Branding is an important aspect of your marketing strategy. If you develop a great branding strategy, people will increase their awareness of your brand by getting to know your company and website. Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. The brand tells your target audience about the expectations of your products and services, telling them what makes your brand different from your competitors. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be, and people perceive you.
What is a brand?
Branding is the process of creating a clear and unique image of your product or company. Your target audience should be able to recognize your brand. Whether it’s a post on Facebook, your newsletter or the product section on your website, your brand should have a set line.
Defining your brand is like a business journey of self-discovery. To create a successful brand strategy, you must first have a clear vision of what your brand is about and what it wants to say. You can find answers to the following questions to define your brand:
- What is your company’s mission?
- What are the benefits and features of your products or services?
- What are your customers and potential customers already thinking of your company?
- What qualities do you want to associate with the company?
- How would you describe your preferred audience?
- What style fits your brand (formal/informal)?
- Which values are important?
Find out the needs, habits and desires of your current and potential customers. And don’t be totally confident you know what they’re thinking!
Brand strategy and equality
Your brand strategy is how, why, where, when, and to whom you plan to deliver your brand messages. Consistent and strategic branding reveals a strong brand equity. Advertising, your distribution channels, everything you communicate visually and verbally are all part of the brand strategy.
Here are 5 practical tips to help you build a successful brand strategy:
5 steps to create a brand strategy
1. Stay consistent
When it comes to branding, the most important thing is consistency. Develop a certain style and stick to it! If your brand is consistent in the way you present it to your target audience, people will eventually begin to remember and recognize your brand.
2. Express your brand with a slogan
Your slogan expresses the most important message about your brand or product in a single sentence. Make sure it stands out on your website. You can place a slogan under your brand. For example, Cresa Digital: Growing brands, creative solutions.
If possible, try to make your slogans crisp and catchy and get a clear picture of your audience as you decide on your slogan. Use a few words to describe what your brand is about. Using user-friendly phrases can help your target audience take action.
3. Use images
Images are a very important aspect of your branding strategy. You can use images and illustrations on your website, newsletter, social media or (print) advertisements. Of course, you have to make sure that the images match your brand. If you sell ballet shoes, you probably shouldn’t use images of wild animals in the forest. It would be more correct to use pictures that express elegance and grace.
You can also try to develop a consistent style using photos of your brand. For example, make sure all photos have the same size, use similar editing methods, or use similar photos.
While you continue to choose illustrations and images suitable for your brand, your target audience will finally recognize and remember your brand only from images.
4. Use your brand name
Make sure your brand will be suitable/close to your target audience (this means that you must use a brand name!). Perhaps you can use your brand in one of your products, as we did in Cresa Digital. Make sure you use your brand name in your newsletter and (social media) posts. People should hear and read your brand regularly!
5. Use your logo
Your logo is of great importance to brand strategy. Branding is about more than designing a great logo (which is why we didn’t share that last tip and first tip). Your logo should stand out as ideal. It has to be something that people recognise without any context. Designing a logo doesn’t have to be too expensive.
When you have a logo, be sure to use it! Present it to your audience; on your website, newsletter, Facebook: everywhere! Don’t forget to use it as a favicon for your website. Some time ago, Google added favicons to its mobile search results. He’s experimenting with showing them for desktop results as well. If your logo appears on the result pages as a favicon, you might think it’s good for your visibility.
The colors you choose for your logo are also of great importance. Make sure you use these colors all the time: in your newsletter, on your website, in your images. If you use the same colors everywhere, they become part of your brand. People will only be able to recognize your brand by looking at the colors in your newsletter or social media post.
Conclusion
If you create a successful brand strategy, people will remember and recognize your brand. In the long run, your logo or brand will be something that immediately evokes (positive) emotions. The more people know about your brand, the easier your SEO will be. Therefore, combining your SEO strategy with a great branding strategy is an important issue in the branding process!
Why is SEO important for branding?
It will be much easier to optimize your site for search engines if you set up a high-quality branding strategy. It increases the chances of your preferred audience to know your brand. Your brand can then become an incentive to click your link in the search results (even if you’re not in the top three!) If you make your brand really good, people will start looking for your brand as well. However, your brand will be much easier to rank in search results than many other search terms.