Building a brand can be reduced to a handful of steps, but it takes effort and dedication to make it successful.
As a startup tech company, first impressions can mean the difference between a new loyal customer and an apathetic stranger. Your brand, including your image, your personality, and your messaging, is responsible for producing those first impressions, for better or for worse.
Your brand is one of the most important elements of your company starting out. Without a solid, consistent brand that people can relate to and build a consumer relationship with, you’ll lose countless opportunities and your reputation will remain stagnant. Even the greatest product in the world can suffer if the branding isn’t good enough to support it.
So how do you go about building a brand that will give your company everything it needs to make that vital first impression?
1. Get to know your target audience. You cannot market to everybody all at once; this is an unavoidable fact. Instead, focus on one or two key demographics. Before you start the branding process, get to know your demographics intimately. Understand who they are, what’s important to them, and what’s going to appeal to them. Use that information to craft your identity.
2. Find a personality. Before you start getting into gritty details, imagine a general personality. If your company and product could be condensed to an individual personality, what would that individual be like? How would they act, talk, and dress? What is their outlook on life, and what are their values? Being able to think of your brand like this will aid you in keeping your brand strong and consistent.
3. Define core brand qualities. Think of adjectives that encapsulate the tone and direction of your brand, such as “honest,” or “fun,” or “outgoing.” Build the remainder of your brand personality around these qualities.
4. Fill in the gaps. The rest of the details can come with time. Following the general principles you’ve already laid out, create a style guide that includes all design and image-based elements of your brand, as well as nitpicky vocabulary choices.
It takes time to build a brand like it takes time to get to know someone. The more effort you put into your branding, the greater rewards you’ll receive.
