Understanding and Building
Brand Awareness
What is Brand Identity?
Usually, when people say brand, they are referring to a logo and name. However, your brand is more than just your logo. Your brand is the impression people have about you. Your brand is how you stand out in an already crowded market. And, yes, part of your brand is your visual identity. However, your brand is also what you stand for; your values, your voice, your personality, and your reputation.
Brand is:
- Values
- Visual Identity
- Voice
- Reputation
Values
When thinking about your company’s brand, you must take into account your company’s values. These values should definitely align with your own values because, as a small business owner, you want to be authentic. However, you should also think about who your target market is and what they value. You can learn about defining your target market by reading our blog on the subject (here) and then you can learn about market research (here). Researching your target customer base will give you insight into what your customers value which will help you learn how to appeal to them.
From there, you can think about what you want to stand for, what you want for your company’s future, and what sets you apart from your competitors. Taking all that into account, you can create your vision and mission statements. Your vision statement helps you stay on track by having your goals clearly written out, while your mission statement should explain what you do and why you exist. These foundational statements will help guide you in future decision-making in all aspects of your business, including advertising. Positive brand awareness can only happen when your slogan, your ad campaigns, and your voice consistently reflect your company’s values.
Visual Identity
Once your values are clearly established, you should begin to think about your company’s visual identity. While this is the more cosmetic side of branding, it carries a lot of weight. Having a visual representation of your brand is, again, more than just a logo.
Your visual identity includes your colours, logo, fonts or typography, design elements, and style. We aren’t all artists or graphic designers, so when choosing these things for your company, you may want to work closely with a professional artist who specializes in brand identity. This is critical because a professionally designed visual identity helps to define your company, portray the right image to customers, and ensure a consistent look and feel for all of your communications.
Colours and shapes have meanings and the power to create feelings in your audience. You want to ensure that what you choose to represent your company coincides with what your company is. Therefore, it is worthwhile to consider the message that you are presenting when selecting these elements. Remember, consistency is key to creating brand awareness. So your visual identity isn’t something you will want to change once it is established.
Voice
Having a consistent brand voice is very important to establishing brand identity. Imagine your company as a singular person with their own specific personality. You want that personality to consistently come across to your customer base through your slogans, tagline, social media, email, and any other messaging.
Having a brand voice is about connecting with your customers. Think about well-known companies with very strong brand awareness. If each of those companies were a person, what sorts of personalities would they have? How do those personalities reflect the industry that the company exists in? A company selling workout gear might be bold whereas a company selling baby supplies wants to appear more nurturing.
Establishing your voice and keeping it consistent will make your company more personable to your customers and help to define where it fits in the marketplace.
Reputation
Your reputation is how your company is actually perceived by the general public, especially by your customers. While your company's reputation is greatly influenced by things within your control, it is also impacted by many elements outside your control. How you market your company and the way you interact with customers and the public will help build your reputation. However, it is also affected by external factors such as the media, industry trends, and the opinions of others. Staying true to your vision and values will go a long way to keeping your reputation a positive one.
The Benefits of a Consistent Brand
Having a consistent and recognizable brand creates differentiation, recognizability, credibility, relationship, and, consequently, customer loyalty.
Knowing exactly who you are as a company, what your values are, and what makes you unique will make it easier for you to communicate who you are to your customers. Having a concrete and consistent brand identity helps build recognizability. Because people are more likely to trust what they are familiar with, customers are more likely to choose you if they are familiar with you. And, because we want to support our friends, presenting your company as a ‘person’ whom your customers can get to know and ‘befriend’ will create a loyal customer base.
So, when someone hears or reads your company’s name, what do you want them to associate it with? Creating your brand identity is the first step to building brand awareness. Get started today!
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