Digital Marketing

How To Build A Brand Identity LoyicaBlog

Building a brand is hard work. It takes careful planning, research, consistency, and a bit of luck to get that traction needed for your brand to be recognized. Some

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Author
Loyica Team
Feb 19 2020
How To Build A Brand Identity

Building a brand is hard work. It takes careful planning, research, consistency, and a bit of luck to get that traction needed for your brand to be recognized. Some companies rely on time and doing business with customers over and over to get brand recognition. Others pay a hefty amount of money for ads. Most often they work well. Brand awareness is established and potential customers in the market can recognize the brand. But the challenge lies in whether or not these customers will actually buy the product. And often this challenge starts with the question– can your customers identify with your brand’s identity? And this is what the article will talk about.

Guide Points:

  1. What is a brand?
  2. What is a brand identity?
  3. How do you build a relatable brand identity?

What is a brand?

A lot of marketers think that the brand is the logo, the name of the business, or even the impression of the business or product to the customer. It is not either of these. Your brand is how your customers market the product to other customers (or to their own spheres of influence).

Say what now? Yes, the common misconception about branding is that it is the visual aspect of the business– what people see and what people remember seeing about your business. While this may not be entirely false (meaning, it could be part of it), your branding is what your customers make out of your products or services.

For example, if you are selling a black bag with your logo on it, a lot of people may consider it as “just a generic black bag.” But if Beyonce were to wear it, then the bag’s brand becomes different. Its association with a high-profile celebrity changes its image, its status, its relatability and its identity. Arguably, the bag now becomes more enticing to the market because its brand is now different. And that is why learning something about how people transform your product or service is important when you want to learn more about building a successful brand identity.

What is a brand identity?

Now that you know what branding is, let’s get to the specifics. Part of a general branding strategy is coming up with your brand identity – the visual aspect of your brand (your logo, its color, theme, and overall design). This is what helps your customers identify your products and services. This is what sets you apart from the other businesses. This is what makes you different.

Brand identity is different from brand image. Brand identity is intentional. It is what your team wanted your business to look like. It has a story behind it and it is a product of what was written on the drawing board. Brand image is the actual results of all these – how people saw your “brand” or your products and services, within or beyond your control.

Understanding brand identity is imperative for those who are engaged in doing business. This is because at least with brand identity things are still within control. And sometimes, the brand image is what was expected from the brand identity you and your team came up with.

How do you build a relatable brand identity?

  • Know your company and understand your market 

Cliche as it may sound, the foundations of a good brand identity starts with understanding the environment your business is operating in. This includes knowing what value you can give– uniquely– to the market. Go back to the basics of business and conduct a full SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. Understanding how you position yourself in the market will be substantial in the creation of your brand identity and how you want to be seen in the market.

  • Know your goals

Another cliche but it is resounding for a reason. Your goals will be your anchor in a confusing business environment. When everything becomes unpredictable, you will always have to go back to the question “why is my business here?”

Your goals will become your guide to the end of the tunnel. And it will help you ask specific questions during the crafting of your brand identity. For example, if your goal is to cater to the elites (people with high purchasing power in society), then your brand identity must be something that exudes luxury and exclusiveness. This makes it easier for your target market to associate themselves with your brand and may make them become your actual customers for not too long.

  • Craft an accurate buyer persona

 Buyer persona is a term used to refer to “who” a company is selling its products and services for. It includes their location, age, income (purchasing power), and even their job titles. The buyer persona is the closest approximation of the commonalities of all your potential and actual customers. Knowing your buyer persona will help you craft a better strategy to better position yourself so you can market your business to your target market more effectively.

An example of a buyer persona would be “female, white, 20-25, with at least $10,000 yearly income, and does the purchasing for the family” Of course, the more specific the better. Some tools can help you gather data from multiple sources to craft an accurate buyer persona.

  • Be consistent

 Consistency is important when doing business but this is more important when you are doing branding. Your brand identity must be consistent so that when people try to relate to you, they know beforehand what they are getting into. For example, if you want to give them the impression that you are the “fastest and most reliable service provider out there,” then your brand identity must be able to communicate that. Your website should consistently display “fast” or “high-speed” with “lightning” logos. More importantly, your employees should be able to put this brand identity into action too – and give out the “fastest and most reliable” service to your customers.

Another important thing about consistency is coherence. Not only should you be able to put a consistent message out there, but your messages overall should be able to relate to each other to form one coherent message. This is important because you don’t want to confuse your customers with advertisements that differ in terms of tone and theme each week. This hampers their ability to relate to your brand which is something that you should avoid from the start.

Conclusion

There are more to brand identities than meets the eye. They are more than just the visuals. If you want to learn more about brand identities, explore the brand strategies of successful companies– what makes them unique, what makes them relatable, what makes them persuasive.

What is important is that you know that branding is more than just brand identity. It is what your customers make your products and services to be. How they perceive them. And how they communicate this perception to other people. When you know this, it becomes easier for you to move forward and position yourself in the market your business is in. Your goals become much clearer and drawing out your buyer persona becomes seamless. More importantly, when you have done all these together, you know that your brand identity must be consistently conveyed for it to be relatable. And branding becomes much easier than it used to be. 

For expert branding services, ask professional help from Loyica.

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