Some of the most important decisions you’ll make as an entrepreneur are the ones that pertain to your brand. Your brand differentiates yourself from competitors and makes you more relatable to your customers. It will serve as a North Star for marketing strategies, pricing strategies, and even your retail outlets. There’s a lot of important business choices that ride on this five-letter word, so we’re going to breakdown the five most important factors to consider when developing a brand.
1. The perception you want your business to have
Your brand is your identity and will directly influence how consumers perceive your business. This a crucial component of demonstrating your worth and convincing them that your products/services are worth the price you set. Aside from that, it’ll be a major influence on the visual aspects of your brand from your logo, to your color scheme, to your website layout. Here are a few adjectives that can help you nail down how you do (or don’t) want your brand to be perceived:
- Expensive
- Trendy
- Youthful
- Modern
- High End
- Casual
- Approachable
- Exclusive
- Bold
- Playful
- Cutting Edge
2. How your ideal customer wants to be spoken to
As a business, it’s important to know who you’re speaking to. Equally important is knowing how to speak to them. The brand’s voice is the most important aspect of conveying your brand’s personality. It should reflect the personas of the customers you are trying to attract and also embody the perception you want to display. If your brand’s verbiage might include slang to convey a playful familiarity. If you wanted to sound more formal, perhaps you only refer to the product and your audience in the third-person.
3. The age of your target market
Yes, age is a basic demographic that’s important to know from a marketing perspective, but can play a huge role in determining your brand. Generational differences will have your customers of different age ranges valuing different things. Your older crowd may value quality and overall value more than anything while teenagers may want things that are trendy and sustainably-produced. This will also help you define your values as well as your value proposition.
4. The mood your color scheme invokes
The visual identity of a business is usually one of the earliest components of its creation. Logo, color scheme, or font are chosen before a solid grasp on their audience is had. That’s why it’s incredibly important to 1) do research on your ideal target market to make sure your visuals are appealing to them and 2) to make sure that all visual elements align with the perception you want for your business. Just because certain colors are your favorite, doesn’t mean that they’re appropriate. Colors have been shown to have a direct impact on people’s moods, in fact, there have been entire studies dedicated to how color can influence shopping behavior. Be sure to keep in mind whether these colors play nice with the perception you want your customers to have.
5. The product itself and the nature of the industry
At the end of the day, the product or service you offer will ultimately determine what’s appropriate (and what isn’t) for your brand. If you sell shoes, you have lots of freedom in how you establish your branding elements like tone of voice and perception/ You could be humorous, focus on value and have a bright and crazy color scheme. But if you’re selling something more serious like medical supplies, humor probably isn’t the best option. Instead, you’ll need to focus on appearing professional and legitimate, which limits some of the branding choices you can make.
Need Help Developing Your Brand?
Understanding the factors that go into developing a brand is one thing, turning it into a reality is another. If you’ve been struggling with your brand identity, an agency could be your solution. It may sound counterintuitive that a bunch of strangers can help you develop your brand, but marketing agencies like ours have a host of tools at our disposal that we can use on your behalf like:
- Running competitor analyses to see what your rivals are doing
- Investigating their web traffic and social media stats to see who exactly their users are and how well they’re converting them
- Seeing which marketing channels are bringing them the most traffic
This juicy insight will only help you see what’s already working, and can reveal areas of opportunity for your business to thrive. Once you’ve decided on your branding, Buzzbait can also bring it to life with our host of web design, content writing, newsletter, social media, and PPC services. Contact us today, we can’t wait to help you develop and grow your brand!