06 August 2024

How to Build a Strong Brand Identity that resonates: A Step by Step Guide for your business (Part 1)

In my previous article, I answered some pivotal questions concerning effective brand identity. If you haven't read it yet, I advise you to go through it before proceeding. For those of you who have already read it, I'm just listing the main points for some useful recap:

What is brand Identity;
Why is it so important to build a strong brand identity and how does a strong brand identity help your business;
What does brand identity include and what are the components that define your brand;
The role of a cohesive brand for your company.

In today's crazy business world, it's hard to be successful without a cohesive personal and/or business brand. Not to mention that acting without an idea of what brand experience you need to create for your audience and how to differentiate your brand from your competitors is like shooting in the dark!

“The way a company brands itself is everything – it may ultimately determine whether a business survives.”

“Well, I got it", you think. "A memorable brand is crucial for my success, but where to start? Do I need a huge budget and time resources to create a brand identity?..."

When it comes to anything design, questions and personal taste tend to overwhelm us, but building a robust brand identity doesn’t need to be so complex, overwhelming, and time-consuming. You need to put effort into it, yes but the good news is that Digibees Studio has the know-how and will help you create your new brand.

Still sceptical? Then let’s waste no more time and dive into the ultimate step-by-step guide on how to build a competitive brand for your business from start to finish!

Table of Contents:

How to Build a Strong Brand Identity: Step-by-Step
- 1: Know Your Brand's Foundation and Brand Guidelines
- 2: Researching Competitors, Market Trends, Audience
- 3: Assess Your Current Identity vs the One you want
- 4: Build a Brand Name, Slogan and Brand Story
- 5: Define your Brand Image and Visual Direction

Creating an impactful brand identity that resonates with your audience requires a thorough understanding of who you are, who your target audience is, what they desire, and what captures their interest. These are good questions to start from but there are many more. The importance of a well-defined brand identity in today’s competitive market automatically means you can’t just make up a great logo and slogan, choose a few fancy fonts and colours and call it a day. No, be ready to roll your sleeves up and do your homework. Otherwise, the market, competitors and customers won’t forgive you. And you know in this fierce game there is no such thing as a second chance to make a good first impression, right? Building trust from the start is crucial.

Arm yourself with time, patience and determination and your efforts will be worth it. The well-thought-out strategy and the structured approach you have while creating a strong brand identity are your golden ticket to success.

Build a Strong Brand Identity That Resonates: Step by Step Guide for your business

Like each new project or activity we are facing, creating something we know little about can be quite daunting. Having step-by-step guidelines makes it a manageable process and here we come! Let’s see what the brand-building process looks like in practice, as you embark on your brand identity design!

1: Know Your Brand's Foundation and Create Your Brand Guidelines

It’s always a good idea to start from the basics - in other words inside out. First things first, define:

Define your Mission
Values, and
Brand Personality

Mission:

Be genuine, and precise in expressing what your company and business are about. No need for complicated phrases or vague statements. In many cases, your mission may not be public and customers will know you for your slogan or logo, but we shouldn’t forget that your employees are those who align with your mission and represent it. So do it for you, do it for them. They need to recognise and believe in what you define and say.

When reading your mission you should answer the following questions:

Why does my company exist and what problems do we resolve?

Why should customers choose our product instead of the competitors'?

And if you are not able to answer, this means your mission is not clear and sounds vague. Refine it till you are sure it provides the right information and makes the right image for your company.

Values - Your Brand Story:

Your values should align and be closely related to your mission. Just be sure you not only define and document them, but also stick to them, because customers and employees can easily find out when you have double standards and you are not authentic.

Brand Personality and Brand Voice:

Personality is one of the key elements of your brand identity and the easiest way to express your uniqueness. Your customers will recognise your personality among others and this will set you apart, so it’s vital to choose your type of personality wisely. To do so you need market research on your competitors and the audience you want to target. Your brand's character needs to resonate with your ideal client.

There are five main fundamental brand temperaments to help you conceptualise, define, and develop your unique presence:

Competence
Sincerity
Excitement
Sophistication
Durability

Imagine your product is meant for the younger audience - let’s say Gen Z, but the personality and voice you try to impose are too sophisticated for the brand story you want to tell. This is a recipe for disaster. You will desperately attempt to reach customers with a potentially great product but with the wrong approach, and using an inadequate voice that speaks to their parents instead.

Establish a Unique Positioning in the Market

As you can imagine, defining the mission statement, values and brand voice is not enough to have a recognisable brand that attracts customers and helps you set yourself apart. Brand positioning is not less important. To establish your standing in the competitive market and present your product or service requires a strategic approach and concrete actions to:

Identify market gaps and opportunities for differentiation;
Define and highlight your Unique Selling Proposition or Value Proposition;
Incorporate your brand voice and brand's visual identity into your communication and marketing strategy and communicate them across all platforms.

2: Research Competitors, Market Trends, Audience

No success happens without preparation and research! During this step, you should focus a good deal of effort, and time, and set a budget to investigate the trends in the market you enter, to make a competitors’ analysis and last but not least - get to know your buying personas!

Conduct Competitor Analysis

As we mentioned above it’s pivotal to define the market trends and gaps to see where your optimal opportunities for successful positioning are. Making a deep analysis of your competitors will help you establish a good brand strategy and grab emerging opportunities.

For competitors’ research, we recommend a SWOT analysis to be prepared so you can learn from their strengths and weaknesses. Think of this as a long-term investment of time and resources because the information you obtain will allow you to capitalise on your competitors' mistakes and improve their weak points to draw in their dissatisfied customers.

Research Your Audience

You didn't think you could create a perfect product without knowing your audience, did you? Who is your ideal client?

It’s not enough to build an effective brand, you need to think about who your product and brand are created for. Don’t be tempted to skip this step because a perfect product in your eyes doesn’t mean it is perfect for the customers too. Knowing the exact person you want to sell to means creating your perfect Buying Persona - a fictional representation of your ideal customer. In other words, this is the person you want to sell and the one whose pain points you know perfectly. Fill in as many details for this Persona as you find useful: age, status, education, income, dreams, hopes, fears and desires. What does their day look like? What car do they drive? Once you know this person inside out, you can personalise your attitude, your voice, your marketing strategy, messaging and your ads consistently for them, aligning with your brand values.

Research Market Trends

Knowing the current market trends is a must. You can’t position your brand and product without caring if the market needs this product at all; proof of concept is fundamental to building a business. Of course, the customers probably don’t realise they have a problem until you tell them that they do and what is more important - your product can solve it, thereby building trust. Putting this aside, you should be keeping up with market trends too, as this will give you the advantage of being up-to-date and flexible at any time, thereby helping you build a brand identity.

3: Assess Your Current Brand Identity vs the One You Want

Do you start from scratch or are you rebranding? If you have previously created a brand and want to change some elements or completely transform it, it’s better to evaluate your current business situation. Conduct a brand audit to assess your current brand elements and use SWOT analysis again, as an instrument to document the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats thus obtaining a full understanding of what to focus on in your identity.

Whether you have a current identity you want to change and upgrade or you are about to create your new unique brand, be sure to align it with your goals, mission and values. It could be that your current identity doesn’t represent your newly added values or you see some discrepancy between the identity you would like to have and the mission you defined.

Whatever the reason - assessing your current identity and state before continuing to create a new one is a key factor to going the right way and applying all lessons learnt.

4: Build a Brand Name, Slogan and Brand Story

Before you start working on the visuals, you need to synthesise the foundations that represent your brand. The visuals are only one side of the coin, a successful brand is much more than graphics. Your next step is to craft a compelling name, slogan and brand story and incorporate them into your visual concept.

Brand Name:

Be it one or more words, an abbreviation or a made-up word… It is up to you! Give expression of your creativity, brightness and feelings. The brand name ideally should be catchy, witty, and inspiring, but most importantly, it must be logical and resonate with resonate with your target audience and product. To build brand awareness, your brand personalities should then be reflected in your brand’s visual identity.

Slogan:

Short, simple, distinctive, and memorable - all of these are qualities of a strong slogan. Your slogan should describe and highlight your product's strengths and why customers should choose you instead of your competitors, reinforcing your brand positioning. To express the essence of your business in just a few words requires mastery. A striking slogan is a valuable asset which helps create a memorable brand identity, forming a key part of the foundation of your brand.

Brand Story:

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” — Steve Jobs.

A storyteller can effectively create a brand identity through compelling narratives. Grabbing your audience's attention is a challenging task, and during this fast-paced era, storytelling proves to be a powerful tool to boost your brand marketing efforts. People remember stories, but more than that, they love the way stories make them feel and therefore relate to your brand experience and brand story.

Curating powerful and impactful narratives, which resonate with your audience, bolsters your brand image and identity. You should identify a hero (your customer), a problem to solve (the pain point of this customer), and a plot for your content marketing.

PRO TIP:

If you plan to offer your product or service in foreign markets, be sure you research the cultural specifics and traditions in these markets because you don’t want your business content (slogan, marketing copy, etc.) to sound offensive or ridiculous to the customers.

5: Define your Brand Image and Visual Direction

Talking about visuals, firstly, you need to define the visual identity you want for your company and only then proceed to the actual design of the visual concept.

The Visual Identity includes establishing key brand traits and the way they are visually represented. You should determine the type of visuals that will convey your brand message the right way.

Maybe your brand offers premium products which means your visuals should align with the luxury style you want to be associated with by your customers. You will probably agree that the type of visuals has a strong emotional impact on your customers and you need to be sure this impact is positive and you will benefit from it.

Once you have a clear concept of the visuals you want to convey via your brand, create the branding brief based on your insights. This detailed information is essential for the designers who will be responsible for creating the visual brand assets and will later serve as the basis of your brand style guide. Our advice is not only to handle the documentation but to spend an hour or so in a discussion with the designer/s who will work on your brand, thus ensuring all of you have the same understanding.