Brand Building 101

1. Start by defining your brand.

Review the product or service your business offers, pinpoint the place in the market it occupies and research the emotive and rational needs and concerns of your customers. Your brand character should promote your business, connect with your customer base and differentiate you in the market.

2. Consider what is driving your business.

What does it believe in, what is its purpose and who are its brand heroes? These things can help establish your emotive brand positioning and inform the identity and character of brand communications.

3. Aim to build long-term relationships with your customers.

Create trust with honest branding - be clear who your company is and be true to the values that drive it every day.

4. Be innovative, bold and daring - stand for something you believe in.

Big brands are encumbered by large layers of bureaucracy, preventing them from being flexible and reacting to the ever-changing needs of their customers. Those layers of decision-makers can make it hard for them to be daring with their branding.

5. The old way of stamping your logo on everything won't cut it.

The future of branding is fluid and engaging - respect your customers' intelligence by not giving everything away up front. Generate some intrigue and allow them to unearth more about your brand for themselves. This is the way to foster ambassadors who revel in telling other people what they have discovered.

What do you do to Build your Brand?