Brand building is an important part of a business and its development. It increases the voice of the brand and its awareness to your customers. It gives your business its identity. If you’ve been thinking about building your own brand be it for business or personal use, then it’s important to know that brand building is not a “whisk away” kind of process. It takes time, effort, and resources. We’re here to define brand building and get a look at the different types of brands and the steps to take to create a successful brand.
Building brands, as we’ve discussed, is an important part of a business, and making sure that it works for your company is vital. Brand building does not mean only logos and a name. Brand building means creating a brand for your business and having a set of rules that would reinforce the kind of branding you’ve given it.
Brand Building
The best way to define brand building is probably creating value for your customers. Building a brand covers everything from knowing what your customers feel, want, know, and experience with your business.
The 3 popular types of brands are services, products, and those in the retail industry.
5 Steps in Brand Building:
- Define your brand
The first step to building your brand is defining it. The critical step of building a brand because it truly determines what your brand stands for. Know your core strengths and what defines your business. You should look at the skills and expertise that you possess, especially those which stand out. You should also know what your brand stands for and what is important for your brand (brand values). - Position your brand and know how to differentiate it
Naturally, you’d want your business to stand out and get recognized instantly; the way you do this is by taking the time to think about what sets your brand apart. Create your unique selling proposition that will leave its mark in the minds of your consumers and then you can come up with a proposition that can put your brand in a position wherein your customers can appreciate the value of your brand. - Expose your brand
Building a unique and powerful brand takes a lot of time and consistency. You have to keep reinforcing your values and skills by taking up new roles and assignments that will give your brand more exposure. You can also use other channels to promote your business like blogs and social media. Create a voice for your business. Develop a brand personality to drive more people to your business, motivating them to identify and engage with your business. - Personalize
Personalize your brand if you want to continue building your brand. It’s important to give your brand an identity that would look and feel like it’s been well thought out. Let your consumers see and experience your brand in its entirety. When you personalize your brand, you give consumers a reason to participate and engage with your brand for a lifetime. - Review your brand
It’s important to review your brand as it goes. Review how your brand changes overtime because depending on your brand strategy, your brand will either grow in strength, or remain dormant, or recede with time. The possibility of these happening to your business should give you the drive to continue taking charge of your brand building activities.
Ensure your brand growth by reviewing your activities and evaluating successes through different metrics like brand awareness and levels of engagement through your different platforms.
Brand building is not a one-time thing. It’s a continuous process that every business goes through. It’s important to be clear about brand strategies and how you’re going to implement them. Adopt brand strategies that work best for your business. Always remember to make brand strategies that will add value to your brand that will entice your customers to patronize your brand.
You can reinforce your branding by having a brand standards manual set for your business. This sets rules and a more detailed understanding of how you and your employees can use your branding for different purposes.
A brand manual is something that every company should have especially during these times when services seem to come off as repetitive and typical but it takes a lot of convincing to say that a business needs a brand manual. What about your business? Does it need a brand manual? Read through it here!
A corporate identity isn’t cheap, we know. A good branding identity actually takes weeks of research, planning, and a whole lot of trial and error but of course, getting your business’ own branding identity does not mean the work ends there.
As every company needs a polished identity, it also needs a brand standards manual. Not having this is dangerous. Damage can be done to your brand without it because this manual will serve as your standard of how to use your branding.
A brand manual is like an instruction booklet for your business. This booklet is always a necessity. If you’re asking yourself if your business needs a brand manual, the answer is yes but to further expound on this, here are a few reasons why.
- As a complete guide to how your brand is to be used, it provides consistency.
This document, this brand manual, helps ensure that your branding has consistency in appearance across all media so that it looks the same anywhere it’s put on. - Not everyone knows how you’d want your business to be addressed. A manual provides knowledge and meaning.
There is so much more to a brand than just a logo and an office. A brand is how a company communicates to the world and because of your branding, your company is very susceptible to different perceptions which are why having a brand manual to tell people about your brand, knowing exactly what it is and what it’s about and what it’s for is vital to delivering the right information to your audience. - You’d want your brand to make a lasting impression. Make it timeless.
Brands are supposed to stand the test of time. No matter how many owners the company goes through, it’s supposed to be the very identifying factor of a company. Every time the logo is mishandled or misused, it loses its brand equity. A brand manual helps your company hold the value of the brand.
Having a brand style is key to helping your company communicate effectively and visually. This defines your company’s brand elements and how they’re to be used across different platforms.
What should a brand manual contain?
This guide is a detailed guide is a document that fully encompasses all of the branding elements of a brand.
These are the common components of a brand style guide
- LOGO
Your company should have a style guide for your logo, showing the primary and secondary colors of the logo. This should also include hex codes, CMYK, RGB, and other color formats. This will be helpful for third parties such as web developers, printers, etc to maintain the look of your logo no matter the platform. Consider placing in the manual the size of the logo, as well as the placement and the spacing and of course, some examples of how to and not to use them.
- COLORS
Colors are a bit difficult since the settings aren’t always the same and they vary depending on the printing process/device. Some things to consider would be the black and white versions of the logo, CMYK, and RGB, as well as the Hex code.
- TYPEFACES
Typefaces are important because there can be multiple weights and styles used. These can be manipulated in your branding in order to give a different feel for your marketing materials.
- WEB STYLES
Websites have a lot of pages and there are different elements involved in these web pages, knowing the ways on how you’re supposed to style your elements according to your branding will help you build better consistency and brand image.
MOCKUPS AND REFERENCES
When creating a brand style guide, it would be very helpful for you, your employees, and third party suppliers if you could provide a reference or mock-ups of different marketing materials such as business cards, letterheads, brochures, etc.
A brand style guide/brand manual is an integral part of your branding because it establishes a value for your brand. It keeps messaging consistent and communication constant. This becomes the doctrine of your branding and should always be invested in.
Artzap Studio offers professional branding services for every business including brand manuals. From start to finish, we ensure that from start to finish, we will walk you through the process, letting you be a part of what we’re creating for you. For more questions, you can contact us here!
