Today, having just a great product or service simply is not enough for any businesses to stand out in the fiercely competitive environment. Brands will continuously be bombarding with customers every single day and a brand identity helps you carve out a memorable image which earn you credibility in the eyes of the customer and a longer loyal customer base.

Your brand identity is the way your entire business presents itself in relation to the customer – the way your business shows up, looks, feels, interacts and who you associate with.

What exactly is brand identity?

Brand identity encompasses everything related to your business’s appearance, message, values and personality, essentially the overall character of your business that helps customers to recognize and remember it. This consistency ensures you’re brand is instantly recognizable and memorable.Brand names like Nike, Coca-Cola and Apple are known worldwide. The reason these global brands’ identities are so powerful is their consistency, memorability and emotional appeal.

Understand Your Target Market

One of the first things you need to do is to truly know who your target market is and how you will be showing yourself to them when constructing your brand identity. You need to build brand identity that appeals directly to the likely buyer.

Research and understand things like the age of your target customer, their lifestyle, their interests, their problems, their purchasing behaviour and etc. Then ask yourself:

• What is your customer seeking related to your product/service?
• What needs or problem can you solve for your customer?
• What method of communication does your customer prefer to receive communications from businesses?

After knowing these characteristics of your target audience, it will be a lot easier for you to form brand that is truly resonating with your intended target customers, more so at a subconscious and emotional level.

Clearly Define Your Brand Mission & Values

All successful brands have a reason behind the operation of the business – so what is it that you are set up to achieve and what do you stand for? The business’s mission statement shows why the business exists, while values indicate what it believes in. Today consumers more than ever want to buy from brands that support their own values because brand’s success may show support for those values. For instance, some brands stand for sustainability while others value affordability and some are about great customer service.

Your mission values should guide your brand identity and communications, as they show that you are different from your competitors and form the building block of brand identity.

Develop A Unique Brand Name and Logo

Possibly, one of the first things that come into mind with regards to business brand identity are brand name and logo. The name of your business should be short, catchy and also express what the businesses do. If professional, a business logo will help build up brand identity by visually relating itself to the brand name. A business logo is also easily recognizable from various places like websites and advertisements.

The concept of colors within brand identity is also crucial. There are associations with each color that affect customer emotion; blue- trust and professionalism, red- passion and energy and green- natural and ecological.

Choose colors and font that reflect the business’s personality and the messages you wish to transmit.

Create a Memorable Brand Voice

Brand voice refers to how a business sounds. Different businesses have different approaches to communicating with customers. Some adopt a formal, corporate tone while others use a casual, chatty tone. The voice needs to remain consistent on any type of communication: websites, emails, advertisements, social networks, etc. A brand that fails to use a distinctive voice will definitely not make impact.

Build a Strong Online Presence

Today’s consumer, in an online world, has similar buying habits compared to real life. The quality of your online presence impacts business credibility immediately and greatly improves reach. An appealing business website and an active social network presence have the ability to greatly increase business awareness. Through social networks like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn businesses are able to get closer to their customers and convey more brand information. Your online presence is also about showcasing your brand’s personality.

When setting up your profiles on social networks remember the consistency of your brand image, colors, your manner of communication.

Focus on Customer Experience

Your customers’ experiences when interacting with a business can lead to an identity in relation to that brand. Good products/service leads to good customer service, which has strong influence on the customer’s image of brand. A satisfying experience is what will make a customer want to return and also recommend your brand to friends. You will be able to create customers loyal to your brand who can then help advertise your business.

Use Storytelling to Connect Emotionally

People connect much more with stories than direct advertisements, as stories are easier for the brain to remember. Therefore, be prepared to tell stories about how you established your business or about the challenges and triumphs that influenced the growth of your brand, making you business a lot more personable. It will attract and convince people to buy from businesses they have an emotional connection to. This kind of brand marketing has great ability to capture customer attention and memory.

Maintain Brand Consistency

Possibly one of the biggest contributing factors to establishing a brand identity is Brand Consistency. Failure in doing so will lead to ambiguity in customers and diminish recognition. Brand consistency must be used on all your marketing touch points, such as:

• Website
• Advertisements
• Social media channels
• Packaging
•  Direct correspondence with your customers
• Customer support

Monitor And Improve Your Brand

Brand identity is never static. Brands that evolve, modify, and enhance brand identities based on customers’ feedback, trend shifts and competitive analysis stand out from the crowd. Analyse feedback from consumers and monitor trend reports and feedback from industry experts in order to improve brand identity. Changes, even slight, in your brand’s appearance and communications can make great impact on the overall business brand identity.

Conclusion

Branding is no easy task but, if approached in a structured manner; your business can reach consumers throughout the world. Importance of brand identity in any business cannot be emphasized more because it represents the core of your business and customers remember you for it.