What is Branding and Why do I Need it for my Business?

December 16th 2013 | By Steve Grant

Many small businesses believe that branding is an expensive exercise that relates only to bigger corporations. The truth is that all businesses need a brand identity. Branding relates to the reputation and the impression that you want to create. By thinking about the type of impression you want to make, and the values you hold dear, you can manage it through your branding.

Key Elements to Branding

Branding isn’t just about creating a logo and colour scheme. It’s about finding out what the unique selling points are for your business and then looking at how you want to position yourself within the market to appeal to your target audience. It’s about applying your values to everything you do: consistently.

Once these key elements have been decided and agreed upon, you can then work with your creative team on the various initiatives used to communicate your selling points and values to your audience.

For example, if you run a paintballing company, you may decide that your market is hen and stag parties. You may wish to position yourself as a lively, dynamic and exciting company. You may have values such as a commitment to delivering a great experience and creating memories with a dedication to exceptional service. Armed with this information, your creative team will work on designing a website, stationery, logo and literature that will appeal to and resonate with your target audience and effectively demonstrate your values. Likewise, your copywriter will use your brand guidelines and tone guidelines to write relevant content and lively blog posts that incorporate your brand values.

Other Factors that Influence Branding

Branding incorporates all factors that influence how people perceive your business and what it’s like to do business with you. These include such things as your company name, the way your staff answer the phone and what customers say about you.

Your brand can be just as an important part of your relationship with your suppliers and business partners as it is to your customers.

In conclusion, it’s clear to see that if you have a business, you inevitably have a brand. You can choose to take action and manage your brand with the help of your creative team. It takes time and hard work to do this and it’s a job that needs to be constantly monitored as perceptions of a brand can alter over time. Brands will also evolve to take advantage of changing markets, so it’s important you work with a creative team that takes an active approach to keeping up with trends.

Need help with branding? We offer a free initial consultation and would be delighted to speak to you. Please get in touch for a chat.