Creating a brand identity is one of the most important steps for new businesses. Although rebranding is always an option, it's best to associate your service with a captivating message early on.
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Developing a memorable brand is a time-consuming process that involves designers, marketing specialists, and tons of market research.
Contemporary branding strategies are very different from half a century or even two decades ago. Nowadays, as Zeno Group's ‘Strength of Purpose' study reveals, consumers expect companies to add additional value to their services.
Alongside your primary purpose, buyers expect a secondary action that contributes to common well-being, in other words, to give back to society. So how does building a brand identity look right now?
What Is Brand Identity?
Brand identity is a holistic concept that represents how people perceive your company. It includes a logo, slogan, communication, and marketing strategies, name, and more. It's hard to concretely define brand identity because it's unique per each service.
The saying the sum is larger than its parts fits perfectly. Brand identity consists of many different elements customised to your business, but their sum represents your company's values and mission.
Brand Identity Is All About The Power of Storytelling
Before we delve into exact brand identity-building strategies, it's beneficial to outline the importance of storytelling. Storytelling will play a major role in establishing your brand and making it memorable.
People don't identify with different colors or logos. They relate to the values and lifestyles they represent and the journey provided by a specific product.
For example, in 1984, the renowned film director Ridley Scott directed a commercial for the emerging Apple brand. On it, a female protagonist smashed the cinema screen that aired authoritarian propaganda.
Apple used this commercial to strengthen its brand with the ‘Think different' slogan. Apple's brand identity is well-presented in that commercial. Ironically, the commercial initially gained little traction, but Apple still decided to air it during the Super Bowl.
Presented to vast masses on a big screen, it had an entirely different effect and is considered one of the best brand-building commercials of all time.
How to Build a Memorable Brand Identity
Building a brand identity involves several steps. Firstly, it's essential to carry out in-depth market research. Competition analysis will outline successful branding strategies or failures you can learn from.
Furthermore, you'll get a glimpse at consumer sentiment, revealing what you can expect from specific slogans or marketing messages. Let's go over each essential step.
Competitors Analysis
Analyzing the competition is essential to setting correct prices, developing necessary features, and marketing on relevant channels. However, it can also provide useful insights for brand identity.
Firstly, you should gather their product reviews. It will reveal what people like or dislike about the service. Focus on their strengths and think about solving their failures. Maybe their product lacks a few essential features you can develop and outperform them.
Another crucial task is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is what makes websites rank highly on Google providing an outstanding CTR rate. For example, the first organic Google spot enjoys over 25% CTR, going to only a few percent on the tenth. Analyzing competitors' keywords outlines their public message, which is a huge part of brand identity.
Define Your Purpose
Brand identity is more than just marketing your products or services. Yes, you will be selling a service, but you are doing much more as a brand. For example, Google doesn't just let you look up information online. It changes societies by providing frictionless access to knowledge, which is a much more attractive statement.
Another key element is the discussed additional value. Gen Z consumers expect profitable companies to give back to society through charity, for example, by contributing to eco-friendly technologies, poverty reduction, human rights, etc.
From the day you launch your business, you will be creating both of these purposes from scratch when building brand identity. Combining the two will make your brand image cohesive and persuasive.
Transmit Security
Many businesses now use Internet Technologies. Although it might be surprising to include cybersecurity in your brand image, more and more people expect it. Because most contemporary enterprises collect user data, they must protect this information. You will add additional value if your services are cyber-secure.
Cyber attacks damage business reputations. No matter what brand, consumers will lose trust if you fail to protect their online identities. Simultaneously, they will perceive all security implementations positively.
For example, if you choose to use cloud storage to handle business data, select a provider with exceptional cybersecurity benefits, such as advanced encryption, data backups, secure file-sharing, multi-factor authentication, and the like. Even if your brand has nothing to do with IT, you can include a security message in your marketing strategy.
Final Words on Why Brand Identity Is Important
Because brand identity is important, of course you will need a cool logo and a neat slogan, but you already know that. This article outlines the more recent brand identity development methods, and we hope it will help you to establish a memorable one!
