Branding for your business

Branding is how you show customers what makes your business different and better than your competitors. A brand is more than just a logo. It’s the entire experience customers have with your business.

A brand goes much deeper than just your company logo. Your brand is a customer's overall experience of your business. It includes your business values, personality and customer promise. You can influence your business' reputation through marketing and corporate identity. Branding affects every interaction you have with your customers and suppliers. This can include everything from your packaging to how you communicate on the phone.

You can create a good impression of your business through:

• design
• advertising
• marketing
• service proposition
• corporate culture

Branding is your attempt to use this perception to help your business perform better. Any business can benefit from creating an accurate brand, ie one that represents their true values. Therefore, it is important to always be clear about what your business stands for.

Your brand values

Successful branding is about promoting your strengths. You need to be sure that you can always deliver your promises using these strengths, sometimes referred to as 'brand values'. You can start by thinking about what your business is good at and what you believe in as a business. For example:

• the particular skills your business has
• your high-quality customer service
• the best value for money you provide in your marketplace
• your innovative approach

Every business wants to be a customer's first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen.

In competitive markets, effective branding can make your product stand out from the crowd. It’s about creating a lasting impression in customers’ minds, making your offering more appealing than your competitors’

There are many ways to help your product catch attention, such as:

• Creative design and packaging: use colors, shapes, or styles that make your product stand out on the shelf.
• Telling your story: share your values or mission in a way that connects with your customers emotionally.

Remember, customers don’t just buy based on logic, they also make emotional decisions. A well-crafted brand creates a meaningful difference and makes your product more memorable.

How a brand can add value

Experience shows that customers expect to pay more for a branded product than for unbranded products. For example, would you pay the same price for a supermarket’s own lemonade as you would for a well-known brand?

You can apply your brand to your whole range of products or services. This will allow consumers to associate each product in your range with a consistent set of values.

Also, if you want to extend your product range, consumers' perception of the new offering will be enhanced by your existing brand. By consistently applying your brand attributes your business can move into new market sectors without changing your core brand identity.

A strong brand can also add value to your core business. A company that offers equity shares needs to have a strong reputation. A recognisable brand communicates what your business stands for as well as what it offers.

There are four key elements in a successful brand strategy:

The big idea

The big idea is the starting point for any branding project. It is a summary of your business' or product's 'personality', and what makes it different. To find your big idea, you must first look very carefully at your business and the marketplace you operate in. You need to ask yourself:

• What are we offering?
• What makes us different?
• How can our business stand out?
• What do our consumers want or need?
• Where is there a gap in the market?

You may find it helpful to get an outside perspective, for example from:

• a management consultant
• a business development consultant
• a design consultant

There will be a cost attached to this.

Vision

Your company vision is an understanding of where your business is going, or where you want it to go, so you can plan your journey. Your vision may be large scale - such as switching the emphasis of your business from one core area to another. Or it could be simple, such as offering an existing product to a new market.

Values

Your brand values define what your business stands for and believes in. These values shape how people perceive your business and guide how you operate. However, it can be tricky to communicate values. Branding and design consultants can help you communicate them effectively.

You can communicate your brand values through:

• language
• advertising
• graphic design
• staff training
• materials used in product manufacture

Personality

Your brand personality is the character and tone your business conveys. It’s how you want customers to perceive your product or service, and it needs to feel authentic and appropriate for your industry.

You can convey your company's personality through:

• graphic design and your visual identity
• the tone of voice and the language you use
• your dialogue with customers and how they can contribute ideas and get involved
• customer service and how staff are trained to communicate with customers

Read more about designing a successful brand.

Once you have established what your brand identity will be, you have to decide how to get your message across. You can do this through advertising, events and staff training.

Techniques to get your brand message across

Other techniques worth considering to get your brand message across:

Storytelling 

Telling your business' story through corporate identity, packaging, stationery, marketing materials etc.

Credibility

Your brand's claims must be credible and appropriate to your values.

Differentiation

Presenting a point of differentiation from your competitors.

Engaging with customers 

Customers will look at what you have to offer if you stand out from the crowd for positive reasons and your tone of voice and communications are credible.

Focusing your product portfolio

Shifting your focus onto a smaller number of key products or services may make your offer easier for your consumers to understand.

Multiple brands and brand 'stretch'

If your company operates in more than one sector you need to consider how you present the business in each area. You could apply a single brand identity to products or services across all markets. This is called 'brand stretch'. However, sometimes it may be more effective to develop a completely distinct brand to meet new markets.

Endorsed brands

You can create a new brand in its own right but use the 'parent' brand of your main company to endorse it. An example would be Sony PlayStation. PlayStation is a powerful brand in its own right and is further strengthened by the established parent brand Sony.

Reinvigorating your brand

Keeping your communications fresh is essential. You don't have to start from scratch or reconsider your big idea, vision or personality to refresh your brand.

Naming

Brand names are important in setting the tone and personality of your brand, and a key element in marketing activity. Your brand name should reflect your overall brand strategy. Ensure you check that names aren't already in use and protected by law. Read more about choosing a logo and brand name.

Consistency

You should build the same attributes and characteristics into all areas of your business' operations, all stemming from your 'big idea'. 

Hire a designer

You can hire a designer to look at the current state of your company and explore possibilities for developing it. Read more on how to choose and work with a designer.

The basic branding principle of being clear about what you stand for applies to all market sectors. You should consider how you should tailor your branding for your specific business type and audience. 

Start-up businesses

At the start of a new business you can launch your product with a brand that challenges the conventions of the sector - often called a 'challenger brand'. This is much harder to do once you're established as you have more to lose. You must think carefully about how brave and 'disruptive' your product or service can be by:

• assessing the market sector from the outside
• looking at the different competitors
• spotting opportunities or gaps in the market

Start-up businesses benefit from being small and more responsive and adaptable. They have no existing processes that have to be changed to create a new brand.

Business to business (B2B)

The principles of effective branding apply to the B2B sector in the same way as they do in customer-facing businesses. B2B businesses market products and services directly to other businesses rather than the public. They too need to use branding to differentiate and create a distinct personality. They may opt for a personality that is more corporate and business-like in its tone than a consumer facing brand.

Service businesses

You should consider how your brand is reflected in how your service is provided and how your staff interact with customers.

Service brands are built on the people who deliver them, so staff need to be trained to understand the company's culture, its 'promise' to customers and how they will put this into practice.

Knowing what your customers want and how you can deliver it is an integral part of the branding process. You need to know what drives your customers, and what makes them buy. In most cases, it's not only about price or performance.

Researching what customers want

Ask existing customers what they like about doing business with you, and ask potential customers what they are looking for.

If your brand values are in line with what customers look for when they're buying, you have the beginnings of a useful brand. This means you're ready to start building on it. If they're not, you'll need to reconsider:

• the benefits you offer to your customers
• whether you're targeting the right people

For example, a clothes shop that has 'high end fashion' as a brand value can benefit from this if its customers want to buy the trendiest clothes. However, if its customer base is looking for practical clothing, those brand values may not be in line with customers' buying needs. Read more about customer research: what you need to know.

Communicating your brand to customers

Once you’ve defined your brand values and identified customer needs, the next step is to consistently communicate those values across all touchpoints.

Every interaction with a customer should reinforce your brand, including:

• your logo and business name
• staff uniforms and their behaviour
• product packaging and design

Consistency builds trust and strengthens your brand. On the other hand, inconsistency - like mismatched design or conflicting messaging - can damage your brand and hurt your business.

Get customer feedback

Get regular feedback from customers to check that your business delivers the promises your brand makes. Ask dissatisfied customers or former customers for feedback as well - you can gain valuable, and sometimes more honest, information from them about how your brand is perceived.

You should remember that your customers can change too so you should continue to manage your brand.

Employees play a crucial part in managing your brand because they affect what customers think of your business. It is important to ensure that they understand your brand and believe in what it stands for. If they do, their actions will communicate this to other colleagues and customers.

Employees can become emotionally attached to brands, allowing for strong loyalties and even a sense of ownership. This can help maintain employee motivation and increase sales. It could also cause problems if you don't consult them as your business grows.

For example, a jewellery company's 'Elegant' range may be beautifully produced and stylishly packaged. The range could be glamorously advertised in glossy magazines. Its brand values could be 'classy, special and elegant'. However, if the staff serving customers are rude, those customers won’t think about elegance. They'll remember the poor service. This undermines the brand.

Staff engagement

Keep your employees involved by setting up a suggestion scheme. Take the time to discuss your brand and how your business is performing.

Continually reinforce the message that what they do is important and explain why. Make sure they know that if they break the promises your brand makes to customers, this can damage the brand and your business.

What your employees should know

You should create a document setting out your core company values and benchmarks for how you want to operate and appear. It should summarise the purpose of your business and why you think you are different from your competitors. You should communicate this to your employees to ensure you are all working towards the same aims and review it regularly. Read more about how to inform and consult your employees.

As you're building and managing your brand, it's also a good idea to set a budget. This will help you to avoid spending unnecessarily and to prioritise your branding spend.

Your brand should encompass most areas of your business so defining a budget can be difficult.

The key areas you could budget for are:

• design needs, such as a logo, signage, staff uniforms, business stationery or product packaging
• changes to your premises
• your advertising
• time you'll need to spend training employees
• any resources you'll have to provide for employees to enable them to carry out what the brand promises, eg customer service costs
• keeping your company website updated

You don't need to do everything at once. As long as employees understand and deliver what your brand promises, it stands a good chance of success.

Budgeting tips for tight resources

You can create stationery, logos, packaging and advertising quite cheaply if the budget is tight. However, it is a good idea to think about your future growth when devising your image. Changing it later can prove costly. You may also find that customers and employees will have already built up a relationship with your brand. This can make it more problematic to later change.