1. Find your Voice
Knowing who you are and what you are about, helps to inform your tone of voice. This matters to what you say and how you say it – as tonality is 80% of communication. This should be considered when making choices to word choice and artwork selection. All media is a blank canvas so you can be, whatever you want to be, but always be authentic and congruent to your company values, mission and marketplace objective(s).
2. Know your Audience
Many businesses, often and rather oddly, make the mistake of not correctly knowing who their prospects and eventual customers will be. Market research and the reason why you started or continue a business should inform managers on nature of their customer base and the branding, messaging and communications should be crafted accordingly.
3. Get Started on your Brand
Don’t delay for a second in crafting a helicopter view of who you are, how you want to be seen, known in your chosen sector and among your competition. You really can’t start early enough and you should consider engaging the services of a creative professional to help you; as well as provide valuable third party perspective(s) that can be valuable while saving time, money and perhaps foolish costly mistakes.
4. Branding is more than: Logos, Colours and Typefaces
A brand is far greater, and has more value, than the some of its parts. The name, artwork, tone of voice, communication focus, look of your premises, professionalism of your staff, feel of your services, quality of your products and many more channels of perspective. Branding and building brand value is very important in any marketplace, as competition is always right there, and the customer has to know who you are and why they should care.
5. Decide How and What to Communicate
The style of what a company says is part of the brand and this shouldn’t be forgotten. This aspect may spill into the realms of marketing, but the foundations of what marketing communicates should be established in the brand values of the organisation. Working with a designer can help craft an editorial focus which could incorporate digital marketing aspects.
6. Bringing it All Together
You have a business to launch or run and depending on its nature you will have more pressing issues than branding most of the time. That said if you don’t service your brand, maintain and grow your brand you won’t have a business for too long in an increasingly occupied and competitive marketplace. Once the core brand values are established, and running through the company like letters through rock, it’s important to start optimising how it gets managed day to day. There are several methods of how this can be done and various pieces of software that can help on the artwork and social media side of the business. However time should nonetheless be dedicated, using checklist and calendar software, to maintain and bolster branding across the company and into your specific marketplace.
Work with a brand, print and web professional get in touch with me to enjoy a free consultation and peace of mind for your business at any stage of your growth.
