understanding of what it is you can deliver. If you dig long and hard enough you will be able to tailor your strategy for the majority of your branding efforts.
2. Create content that conveys your branding messaging.
Quality content can best represent your brand. Make sure all the content that is created follows the same general idea behind your business branding. Keep these few tips in mind when starting to develop branded content:
- Choose the right time and relevant topics
- Choose a voice and stick with it
- Never forget your mission and values, you want to be able to convey them through your content
- Make sure the content you provide your audience is valuable
3. Be Consistent
Make sure the image you portray remains the same throughout time and across platforms. Consistency allows your consumers to relate to your company on a personal level, as they get the feeling they know you on a more personal level. Design wise, make sure the logos, colour schemes, fonts and names are the same throughout all your marketing efforts.
4. Optimize for Social Media
Nowadays you have a wide variety of social media networks and as a business you can use them to your advantage. Remember: each platform has a different audience, that means you will need to adapt your efforts to get the maximum exposure the platform can give you. Two key notions need to be ever-present:
- Before posting, be sure that all your social media descriptions and imagery are consistent with your website and your messaging.
- Be certain to create a social media strategy that plays on the strengths of each social platform. An example of this can be sites such as Instagram and Pinterest which call for visual content, rather than written content which suits a platform like Facebook.
A strong brand image is an essential feature for any company and should be apparent in every aspect of business. Thinking about your branding strategy should be at the forefront of your digital marketing efforts.
Remember, having a website isn’t enough when you want to work on your on-line presence. Be sure to exploit social media and content marketing to mould the perception that your audience has of your brand.
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