During the journey of setting up your own business, you’ve probably wondered what is brand identity. You may have found out what it meant by looking at the context, or perhaps you just moved further without giving it a second thought.
Still, we want to encourage you to look closer towards it since it’s quite a powerful thing to have. All successful businesses have a brand identity. Therefore, creating a brand identity for yourself should be one of your main focuses when working on your business. However, before you can start, we need to answer the following question:
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What is brand identity?
Your brand identity is your companies face, everything you show to the world. It’s a message which spreads through visual and consistent elements and language. In short: your brand identity is the way your brand expresses itself through its values and missions.
To explain it another way, think of the way you express yourself. Maybe you like wearing plain black clothes every day, or do you rather wear flannel and cut jeans? Perhaps you have one or multiple tattoos, colored hair, or a piercing through your nose.
What both you and your company have in common is that you express yourself through visual representation to distinguish yourself from other people. Therefore, by creating a brand identity, you separate your brand from the other competitors in your niche.
Still, looks aren’t everything. The way you speak identifies you as unique. You probably instantly know which “Friends” character I’m talking about when I say, “How you doin’?” What’s your catchphrase? Everyone has one. Therefore, your brand should too. They’re all aspects that contribute to creating a personality for both you and your brand.
What’s the purpose of brand identity?
Your brand identity is the first thing your (potential) customers see when you meet. It helps customers to instantly recognize you and maybe even stay loyal to your brand.
The thing you want to achieve with your brand is to give your audience an image they think of whenever they hear your name or see your logo. The way people perceive your brand is everything, and you are the engineer to create this picture for your audience.
The brand identity of your company also guides your business as it rules over the content you produce and the design you use. It can even order the type of events you plan on organizing. Now it’s time to move onto the creation of your brand identity!
How to Create a Brand Identity
Perform your audits
Before working on your identity, it’s essential to know who you are and who your audience is. It sounds more straightforward than it is. You need to be able to connect with people. Therefore, ask yourself the following questions and answer them as best as you can:
- What’s the demographic you want to attract?
- What language does your audience speak?
- What are your customers’ pain points? How will your product/service solve those pain points?
- How do people view your company as it currently is?
- What are the brands your audience seems to like?
- What separates you from other companies?
- What’s your brands’ personality and mission?
- How does your brand sound when you speak?
- What’s the value you bring to your (future) customers’ lives?
You can’t directly answer these questions by thinking. You need to perform research. Set up surveys and focus groups. Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of your competitors. Use all the resources available to you to know who your customers are. What do they want, and how do they want to be approached?
After you’ve done that, you need to reflect on your weaknesses and strengths. However, if you have trouble answering the above questions, you can create a mindmap or list to help organize your thoughts. You have to have a few brand identity elements like a personality, strategy, and the looks. We will go deeper into those later on in the text.
Think of the main point of your company and draw lines (so-called “roads”) which lead to slightly smaller ideas. Then you bring more roads towards even tinier thoughts and so forth. In the end, you’ll have everything on paper you want to achieve. At the end of the session, you will have a clear vision of your brand, what it stands for, and how to show values to the outer world.
To get some brand identity examples, you can search online for some famous brands. Look at the way they market themselves and what their audience is interested in. Another way is by calling up friends and family and asking them what they look for in a new company. If you already have a few customers, ask them! All input helps!
Deciding on your brand’s personality
“Brand personality” is another crucial keyword for setting up your brand identity. It’s the element that makes your company more human. While your identity contains the perception people have of you, personality is the way you carry out this perception.
To make it easier for you to create your brand personality is by imagining an actual person representing your brand. What do they look and sound like? How do they communicate with others? Are they intelligent, witty, polite, respectful? How seriously do they take their job, or do they like to joke around now and then? While you probably have answered similar questions in the first step, now is the time to dig deeper.
The perfect personality is all up to you. You are the owner of your company, after all. As soon as the image is clear to you, write it all down. However, your brand personality needs to be consistent to function correctly. Please keep in mind that it has to carry the same tone and message across all kinds of platforms.
Make up your looks
While personality is significant, looks are essential too. You could have the best strategy and character, but people will still walk away if your design looks terrible. Therefore, set up a list of essential design factors you want to use. If you already have a plan, look closely at it to see if you find any faults or missing pieces. If designing isn’t your thing, feel free to hire a professional to help you. They will look at your current ideas and create the perfect design to match it.
Things that your design includes are fonts, images, colors, shapes, and your logo.
Set up your brand strategy
Now it’s time to think of the “how’s” of your brand. How are you going to share your companies story?
With this part, too, you need to make sure that your audience connects to your brand. You need to be consistent. Because of this, it’s helpful to set up a plan in which you execute the ideas you brainstormed about in the previous two steps. Focus on the following items:
- Create brand guidelines. These guidelines help you to stick to a consistent representation. This consistency helps to create an emotional bond with your audience. Proper guidelines include a style guide, mission, and examples of accepted photos and imagery.
- Advertising channels. Which type of platform does your audience use most often? Do they prefer a kind of social media over the other? When you find out about this, use it to your advantage to position yourself in a valuable spot.
- Content Strategy. Your strategy refers to the content you create for your company. It also refers to the language and tones you use in your videos, blogs, and marketing materials.
Eventually, it’s all about creating a unique experience that makes people want to keep using your products or services. Once that’s done, the rest will come easy to you.
Use your creativity
Now it’s time to bring everything together!
Using the strategy you created above, you will now create the visual elements of your brand. Keep in mind that all aspects should interact seamlessly. You want it to look like they belong together. Focus on the following items:
- Your logo. While your logo is not everything, it is the first thing that people see, which represents your brand. It’s your customers’ first step in the door of your company.
- Tagline. Your slogan tells your potential customers about the things your company does and the feelings that they will get once they use your products/services.
- Typography. Your fonts all have a specific personality that tells the story of your brand. Try to use fonts that complement each other and that have a clear difference while maintaining the same mood. This combination will help your audience to distinguish multiple kinds of texts.
- Colors. Colors all have a hidden meaning, something that evokes emotions in people. To maintain a functional company status, you want your colors to work in favor of you. Use your feelings as guidelines and try to use combinations that invoke similar emotions.
- Shapes. Like colors, shapes have hidden meanings to them too. Straight lines often stand for authority and professionalism, while round forms represent femininity, joy, and happy feelings.
Et Voila! Now your brand identity has a personality, voice, and face, and it’s ready to spread your story!
Measuring Brand Identity Effectiveness
When your brand identity has been completed, it’s time to publish it for the public to see.
It may just so happen that you are unsure whether or not your strategy is working, or if the voice you gave your brand is spreading the message the way you wanted it to.
In that case, it’s helpful to analyze. It’s the key to every strategy and very important when it comes to maintaining success. While your brand is still new, you can always alter your plan according to the following questions.
- Have you found any new customers? Do you have accumulated any loyal customers as well?
- What conversations spark around the topic of your company?
- Which type of post has a good reach? Is there a campaign that worked better than others? If yes, why?
After answering these questions, you will have a better view of your current progress and how to change it. However, try to stay as consistent as possible and on-brand. Just like a person doesn’t, you shouldn’t try to change your whole identity in one day.
To conclude
Now you know what is brand identity, so it’s time to get started! If you’re not sure how to create your brand identity, you can always ask Eztuto Studio. We’re more than happy to help!
