Every successful entrepreneur will tell you that building a brand from the ground up is no easy task. It requires dedication, planning, funding, and patience. You will have to put in work and endless effort for your brand to be recognizable and distinguishable from others in the brimming market. However, by following some simple steps, it will be easier for you to establish your business and profit from it.
Below are some necessary steps for building a brand from scratch.
Do In-depth Research
Before you arrive at any business decision, it is essential to first analyze the different sectors of the current market. This includes research about the target audience, competitors, potential risks in the market, and its current state.
What can you do to ensure that you get all the information during your research? Below are some helpful ways to do so.
- Do online research on the category your services or products fall under. This is an excellent way to figure out your competitors and the market size.
- Go through social media and eavesdrop on the conversations that revolve around the products you offer. Subreddits can be very handy in such a situation.
- Go to the ground and seek opinions and views from people who will later be part of your target audience. This will give you a clear picture of what they are expecting and what they are looking for.
- Go shopping, both offline and online, and have a first-hand experience of what the customers go through. You will quickly pinpoint the common mistakes and use them to improve your service delivery.
Choose a Business Name
This is a step that you have to approach with extra seriousness; it is a big commitment for you and your business. Your business name will influence the logo, domain, marketing efforts, and event registration.
Every entrepreneur wants their business to have a name that is hard to imitate and makes an impression on everyone who hears it. There are different ways to come up with such influential names. For example, you can choose to use a business name generator to help you think of ideas. Even if you don’t necessarily like the names it comes up with, it might help you come up with ideas of your own.
Other ways to come up with a business name include:
- Come up with a new word out of nothing (like what Pepsi did).
- Use a different and unrelated word to represent your company, like Apple.
- Use metaphors and suggestive words.
- Modify a word by excluding some letters.
- Use acronyms.
- Merge two or more words.
- Figure Out the Brand’s Focus and Personality
As you build your brand, you will have to think about the business’s specific elements and personality traits. After all, you cannot create a business that is everything to everyone. Therefore, you have to come up with a focus and tone that will define your brand.
One way to do so is by inventing a positioning statement. For those who don’t know, this is a phrase or sentence that will give a brief description of the general purpose of your business. Even though you won’t necessarily have to post it on your business’s site, it will still play a part in answering questions about your products.
Your positioning statement should include:
- The products and services you offer
- The target market
- The value proposition
- The key differentiator between you and your competitors.
For example, suppose you are planning to offer web design services. In that case, your statement should be something like, “We offer web design services to businesses and organizations so that they can improve their conversion rate. Unlike other web service providers, we provide additional services such as SEO and landing page optimization.
Design the logo
A logo is another important part of the business. It acts as a symbolic representation of your entire brand. Since it serves as the face of the business, it will be available everywhere your brand is. Therefore, you must make it attractive, top quality, and identifiable. Additionally, ensure that the logo can still deliver the messages even when used in a small size. For example, if you intend to use this logo as your avatar for your social media platforms, you should design it in a way that one can still decode the message.
There are different types of logos that you can utilize and make a statement about your brand. This includes abstracts, emblems, letter marks, and icons. You just have to find the type of logo that works for you and delivers the message.
Final Thought
The business world is filled with competition, and for your business to thrive and succeed amidst this, you have to get out of your comfort zone and build a solid brand. However, building a brand is more than just a cool name and logo. You have to follow the above necessary steps to see success.
