Tuesday Tutorials #2: Branding
Some important things you should understand before branding your company.
Branding is basically your promise to your customer. Your brand message should communicate, how you stand out from your competition and what makes you different from the rest in a competitive market.
Once you have a clear idea about this it’s important to translate it tangibly across your products, services, employees, work culture and more. But how do you do that?
Here are a few basic things you can do to communicate your brand’s message more effectively:
1. Have a unique logo and make sure it’s everywhere, from your office to your customer bill.
2. Express it in words. Put it down on writing and make sure you include it during you employee orientation programme or at the time of hiring.
3. Put it into action. Whatever your brand’s message is you want to build your executive procedures to align with that message. It can be anything – how you answer your phones, what you or your salespeople wear on sales calls, your e-mail signature, everything.
4. Create a “voice” for your company that reflects your brand. This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Is your brand friendly? Be conversational. Is it ritzy? Be more formal. You get the idea.
5. Develop a tagline. Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand.
6. Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials. Use the same colour scheme, logo placement, look and feel throughout. You don’t need to be fancy, just consistent.
7. Deliver on your promise. Stay true to your brand, and make sure every customer is delivered the promise you gave them.
8. Be consistent. Don’t try to blue and black all at once. Choose one thing, one message, one branding and stick with it. Don’t scatter. Reproduce the same thing on a consistent basis. This makes your brand last for ages or even a part of someone’s daily life even.
These are a few basic things you should know before branding your business. You can be as creative as you want till you are satisfied with the out and thereafter you have to just build on it with some rare updates whenever necessary. Good luck.