Branding has become one of the most misunderstood concepts in business. Brand strategists, graphic designers, and business coaches all echo the importance of building a brand for your business. Yet, so few people truly understand what this means.
I’m a firm believer that if you want to master something, you need to have a thorough understanding of it. So, this blog post deconstructs branding and outlines six things you need to think about before you build a brand.
WHAT IS A BRAND?
Of the dozens of definitions of ‘brand’ that exist within the literature, Marty Neumeier’s is the easiest to understand and holds the most weight to me. Neumeier describes a brand as
“a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.”
He goes on further to say
“when enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand.”
Let’s deconstruct this for a moment.
A brand is a collective perception or “gut feeling” of an entity by its audience. When persons encounter a business, they create associations or ascribe certain qualities to it.
The sum of these “gut feelings”, if synonymous, is a brand.
So, a brand consists of:
- The tangible entity to be ‘branded’- this can be a business, product, service, place, or a person.
- The intangible gut feeling or perception that the audience gets when they encounter your business.
To build a brand, you need to define the entity that will be ‘branded’. You need to define its structure, value, uniqueness, vision, and mission for example. Then, you need to understand the audience and learn what will influence them to arrive at the same gut feeling about your business.
That is what branding means. Branding is actively, intentionally, and deliberately framing your business to influence your audience’s gut feeling.
MANAGING THE PERCEPTION
The “gut feeling” and the associations created by the audience are of utmost importance to us as entrepreneurs and business owners. Our aim should be to influence what our audience thinks about our business so that they all arrive at the same “gut feeling” and to reinforce the same set of associations over time.
There is a common misconception that building a brand means creating a visual identity for a business. To accept this premise is to oversimplify human beings and the human experience. Human beings are multifaceted by nature and respond to multiple senses and stimuli. Therefore, branding needs a multidimensional approach that creates a multisensory experience for your target audience. Effective branding requires an intimate understanding of your target customer’s influences and behaviours. Only then can you seek to develop a strategy for managing their perceptions.
BRANDING CONSIDERATIONS
So, before you start building a brand for your business, there are several critical things to consider.
- Who are you?
What makes you different from everyone else in your field? Can you define the magic that you bring to the table? What are your strengths and weaknesses?
- What do you want to become?
How does the big picture of your life look? Can you clearly define the overall vision for your business? Do you know what success means to you?
- Who do you want to serve?
Careful introspection and research should reveal who will be best served by your offer. Think of it as match brand matchmaking. Your business should be a perfect fit for its ideal clients, and your ideal clients should be a match for your business.
- What do you want people to think?
Which associations do you want to be attributed to your business? What is the perception or “gut feeling” that anyone who encounters your business should experience? How do you want your brand to be positioned in your customers’ minds?
- How can you get people to buy-in?
How can you influence your target audience to form the associations you want? What strategies can you implement to reinforce your brand message?
- Do you have the resources to support brand development?
Are you strategically capable of getting to where you want to be? Have you done an audit of your business to determine to what extent you can implement a brand strategy?
WHAT BRANDING REALLY MEANS
You can see that branding is more than the creation of a visual identity. It’s about the problem you solve, the story you tell, and the emotions you evoke.
Branding is a long-term journey. Your brand is the destination. You have to actively and continuously nurture the brand you’re trying to build.
There needs to be a shift in the business environment when it comes to branding. We need to embrace strategic brand thinking which requires you to think of your brand as a living, breathing organism. It has a life of its own and needs nurturing. This is a continuous process.
Everything you do in business impacts your brand in the long run.
Be strategic!
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