STARTUP AND BRANDING
WHY SO SERIOUS?
Why Branding?
While it can be fun to build and run your own business, there is also a lot of work involved in making your idea come alive. For many aspiring companies, the path to success is linked to risks, mistakes, and misunderstandings. So how do you make sure you don’t end up facing the wrong direction?
Well, a well-defined (and well-funded) marketing strategy serves as a guide for your organization, leading you to grow in your industry.
There is a lot to think about, from what you will name your business, depending on what your logo should look like.
To help you get started in branding, we’ve compiled this beginner’s guide.
Why is Branding Important for Startups? Have a Look Please!
Good branding is at the heart of any business. You’ll see this proven to be true with companies like Dyson, Virgin, and even Coca Cola who have made an impact without having great products.
The reason for their success? They know how best to present themselves when it matters most – capturing the right audiences’ attention in order to make them loyal clients or customers.
So, What is Really Inside It?
Branding is a marketing strategy aimed at getting people to quickly identify and find the type of organization and products and choose them over competitors’ products.
The strategy involves the practice of creating a name, logo, and other design elements that are easily identified as belonging to the organization.
An organization brand should be a true representation of who you are as a business, your goals and how you want customers to be able to see you and think about you.
Note that an organization’s brand affects all of its stakeholders, including consumers, helping them to classify business products and select them over our competitors, team members, company pricing and function, and shareholders, which helps them decide which company. Do they feel connected?
Here’s Your Right Fit:
While designing a startup branding strategy might seem like more hard work on the surface, there are a lot of advantages to carefully building a brand:
1: Identity is the Key:
The way you present yourself says a lot about who and what company it is for. The first step in crafting an effective startup branding strategy is to give your company a voice, personality, and distinct image. This will help you stand out from the competition by making it easier for potential customers to identify with what they’re seeing.
2: Tell The World.
Your brand defines you. Investing time and effort into startup branding will help you make important decisions about your business’s future. For example, once you know your product, you will know what you need to do to make the most of marketing, and how to introduce new products to the world.
3: Make It Memorable Guys:
It’s more than just having a unique selling point, it needs to be cohesive and consistent for success. Brands help startups create affinity with their audience by giving them the trademark look they need in order not only to stand out but also stay top-of-mind when potential customers are looking around at all of these new brands vying for attention
4: Want Focus? Here You Go!
The power of a good brand helps customers and employees alike to understand your company’s goals. This means that everyone is working towards similar objectives, which will make it easier for you as an organization!
STARTUP BRANDING PROCESS
1: Brand is not Just a Brand, It's a Story:
When you first started to think about building a brand for your business, it’s likely that the focus of your brainstorming session was on what products or services are offered by you. it may be tempting to start with what you offer as a product or service, but it’s important not just focus on that.
As you dig deeper to understand your personal life story, you will recognize the truth behind your motivation to start this business.The deeper you dig, the more truth shines through. You will see that your motivation for starting this business was actually an opportunity to serve others and make their lives better.
So, the motivation behind your story is not just about giving the services to customers but also understanding their problems and going an extra mile for them.
2: Voice Of Your Brand:
Your founding story not only guides you in starting your business but also helps shape the voice of your brand. A brand voice is a way of expressing a company’s core values and way of thinking.It cannot be plucked from thin air or created on a whim and entirely based on a trend you think is cool.
When you’re trying to find your brand voice, just pull out some scrap paper and start writing down words that come into mind when thinking about what kind of story or business we want. Once we have a list for each word then choose three that best describe how our company should sound like.
3: The Game of a Name - Bring It Up:
When it comes to brand launching, many beginner branding services find that their customers are more inclined to jump into the naming process.
Unfortunately, the rush to give yourself and your company a title could mean you end up with really bad names. Or create more work and expense by going down the line, because you cut corners.
Since your name is the way your customers will know your product, your services, and your product, it is an important part of your identity. Before you start creating your own logo, visual identification and printing of business cards, think about what people might think when they hear your name. Look for ways your name can be misinterpreted in different countries or cultures.
The most important considerations when choosing the perfect name for your company are:
- A Name, Easy to Spell
To be successful, you need to think outside the box and come up with an idea that will make people remember your brand. The effects of bad spelling and incorrect grammar on your company’s success is apparent. Many startups struggle to get traffic because their consumers don’t remember how to spell it, let alone the effect this has on search engine rankings.
- A Name You Remember
Choose a business name that is short, sweet but unique. Make sure to leave an impression on the client’s mind. You don’t want to lose out on customers because they can’t remember your name.
- Brand’s Name- Brand’s Mirror:
Choose a business name that is short, sweet but unique. Make sure to leave an impression on the client’s mind. You don’t want to lose out on customers because they can’t remember your name.
4: Where Your Brand Wants to Be:
While part of your identity comes from choosing things like your voice, personality, and marketing media, the other part will come from the “story” of your business. This story describes where you came from, and where you want to go. That second part focuses on the study of the product vision statement, which includes asking the following questions:
–What services do you provide?
–How your business will help your customers?
–What are your business goals?
–How are you planning to achieve that goal?
- Short & To the Point Vision Statement:
A long, complex statement of product vision will go over the heads of your customers and employees. That is why the key to a successful statement will often be its length. Although we do not have a specific number of words, you will need to limit yourself to one or two sentences at a time or risk your own clarity.
- Ambition is powerful, but don't get too caught up:
Simplicity is important if you want your product vision statement to be remembered. Remember, the goal is to create something that can stay in the hearts and minds of your customers, and product agents for years. While you need to encourage these people, you should also keep your message simple enough to avoid any inconsistencies or confusion.
- Keep It Simple & Specific:
A product vision statement is similar to your company’s mantra. In other words, it should not be something that can easily work for the other twelve companies in the same industry. If you ever thought of “borrowing” a statement from one of your competitors – remember that that will not work. Your vision statement should be a reflection of your personality, as well as your product ideas.
While vision statements do not need to be specific to your products or services, they should be part of what makes your company unique.
- Align with the Organization's Core Values:
Lastly, your vision statement should come from a solid understanding of the values of your business. You can’t tell people about how you want to be the best company in your industry to get customer support if your prices are focused on speed over doing what you love. A product vision statement is key to helping you stay on track to your goals, as well as making sure you “do what you preach”.
Look at what you say “story” to your business, and use your statement as a kind of publicity for what you represent as a company throughout the template of your vision statement.
5: Put Together Your Mood Board
Mood boards are useful when you’re trying to come up with new ideas. You can use them as inspiration, or just grab an idea from one that catches your eye.The next step is to narrow down the images you selected for your brand. A great way of doing this efficiently and quickly in Pinterest is by using a board named “pins.” All you have to do here, as with many other aspects of designing an aesthetically pleasing website or app backend–is search through what’s available on one hand-picked keywords until something catches thy eye; then simply click on it.
6: Pick Your Colors
No matter how many colors you think are in a palette, there will always be more. To find the perfect shade for your brand’s vibe and personality, it is important to make use of mood boards! There should really only ever be one color on each board- but if they have different hues then just take note: these could potentially become part of our final selection process once we’ve narrowed down some options from all those available choices. The best way I’ve found around this issue? Make sure every image has something cohesive about them by selecting shots based.
7: Here Comes the King: YOUR LOGO:
We realize that this is where subtlety comes in if you are not a wizard of graphic design. You may need to provide a designer or a team of designers outside, but at least now you have a solid product guide to offer.
You can find quality designers on popular independent platforms like Upwork, but it is very important that you provide them with everything you have worked on so far. You do not want bad communication.
Your logo should incorporate the keywords of your product and be able to interact well with your entire emotional board. Let’s take a look at how Airbnb used its keywords to create a logo icon!
Don’t get too caught up in trying to create a logo that describes what you are doing. You will have a million opportunities to tell consumers what your business is doing. At the end of the day, your logo is an identity that needs to meet 3 conditions. It should be simple, uniform, and different. Someone should be able to look at your mark for 5 seconds, turn around, and draw a mark that can only match your logo on blank paper.
If your mark is successful in that test, you will probably have something to move on as long as it is appropriate. By that, I mean it is perfect for every type of your product. Remember, it should complement your entire emotional board.
8: Putting Everything together:
Now that you have everything you need to meet the minimum requirements for building a solid product, it is important that you take the time to present everything you have worked on. Some call it a style guide, some call it product guidelines, and some call it your product book. However, it is a necessary step in building a product.
Your style guide will be your bible in everything you do from here on out. You should look to it for advice on the best way to go. Not just by design, but by internal culture as well. If your brand name and mission statement include the word “peace”, you should prioritize making your workplace more peaceful, making your customers more comfortable communicating with you, and having a soft and relaxed voice.
9: Be Consistent.
Your brand does not stop developing here. It does not end. Fortunately, you set yourself up for success by creating your own style guide. The next time you need a flyer designed for an event that will be your home, you can send your style guide to your designer and they will have everything they need to ensure that your product stays integrated throughout the design project.
Everything that involves your business should fit right into your style guide as an example of your design elements. Your company T-shirts, business cards, website, packaging, investor slide location, and everything else you can think of should follow your style guide.
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