Essential branding steps for your business.

It's a busy time starting up a new business and it's is easy for business owners to dismiss branding as unimportant. We live in a society where we are met with a barrage of messages, as a new business you need to be able to stand out from your competition. Great branding can go a long way in allowing you to shine over your competition and ultimately grow your business.

Creating a solid brand message is what will get new business knocking on your door, not just a smart logo.

We've put together a list of essential branding steps to ensure your brand message is hitting the right mark.

1. Define your brand's mission. Describe what your business hopes to accomplish for your customer and why. Who are you and what makes you different? What are your core values?

2. Determine your target audience. Who is your customer? Where do they live, where do they socialise, what products do they use etc.

3. Who is your competition? Research them, what are they doing well? How can you be different? What makes you different from them?

4. Define your brand personality. If you were to describe your brand as a person what would they be? Feminine or masculine? Build a profile of your ideal client. 

5. Put together a detailed creative brief. Get together with your designer, the more information you can bring to us such as - who is your target market, whats your unique selling point and what you would like your overall brand to look like. A platform such as Pinterest is a great way to create a mood board of images that you like, which shows us what you like and why you like it.

6. Create your core branding. Partnering with a design studio that understands your brand message will go along way in creating the best possible result for your business. Begin with a logo and branding, making sure that it aligns with what you have already determined above. Next develop a website, this will most likely be where your customer gets their first impression of your business. It will be a great tool for leads and will act as a communication tool to a larger audience.

7. Develop social media profiles. It's not necessary to be across all social media channels, chose the platforms that are appropriate for your target audience and business and pour your energy into them, instead of bits of each.

8. Collateral. What do you need? Consistency across all of your marketing material is crucial, should you update all of your marketing material so that you have consistency across it all? Work out what are your main forms of interaction with your clients - is it your stationery? and work at getting them 100% right.

For more information call for a chat!