Building a solid brand identity that people will recognise instantly takes time and skill. Big brands such as Mcdonalds and Nike are now so widely recognised that they don’t need to use text or their logos in their ads anymore. People know it’s their brand as soon as they see the tick or hear ‘I’m lovin’ it’. While these are international brands, that doesn’t mean your business can’t establish the same solid guidelines and be on your way to global fame. 

A digital marketing agency will know the steps to take to get your brand identity up and running and can advise you on how strong your branding is compared to your competitors to put you ahead of the rest.  Until you’ve found the right agency, there are some things you can do to get you started initially — but maybe you already have with us here at The Good Marketer! 

Strong Brand Guidelines

The first step to defining your brand is choosing fonts, colours and tone of voice that gives your brand its personality. These guidelines will communicate a message to the world, whether strong and informative or playful and cheeky.  Any digital marketing agency, like ours, will have access to a range of fonts and an understanding of which colours look good together, as well as a well-practised copywriter to nail your brand’s tone of voice. 

Brand Voice

Think about how you want customers to hear your voice and how you want it to make them feel. Do you want to motivate them or make them stop and think? Do you want to comfort them or make them feel happy?  The language you use in your copy should be consistent throughout as if it was a person talking who had your brand’s core values and traits. This voice should be directed towards your target audience and perhaps mimic how they speak to build a relationship with them. 

Consistent Messaging

Keeping the same language throughout your website, on social media, and in communication to customers such as text and emails is very important. This gives strength and consistency to your brand.  As a result, customers will trust and recognise your brand more easily. Any language or writing style changes might confuse your audience and could mean that they fail to identify with your brand and therefore lose interest.  Striking a balance between keeping consistent messaging and having exciting content can be difficult, but hiring a digital marketing agency that can write copy for you means that they, too, will get to know your brand. This means the pressure on your staff to create all of the content will be lessened. 

Competitor Research

When building your brand identity, it’s important to conduct competitor research to see what your rivals are doing to attract the target audience and communicate with their customers. This will indicate the tone of voice you should be using, even down to crucial aspects like the colours you choose to attract your ideal customers. For example, a business targeted towards education and young children would likely use bright colours to attract their attention. In contrast, an insurance business might use darker colours to indicate authority or professionalism. Having worked with plenty of businesses before, agencies in digital marketing will be able to recommend the type of branding that similar companies will have used before and how successful they were. 

Target Audience

Perhaps the most crucial factor when building branding guidelines is refining your target audience based on their age, gender and interests.  Having an understanding of precisely who your customers are means that you can create your branding accordingly. Perhaps if your business sells hair products, it might use pinks and purples in its branding, with handwritten fonts and flirty messaging.  This branding speaks the customer’s language and improves your chances of increasing conversions and ultimately having a successful business. 

Though, at the same time, it’s essential to create an inclusive brand – especially in this day and age! So make sure you’re not narrowing your brand aesthetic too much to be exclusionary to an audience you might not have considered. Market research can significantly influence your ideal demographics and broaden your considerations. Getting the right branding may take several revisions before you finally have something that works. Many businesses refresh their branding as they grow to be successful because their understanding of their customer base improves.  Once you’ve nailed your branding, no doubt you’ll be well on your way to global fame!  Still unsure? Why not get in touch with our team, and we can help get you there.