Building a Knock-out Brand for a Startup
Branding is everything that sets your business apart. We live in the digital age where the bulk of the world is online. It is increasingly hard to find a good name, a unique mark, or creative concepts that haven’t already been claimed. even so, it is only when you find a clear and distinctive way to make your business stand out, that you can build trust and rapport with your customers.
Every single time a customer interacts with your product, they are engaging with your brand and making up their mind about who you are and how capable you are to fill their needs. Your branding ultimately leaves an impression on your users; be it positive or negative. Good branding is simply the act of intentional and strategic communication.
Pick a Good Name
The first thing you need to consider when approaching branding is the name. If you get your startup name wrong, every other aspect of your brand image will suffer. the most enduring names are short, memorable, positive, relatable, and distinctive. Brands like Stripe, Paystack, Tesla, Notion, and OpenAI have names that honour this formula.
As you search and select a suitable name for your product or startup; it is important that you check the availability of the domain name. it is often hard to find the .com tld (top level domain) for most iconic brand names. an ingenious solution to this problem is to engage domain branding. there are hosts of custom-fitting tld’s that can act to give startups legitimacy while showing the brand as imaginative. domain branding can offer a creative approach to help your startup identify and differentiate itself.
Lastly, a good name should have positive meanings at home and abroad. Thorough research should be undertaken to ensure there are no negative connotations to the brand name in other regions. Many startups face this problem when they have to scale their company due to the inappropriateness of their brand name. This often leads to an unnecessary and expensive rebrand at a critical juncture when the company is looking to grow. You need to make sure your brand name can be trademarked and registered formally and from the onset. Engage a trademark lawyer to help with licensing and registration locally and internationally.
Why do you exist and who do you serve
Most businesses and startups don’t consider this question even though it has the largest impact on their brand image. but without answering this question, a brand will inevitably struggle with its identity. it goes without saying, that if you cannot identify what sets you apart from others, how will anyone else?
Your brand strategy provokes the question of why you exist and who you serve, the answer to these questions helps you set the long-term plan and goals that ultimately result in the identification and preference of your brand by users.
The Four Components of Branding
There are four main components of startup branding. when they are jointly considered and strategically developed, they help to create a strong connection between your brand and its customers; who know a lot about your business and like the ideals that you represent.
Brand Identity
Brand Image
Brand Ideology
Brand Personality
Brand Identity
This is the perspective of the brand imposed by the brand owner. it consists of all the visual elements associated with the brand, from the logo and typography to colours, product packaging design, website design, pitch deck, photography and illustration styles, and even social media graphics. once the brand owner can answer the questions of what the brand does and who it serves, they can work with an identity designer to kickstart the brand identity design process and start to fashion the identity of the brand after the brand strategy.
A useful resource that comes from the brand identity design process are the brand guidelines that help to document and record how the startup’s branding should be applied. It lays out the rules and principles behind the effective representation of the brand identity.
Brand Image
This is the domain of public relations that has to do with how the public perceives the brand. your brand image is the image your consumers have of you in their heads and the experience they have when choosing to interact with you. it is an aggregate of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that a customer holds regarding the brand.
The brand owner has no control over what customers think of the brand. while brand identity helps the brand owner shape how a customer perceives the brand. brand image is how the customer actually perceives the brand.
Brand Ideology
This is what your company believes in. It is the set of guiding principles that shape your business, the unique blend of psychology, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that inform your brand’s behavior and ultimately shape the brand’s reputation. It is what you get when you strip away the business goals, strategies, and methodologies.
The brand ideology sits at the heart of a business and dictates what it does, how it does it, and why it matters to its staff and, ultimately, to its customers. The more effective your management and other employees are in living out the values of your organization, the stronger your brand ideology.
Brand Personality
Figuring out brand personality helps an organization shape the way people feel about its product, service, or mission. It’s a process of making the brand become relatable and human – giving it an authentic personality.
This brand strategy framework helps organizations shape the way people feel about their products, service, or mission; by assigning human qualities to the brand. adjectives – like unique, caring, funny, trustworthy, creative, straightforward, dishonest, rebel, etc. – startups can build strong brands, create loyal customers, and diversify from the competition.
The better your branding, the better your marketing
Branding is the process of defining how to communicate and deliver your promise to potential customers. It also includes how you build your brand within a world in which consumers have many choices, and competition for customers is constantly increasing. marketing on the other hand is the process of reaching your customers.
When a startup effects good branding, it raises its chances of being remembered by customers; increasing loyalty and retention. good branding allows customers to tell your business apart, giving you a competitive edge.
When a customer develops a positive brand image for your business or product, they become advocates of your brand. They not only tell others about the quality of your products and services but also share their experiences with others. they only do this because they can relate with your organization; they believe in your brand on an emotional level as well as a rational one and are equally assured you have their best interest at heart because of how much you understand their needs and can speak to their pain points.
Good branding is the seed of great marketing. the goal is to help people remember you, even after they have forgotten about your product. you want to leave a strong impression that reveals the character of your startup.
To build a knock-out brand for your startup, you need to pick a great name, and develop your brand identity, brand image, brand ideology, and brand personality; making sure they are intentional, strategic, and reflect the essence of your organization.