7 Top Tips for Building Your Business Brand

Branding your business.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

The thing is, branding is simply a name for giving your business a character – a style and voice of it’s own if you will. And when you think of it like that, it becomes so much easier to create a brand identity for your business that you, and your target audience, will fall in love with.

Here are my seven top tips for building your business brand the fun way.

1. Get personal with your target audience

And by that, I mean learning everything that there is to know about them.

You have to know who you’re talking to, what they’re interested in and what would make them interested in you before you even begin to create a brand for your business. I’m talking about tapping into their psychology here.

What will resonate with them as a person?

 All too often I see brands that are created a certain way because the business owner likes the slogan, the colours and they effectively push their personality onto the brand, rather than allowing the target audience to influence and control the direction.

At the end of the day, it’s your audience that you are marketing to and their personality and psychology that counts most.

So get specific, pay attention to the smallest of details and think of ways that you can tap into their pain points and problems with your brand.

Tip – create a marketing persona for your ideal customer and use that as the basis for building your brand.

2. Developing a voice for your business is key when creating your brand

Remember, marketing is a conversation between you and your target audience with all those lovely ideal clients you want to work with.

But, it is important to distinguish between you as a person and the voice you use, and that of your business. It’s just common sense really, you wouldn’t talk to your boss and colleagues the same way as you would close friends and family, so having a ‘business voice’ for your marketing is critical.

Now, hold on for just one second.

I’m not saying that you have to sound all posh and formal and use technical jargon. Far from it.

But what I am saying is that your target audience will expect a certain kind of language and tone from you. It might be reassuring and confident if you’re offering health and therapy services, it might be professional and competent if you’re an accountant, it might be laid back and creative if you’re a marketing type.

So, bearing that in mind, develop a voice for your business that still has you and your personality in it, but is what your target audience will be expecting and can find easy to understand and engage with.

3. Do be creative and certainly be authentic with your brand

The trick with finding the right brand for your business is to be authentic and true to yourself.

When you put so much time, effort and commitment into your business you need to be happy with the brand you create, inject some of your personality and enjoy working with it.

Your brand needs to have character, and one you will enjoy going to work with every day.

Some people literally create a persona for their brand including everything from their favourite albums, what they wear, what they eat and how they sleep. It can be a fun way to really dig deep into your brand, figure out it’s personality and choose the colours that will reflect that well for design elements.

But however you choose to build your brand, have fun with it!

Get out the crayons and poster paints, have fun with photoshop and canva. However you choose to do this the most important thing is to enjoy the process and the results you end up with.

4. Now you need to be consistent with marketing your brand

You know what your brand is, your business voice and what your target audience will respond to.

Well done! You’ve done it, you’ve built your brand.

Now the hard work begins. You need to show up with your brand consistently if it’s going to get the results you’re looking for. But it’s not just the frequency that counts, but consistency in your marketing message.

Ensure you’re using the same voice across all social media platforms and your website so your target audience can instantly recognise your brand. And that doesn’t have to be hard with brand colours, using the same imagery and selecting keywords and phrases that are right for your brand voice.

If you do outsource your marketing, make sure you work with them to create guidelines around your brand and how you want them to promote you. They won’t mind and will often have ideas on how to improve things and make your brand work even harder for you.

5. Use blogging to really establish your brand

Blogging for business works.

And one of the reasons it performs so well in terms of small business marketing is because it’s an easy way to create engagement with your brand.

Blogging regularly and promoting the posts on social media gets you noticed online.

By using the same brand colours, imagery and fonts on your promotional materials, in your blog and on your marketing, you’re getting your brand into the subconscious of your target audience (ok, that sounds rather sinister!)

But what it does mean is that when you’ve hit the nail on the head with a blog post your ideal client really wants to read, the rapport has already been built, they already feel comfortable with you, and what you do, and they are far more likely to complete that call to action.

All while emphasising your authority and expertise in your industry, and as a business owner.

6. Make customer service a priority for your brand

It’s not just words and images that make a brand, but actions too.

Which is why ensuring first class customer service is one of the easiest and most important aspects of building a brand for your business.

We all know those companies that as soon as someone mentions them, you’ll hear groans and moans from the majority of people around you – even if they haven’t had any issues themselves, they’ve heard other people complaining about them, seen the social media posts, read the press, etc.

But get customer service right, and your business is seen in a much better light

I recently bought a multi-pack of yoghurts only to realise they were all the same flavour when I got home (they were supposed to be mixed). So, I emailed them to let them know there was probably an issue with this run of yoghurts. Two days later I got a written apology and vouchers for the cost of the yoghurts, which was a pleasant surprise.

I immediately told everyone how impressed I was with the brand.

Look after your customers, and they’ll look after you.

7. Get professional with your visual identity

I’ve deliberately left the design side of building a brand to the final part of my blog because it’s something I see so many people wrap themselves in knots over.

Your brand is more than just a logo and colour palette.

It does help to have these things, but they shouldn’t be leading your brand. Don’t spend hours trying to design a clever logo if you haven’t considered your voice and brand identity first. Your target audience wants to know how you’ll help them and a logo doesn’t tell them very much.

What a visual identity will do is help you to tie everything together across your website, social media and other marketing methods, and for that reason I would suggest you go to a professional graphic designer for help with this, as they will know how to strengthen your brand and the right design elements to be used for that.

And those are my 7 tips for building your business brand. What do you think? If you’ve got any thoughts to share, please drop them as a comment below, I look forward to hearing them!

Remember, if you need help with any aspect of your marketing get in touch with me for a chat on 07973 924 589 and discover how I can help your business today.