If you want your brand to stand out in the market, you need to be innovative, creative, and relevant. But how do you achieve that in a competitive and crowded space? In this article, we'll share some tips and strategies to help you craft a unique and memorable brand identity that attracts and engages your target audience.
The first step to creating a distinctive brand is to understand who you're trying to reach and what they care about. You need to research your market, your competitors, and your customers' needs, preferences, and pain points. You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, analytics, and social media to gather insights and feedback. The more you know your audience, the better you can tailor your brand message, tone, voice, and style to resonate with them.
In the digital world, social media platforms are the lower-hanging fruits for branding, marketing, and advertising. ?? Firstly, I'll revisit the competitors spots and understand what's missing and how can I contribute more. ?? I'll revise my branding strategy and choose different platforms to raise my brand voice. ?? I'll use high-engaging visuals and powerful copies that personifies my brand. ?? I'll focus on what I'm offering to my audience. So, I'll make sure to deliver a little more what they expect and enhance my offerings. ?? I'll engage and communicate to my audience and appreciate them. ?? I'm sure, these points would be worthwhile for brand building.
Both quantitative and qualitative research are both valuable, but work with a researcher to help determine what makes the most sense given your goals and your budget. Just doing a survey is not usually the best solution, despite how quick and easy it might seem.
Be sure to actually *talk to your clients* as part of this process! Put your assumptions aside and actually ASK THEM about their experiences as humans. Yes, this qualitative research method takes more time than quantitative or demographic research. But it also yields business gold: you will hear common experiences you can use to build messaging that SPEAKS DIRECTLY TO THE CLIENTS YOU WANT. You’ll be able to say 'I see you and here's how we help' in a way that's ACTUALLY TRUE and resonates. Priceless gems for 4-5 hours of interviews and 3 hours of analysis/reporting work.
The next step is to articulate what makes your brand different and better than the rest. You need to have a clear and compelling value proposition that summarizes the benefits and solutions you offer to your customers. Your value proposition should answer the questions: What problem do you solve? How do you solve it? Why should customers choose you? Your value proposition should be concise, specific, and relevant to your audience. It should also be consistent across all your channels and touchpoints.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but when you see business after business after business make this same mistake (with an easy fix) building their value proposition, I have to keep saying it: Navel gazing is 50% of your work on this issue. But Ideal Client interviews is the other 50%. Imagine your answer to the question 'What problem do you solve for your client?' You probably have a good answer, yes? Before you spend buckets on marketing campaigns that might miss the mark, please TEST that assumption via Ideal Client Interviews.
The third step is to design a visual identity that reflects your brand personality and values. Your visual identity includes your logo, colors, fonts, images, icons, and other graphic elements that you use to communicate your brand. Your visual identity should be distinctive, appealing, and coherent. It should also be adaptable to different formats and platforms. You can use tools like Canva, Adobe Spark, or Figma to create your own visual identity or hire a professional designer.
Don't build your visual Identity JUST YET (in my opinion). In addition to your brand personality and values, I suggest having your brand positioning, brand benefits and ideal client persona's identified too before you choose colors, fonts or logos. The goal of a visual identity is to pull in the SAME direction as everything else. So I wouldn't hire a designer until everything else is identified. Make sense?
The fourth step is to develop a brand voice that matches your brand identity and value proposition. Your brand voice is the way you express your brand through words and tone. Your brand voice should be consistent, authentic, and engaging. It should also be appropriate for your audience, your industry, and your goals. You can use tools like Hemingway, Grammarly, or CoSchedule to improve your writing and check your readability and sentiment.
Develop your brand's voice! Think of it as your brand's personality in writing. It should match your identity and what you offer. Keep it consistent, and real, and grab people's attention! Make sure it fits your audience, industry, and what you're trying to achieve. Hemingway, Grammarly, and CoSchedule can be helpful tools to improve your writing and check how easy it is to understand.
Think of your one friend. The one who knows who she is and what she’s about. Your brand should be that distinct and clear. You should be able to send a piece of copy along with a couple of competitors’ copy to a close friend and ask them to pick out which one is your brand. If they have to stop and think about it, there's a strong chance you haven’t defined your brand personality. Here’s why identifying your brand personality is so important: -Clients are naturally drawn to brands who know who they are and what they’re about. -It’s the tone of voice you use to explain how you create value. -It reinforces your brand’s uniqueness. -It informs HOW you deliver on your promises. -It drives ALL creative content.
Além de possuir uma voz correspondente a identidade da marca e contar a sua história, uma comunica??o e divulga??o eficiente dos seus diferenciais colaboram em muito para destacar uma marca.
Your brand voice needs to be codified in guidelines so any copywriter can hit the ground running. Generic terms like "consistent, authentic and engaging" are not brand voice, but the cost of entry for any brand.
The fifth step is to tell a brand story that connects with your audience on an emotional level. Your brand story is the narrative that explains who you are, what you do, why you do it, and how you make a difference. Your brand story should be captivating, inspiring, and relatable. It should also be honest, transparent, and credible. You can use tools like StoryBrand, StoryChief, or Lumen5 to craft and share your brand story.
Find the truffle aka gemstone that makes your product special. Tell the story behind the story. Talk about the hero in the team, the people who make the product special. Create stories that stick.
The final step is to test and optimize your brand strategy and performance. You need to measure and analyze how your brand is perceived and received by your audience and the market. You need to collect and evaluate data on your brand awareness, recognition, recall, loyalty, advocacy, and reputation. You also need to identify and address any gaps, challenges, or opportunities for improvement. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Brand24, or SurveyMonkey to test and optimize your brand.
If you want to stand out in the market, you need to know the market! That may mean research and/or interviews with stakeholders. Identifying white space only happens when you have a clear picture of the competitive landscape.