Branding Design, A 6 Step Guide to Branding Done Right

Startups focus on branding because brands are more successful, here is a 6 step guide to branding done right to get your business on track.

guide to branding done right

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Venturing off on your own as an entrepreneur can be a frightening, yet exciting, opportunity.

You get to be your own boss in life, and decide what you focus on day in and day out. While it is crucial to know how to design a product to sell to the masses and get your business started, you also need to think about branding.

 

Without a brand, you will find it hard to succeed. Your brand connects you with your audience, represents what you stand for, and helps to separate from your competition. However, creating and designing a brand isn’t always easy.

 

With that in mind, this blog post is going to serve as a six-step guide to help you come up with and design a quality brand.

Begin With a Strategy

The first step in your guide to branding is coming up with a strategy or plan. This is all about deciding the kind of brand you want to have, and how you will achieve it. A big part of this is coming up with your vision and mission statement. 

 

These are all about identifying why your business exists and your eventual plans for it. Your brand should always tie into your mission, values and vision, as it is the representation of your business and how people will see you. This strategy stage can be long, but is important to ensure you develop a brand that fits.

 

Without doing this, you run the risk of creating a brand that doesn’t match with your product or mission, or one that misses the mark when it comes to relating to your customers.

Do the Necessary Research

Once you have a blueprint or strategy, it’s time to do some research. First and foremost, you need to think about market research. This is where you learn more about the particular market you are in, and the competitors you will be going up against. You need to learn about their brand, what they do well, and areas they could improve. This research can help you identify openings in the market and help you see things you could do better.

 

In addition to market research, you need to also do user/target market research. You need to learn what your target audience likes, what they relate to, and the problems they encounter in life. You need to fine-tune your brand so it resonates well with all who may become customers. The better your brand can relate to and engage with your audience and customers, the more success you will find. And trying to succeed in this area without research is next to impossible.

Design Your Logo

When many of us think of a brand, our mind goes right to their logo. The Nike swoosh, the Starbucks siren and the McDonald’s arches are all examples of incredibly well-known logos. As a result, you need to spend some time designing your logo, as it could be crucial to your success.

 

There is a lot that goes into designing a good logo. It needs to be something that catches peoples eye, represents your industry or company, and features a design that is different from your competition. Logo design can be handled in-house, but it isn’t a bad idea to consider working with professionals, too.

Choose Your Colors

Just like your logo, many people will associate different colors with different brands. Target is red, Walmart is blue, and BP is green. While your brand and color might not become as big as these, don’t disregard the importance of color.

 

Colors can elicit a variety of different emotions and make people feel a certain way. Because of this, consider choosing colors that match up with the kind of “vibe” you want to give off. For example, red is a passionate and loud, yellow is friendly and cheerful, and blue is trustworthy and dependable

 

If you go with multiple colors, make sure they compliment each other well. You want colors that get the attention of the public, as well.

Create a Brand Style Guide

An underrated part of the process of creating a brand is building out a brand style guide. This is essentially a rule book and guide to how your company presents it’s brand to the world. Without this guide, it can be hard to remain consistent in how you display your branding in ads, on social media or on products.

 

Having this guide helps ensure you can always stay true to your brand. Also, it makes sure that all employees or contractors working with you are aware of the type of brand your company is attempting to maintain.

Build the Awareness of Your Brand

Once your brand has been designed and created, your work isn’t done. The next step is to build up the awareness of your brand. Brand awareness is essentially how familiar someone is with your brand and what it stands for. If someone is aware of your brand, they may know your logo, know what you sell or be aware of what differentiates yourself from others.

 

There are several amazing ways to build brand awareness that range from influencer marketing, building relevant partnerships and using your branding all over your social media, product packaging and website.

 

This step is one that never has an end. All companies, big and small, should be attempting to continue growing and building brand awareness for perpetuity.

 

We hope this guide to branding will help you learn the process for designing a brand the right way for success and growth.