From the moment i decided i wanted to create a business i started reading about what a brand was and was confronted with an amazing amount of information. In this post i wanted to condense some things I researched into an informative piece that will hopefully give you an insight into how to build a business brand.
Creating your brand?
Lets start from the beggining…The first thing that you want to do is determine what your business stands for and what are its values. In researching this you want to include things like..what do we provide to our customer..what do we want our customers to feel about us…who are our customers and what do they think about us now. One of the best pieces of advice i give to any small business is to go and actually ask their customers what is wrong with the business, not what is right..this gives you a fantastic insight into what can be done to the business to not only improve things but also getting to the true feeling of what your brand is or should be.
By asking the right questions you can determine a lot about what your customers are expecting.
Customer service is key.
Having brilliant customer service is a key part of creating a brand..every business should strive to provide the best service to their customers and create what is known as a “Raving Fan” Ken Blanchard wrote a great book about this called “Raving Fans” and i recommend this to many of my clients as a starting point.. these are customers that not only like your product or service but think that it is so great that they cannot stop telling people about how great you are..thus creating more business for you and greater brand identity. One business which does this so well is Virgin. There planes are no different from anyone elses but what stood them apart from there competitors when they launched was their customer service. I recommend reading richard bransons book aswell by the way as it gives some great advice.
You’ll find a link to both of these books below:
Don’t be the product be the feeling
If you look at two of the worlds greatest brands.. Apple and Nike, there are two distinct things about these two companies that they do fantastically well. For a start they do not pipe on and on about the actual products specifications. What they do is to convey a feeling about themslelves and their products. Nike have the phrase “just do it” which kind of makes you feel that yes you too can be an athlete or complete any task you put your mind to. Its not just a slogan but the whole brand conveys a feeling in you. The same can be said of Apple who dont talk about Gbs or screen size but convey a feeling of passion and innovation. The late great Steve jobs said that Apples core value was “That we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better” ..so my advice is to start with a feeling or value and work from there.
The logo comes last….
Once you have decided on your values and what feelings you wish to convey with your product or brand then its time to create your logo and advetising material. You can find my post on creating a logo here but don’t forget that reputation and value are the things that will make your brand stand out… not how pretty your logo is..I will be posting more on creating a brand in the future but i hope this gives you a little something to think about and work on in the mean time. As usual drop me a comment and let me know what you think a brand is.
Thanks for reading.
Pete.
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