A strong brand identity is crucial to building loyalty and popularity and strengthening your market position. But when we talk about brand identity, what do we really mean? Put simply, brand identity is the style, colours, logos, and language that help a brand stand out. What is it about your brand that creates a lasting impression? What do people think when they hear your company name or see the logo?
How to Define Brand Identity
From a technical standpoint, a brand’s identity encompasses all external visual aspects, such as its logo, colour, and overall design. It can also include language used (particularly in marketing and social media) and how employees interact with customers. Together, these elements create a brand image in consumers’ minds.
However, these elements must stay consistent with every interaction. For a company to establish a strong brand identity, the experience needs to be sustained across all platforms, both online and on the high street. Doing so will cement your products or services in consumers’ minds, increase their trust, and even give you greater control over factors such as pricing and product launches.
In fact, building a strong and consistent brand identity has numerous benefits, so before we discuss the logistics of developing one, let’s discuss its merits in more detail.
A strong brand identity, consisting of key visual elements, is essential for building customer loyalty and trust. Maintaining this identity across all platforms helps establish a lasting image, boosting market positioning.
How Important Is Brand Identity?
Once established, brand identity underpins every facet of your company and operation, from how consumers feel about your brand to its values and personality. Whether you’re a small business or a multinational corporation, the benefits of brand identity are significant.
Building Brand Personality
A brand with a strong identity is one consumers will remember. Whenever they see, hear, and even smell an element associated with your brand, they instantly understand what it stands for. Just like how we use clothes to help define our personalities, developing an image for your brand makes it bigger than just a name. It gives it a personality, a set of core values, and a platform for communicating with customers, new and old.
Differentiating From the Competition
It goes without saying that to stand out from your competitors, you need to offer a service or product that is superior to theirs. Whether it’s price point, build quality, or functionality, offering customers something they cannot get elsewhere is essential in an increasingly saturated market. A strong brand personality that resonates with your target markets can be just as effective (if not more so) than all of the factors above in helping your brand shine.
Creating Consistency
Customers should be able to look at any piece of marketing, whether online or on the high street, and instantly recognise your brand. The same goes for social media, newsletters, and even merchandise. Your distinct colours, logo, and overall design help consumers connect with your brand no matter where they are.
By building a strong brand identity, you inadvertently ensure that all materials you publish stay consistent. That doesn’t mean there isn’t creative freedom regarding product launches or exclusive campaigns. Still, fundamental elements (such as a logo) should remain the same across all media and platforms.
Increasing Awareness
Building brand awareness becomes significantly easier once you’ve mastered the art of a consistent style and message. The best part? The more people are aware of your brand, the more interest there will be in your products or services. This is especially important when trying to enter new markets or appeal to a broader audience. While they may not understand fully what makes your goods the better option, they will understand your brand’s core values.
Fostering Loyalty
Customers who align with your values are more inclined to stay with your brand, whether through subscription renewals or new products. But how do they know what you stand for? With a clear brand identity, of course! This visual indicator of your company’s personality encourages customers to stick with what they know and understand, even in markets where competition is rife.
A strong brand identity shapes how consumers perceive your company and sets you apart from competitors. By clearly communicating your brand’s values and personality, this identity increases brand awareness and creates lasting connections with customers.
How Do You Develop a Brand Identity?
Most business owners understand that logos and consistent colour schemes help establish their brand, but if you’re still trying to take your company to the next level, the steps below provide the framework for taking a brand from obscurity to household dominance.
1. Research the Market
While you should already have a good understanding of your target market’s wants and needs, it’s time to turn your attention to the competition. A strong brand identity can help you stand out from competitors, so fine-tune your logo, colours, and themes based on gaps in the market.
Tools such as a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) are useful for finding these gaps while synergising well with existing customer data to finalise your design choices.
2. Create a Logo and Templates
An aesthetically pleasing logo is essential for establishing a strong brand identity. However, it’s also an element that should be refined as much as possible. After all, it will feature across virtually all platforms and media and, in many cases, will be the first and last thing customers see when interacting with your brand. Take your time to experiment with different typography, imagery, shapes, and colours to find a logo that resonates with your company’s core values.
Once you’ve settled on a logo, establish base templates for common marketing materials such as newsletters and social media posts. Review with your design team how and where your logo will feature, whether it synergises well with specific aspect ratios, and whether it is easily transferable across different product packaging.
3. Make High-Quality Content
It might seem obvious, but in today’s market, there’s a clear focus on quality over quantity. Given that the content you publish directly represents your brand, customers will quickly pick up on poor design elements, incorrect spelling, and lacklustre customer service replies.
Build your presence slowly, with quality control at every stage. Building a brand identity takes time, but the earliest stages of brand development are also the most sensitive. Always ask yourself if you’d take the time to interact with any materials you’re planning to publish.
4. Connect With Your Audience
The way you communicate with customers is just as important as a catchy logo and well-designed marketing materials. The language, tone, and overall style feed directly into your brand image, and you should think carefully about how you want your brand to be perceived.
Whether through online chat bots or via customer service assistants in-store, you want to connect with customers and mimic (where applicable) the language, phrases, and sentiments to evoke the right emotional responses.
5. Track and Optimise
While consistency is crucial in building a robust brand image, you should regularly test and track your efforts to determine customer sentiment. If your brand is already well established but you’re planning to modernise the look and feel, it’s important to spend time with customer listening groups before launching to a wider audience. Likewise, smaller companies can use social media polls to ask for feedback on more intimate elements, such as logo design or website changes.
Developing a strong brand identity involves researching market gaps, creating a refined logo, and producing high-quality content that reflects your brand’s values. Consistently connecting with your audience and regularly tracking customer sentiment will help optimise and maintain your brand’s image over time.
Building a Strong Brand Identity: Crucial for Success
Regardless of company size, building a brand identity that stands out to consumers and sets you apart from the competition is essential for success. From bolstering customer loyalty to driving awareness in new and existing markets, a brand identity gives you and your team a clear direction and ensures consistency across all channels and platforms.
The key is to really understand what your brand stands for and how to best showcase the core values with external design elements. Master those elements, and your brand will not only excel, but stand the test of time.
