Branding

Branding is everything and nothing. It’s not your product or your service, but its essential to your company’s ability to survive and thrive. A bad brand means no business. An ambiguous or undefined one results in random relationships with your customers and prospects. It makes for haphazard demand. If people don’t know you, they don’t know what you can do.

Brand doesn’t have to be big. Some of your customers will have branding departments or budgets bigger than your entire company. What your brand has to be is clearly defined and consistent. Small businesses often make the mistake of thinking that branding is either obvious or a luxury. It’s neither and it’s probably why large percentage 50% of small businesses fail within 5 years.

We use a three-pronged approach to branding, which is comprehensive and yet not overly complex.

Story

Your brand story tells how your company solves your customers' problems. It encapsulates your value proposition in a way that your customers can relate. In other words, it puts it in terms of their wants and needs and ultimate goal (hero journey), rather than as catalogue of your product or service’s feature set.

When developing your story, we capture your brand personality, brand description, and brand promise while distilling it down to language that speaks to both your audience, which consist of both your customers (buyer personas) and your employees

Symbols

Think of these as your brands visuals.

How does it look?

What’s its logo (literal symbol) and what ideas are associated with it?

What are your colors and what are the feelings and moods they inspire?

What’s your typography / fonts?

What imagery do you want people to associate with your brand?

Strategy

The strategy of your brand integrates with the overall marketing strategy of your product and service.

How do you create awareness of your brand (brand awareness)?

How does your brand influence sales?

How does the customer experience your brand (brand delivery) and how do they interact with your brand? Are they advocates that shares your product and services with others or are they an ambassador that champions your story (brand ambassador)?