How to Create a Brand: 5 Secrets of Branding
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What is branding all about? How do I create a brand? What are the secrets of branding in business? Do top companies really use them? The definition of branding you might know probably doesn’t entirely cover the concept of business branding. As a result, you may have a lot of questions running through your mind. Worry not, in this article, you will learn the 5 secrets of branding and how to create a brand.
You must be curious as to what these secrets are exactly. Relax, you're a few steps away from knowing them.
For every business looking forward to spontaneous growth and knowing how to create a brand is important. Effective branding establishes the relationship between you and your prospects and customers. There are several thousands of entrepreneurs in your market with companies having bigger reputations.
Importance of branding and why you need to create a brand
Importance of branding
The brand identifies the product or services that are offered in the market and allows consumers to recognize them. Consumers are more likely to purchase a product of which they remember the brand than those they cannot identify. You must have thought, isn’t business branding all about crafting a name and a logo for your company? Right? Well, you aren’t wrong but these two are only creative elements of your brand. There is more to branding!
There are many products and services on the market. With the advancement and conception of new companies, the market has more and more competition, with countless similar products. Therefore, you must have a clear objective: to differentiate yourself and be unique in the market. One of the first steps to do this is to create a brand through which your customers differentiate you.
There is a gift and bonus waiting for you at the end of this article. Make sure you read till the end so you don’t miss out on them.
First of all, having a clearer understanding of business branding will create a clearer way for the steps you take.
Why you need to create a brand
You have a bare cake. Everyone has it. You covered it with Frosting to make it prettier, sweeter, and more presentable. This made your cake attract more people and called attention. What do you think others will do with their cakes too? Exactly! Add frosting.
So you all have cakes with frosting. How will you be able to tell which from which? Brand it! Brand it? How? Check this!
Have a unique taste, unique color, unique flavor, unique size.
Try different product types, give fancy names to products, link emotions to them. Do everything to differentiate your brand without altering the model. Without tampering with the original structure of your business.
Make everything unique such that when your consumer sees a particular cake, they will know outright that it’s your brand. Anytime they eat your cake, they will be able to tell that it’s from you. Do you get it?
Next on are definitions of branding from top experts
Jay Baer, the author of new revolution defined branding as:
The art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually think about your company.
According to David Ogilvy the father of advertising:
A brand is the intangible sum of products attribute; its name, packaging, and the way it's advertised.
Al Ries, Author of Positioning: The battle for your mind defined a brand as:
A similar idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect. Simple definition yet very powerful.
Josh Moritz defined a brand as the meaning perception of a product, a service, or even yourself. The meaning perception can be either good or bad or indifferent that marketers want people to believe. This is based on what they think they hear, see, smell, taste, and general sense from others around them.
On a more literal view of branding
Branding is the promotion of a particular product or company using advertising and distinctive design.
From the definitions, you must have grasped what branding is all about. Next is the part you’ve been waiting for. The secrets of branding used by top businesses! The next few paragraphs contain secrets that top businesses use and will never tell you.
Imagine calling a top company and asking:
Hey man, I want to know how your company is operated, the way you make more sales, your total revenue in a year, how do you make customers come to you every time? What’s your brand secret?
What do you think he will do? Hang up! Simple!
5 secrets of branding and how to create a brand
You’re about to learn how to create a brand with the 5 secrets about branding. Are you ready? Customers love number 4, my favorite is number 5.
1. A good name and a logo
This is the first off the list. I know right now, you’re like huh? This isn’t even a secret! Wait, read on.
A brand name and a logo are the basic elements of branding. This is why most people define branding based on these two.
If you notice, top brand names have these basic factors and that’s the secret! Uniqueness and Simplicity. There are others but these are the core ingredients to creating an amazing brand name and logo.
2. The 4Whats
Have you heard of the 4Whats? They’re questions. You do not just wake up one day say; Everyone, this is my brand, make sure you patronize me! If you’re asked, what does your brand do, will you be able to answer? Before you start to create a brand, answer these 4Whats questions
- What are the intended goals of your company? What do you hope to achieve?
- What do your prospects and customers currently think of your company?
- What do you want your customers to think when they think of your business?
- What do you have to do to differentiate yourself from your competitors?
These are the foundational questions of every big business.
3. Consistency
The secret here isn’t about the consistency itself, it is how top businesses manage to maintain consistency over the year. Here it is;
Brand consistency is the communication of messages in a way that doesn’t take away the brand's proposition. A brand proposition is a statement about your company that demonstrates to your consumers the benefits of using your brand.
Even with consistency, certain aspects of branding may change but the core messages should remain the same
4. Over-deliver
Remember I said your customers will love this? This is because that is how human nature is. People hate it when their expectations are cut short on a product.
When marketing, do not promise benefits that your products cannot give. This is under-delivering. However, when your customers find out that your products give exactly what is promised or they gain more benefit than expected, they return to make more purchases.
5. The 80/20 principle
Do you know about the 80/20 principle? It is known as the Pareto Principle which was first attributed to Vilfredo Pareto.
It states that; 80% of the results come from only 20% of the causes for a given event.
Microsoft famously applied the 80/20 principle to patching bugs in its software. By focusing on the 20% of bugs that had the greatest impact, they were able to thwart 80% of system errors and crashes.
What does this tell you? As a brand, promote the business and content you create only 20% of the time. With the rest, you should interact with customers and content created by others.
Free amazing tools for creating a brand
Remember the gifts promised at the beginning of this article? Here they are! 7 free amazing tools that you can use to build an amazing brand!
1. Canva
A popular and well-utilized design site. It has limitless possibilities. The team also provides informative posts on how to produce great designs.
2. GraphicSprings
It is a web-based graphic design solution that allows users to create a brand for free.
3. BuzzSumo
For content research in any given niche. It as well tells the kind of content that resonates with your audience
4. Google Primer
It is an app that delivers bite-sized marketing lessons on your mobile device. It provides you with actionable information on any topic, from building sites to establishing a trustworthy brand.
5. Hotjar
Hot jar is a tool for website optimization. It aids in analysis and shows you which part of a website users are more interested in.
6. HubSpot Marketing
This is used for lead generation. It provides information about the pages your leads visited and the pages with higher conversion rates
7. HubSpot CRM
It is your customer database. It also can pull data from the internet and email engagement.
Having gotten your gifts, there’s a bonus. Leaders are readers and if you intend to create a brand like top businesses, you have to read books.
The next few lines contain recommended books that will aid your understanding of branding
- The Brand Gap; How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier
- The 22 immutable laws of branding by Al Ries and Laura Ries. Does the name look familiar? Yes. Check the definitions of branding again. Fun fact, Laura Ries is Al Ries' daughter. Both are founders of Ries & Ries, an advertising/ marketing strategy consultancy firm.
- Branding for dummies by Bill Chiaravalle and Barbara Findlay Schenck
- How to Launch a Brand by Fabian Geyrhalter
- Sticky Branding by Jeremy Miller
- Build your Brand Mania; How to Transform yourself into an Authoritative Brand that Attracts your Ideal Customer by Matt Bertram
- Start with Why; How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Conclusively, the information in this article is meant to show you how to create a brand to increase your business growth rate. However, if no action is taken, then no results can be gotten. I hope you will be able to create an amazing brand using the secrets of branding highlighted in this article.