5 Elements Essential for Branding

Investopedia defines a brand as an identifying symbol, mark, logo, name, word and/or sentence that companies use to distinguish their product from others. Apart from these a brand also includes intangible and unspoken concepts like values, promises and desires. Before one begins to create a brand a few important questions need to be answered, like who is our target audience, what are we selling to them and how are we going to sell it to them. Brand elements use these answers to build your brand on. Here are a few elements that will help you start the branding process.

Brand Positioning

This is the first and most important step in branding. Brand positioning tells you how a brand should be positioned in the market. The answers to the “who, what and how” are the key contributors to this. This helps you find your target audience and meet their needs in a unique way. This process is essential to design the right marketing strategy. It is a difficult but crucial task, as this will lead the way for design, branding and marketing.

Brand Differentiators

If you want customers to buy your products/services, the branding must be different. Living in highly competitive times, being different is the key to standing out in the market. The “how” of the question, if answered right will help you in this step. This is a unique value that only your brand possesses. It proves to the consumers how your products/services are better than the others and how they are going to be different from their competitors. Apart from this, you can use brand differentiators to come up with products/services that are unavailable to a selective group of the population.

Brand Personality

This is nothing but giving your brand a personality. Brand personalities like human personalities are unique. People will identify your brand based on your brand personality. The elements that make up your brand personality, once you have decided what it is are the colours used in your logo, the fonts, the tone of voice, etc. These elements make your brand memorable and recognisable, creating a sense of brand awareness to the population.

Brand Consistency

Once you have nailed the personality of the brand, brand consistency follows. This is where the logo, slogan, designs, fonts, colours, etc. are consistent over every mode of communication. Through marketing and advertising, you will be popularising the brand and its products or services through various mediums like television, radio, newspapers, digital and obviously social media platforms. You must ensure that there is consistency to let the consumers know that everything marketed or advertised comes under the same brand.

Brand Promise

A brand promise is what keeps your consumers loyal to your brand. It is your way of promising them that you sell only the best for the best and you will never compromise on it. Your brand’s purpose should meet the fundamental needs of the consumer and when your purpose becomes a promise, your consumers become your brand ambassadors. This is a true testament to your brand growing and expanding.

Before you start to design and branding for your business, remember that a few elements can be controlled like your logo, typography, colours, etc., while some others can’t like how customers react to your brand. All you need is a good branding strategy, which will lay a strong foundation for your branding elements to take your business to the next level.