How to build a brand that matters
( 20 minute read)
author: Katherine Heath
Building a brand is one of the most powerful ways a business can differentiate itself from its competitors and gain the trust of its customers. And brand trust is not just nice to have. It’s essential. In a recent Edelman study brand trust ranked as the top buying consideration — 67% of people agreed with the statement: ‘a good reputation may get me to try a product, but unless I come to trust the company behind the product, I will soon stop buying it.’
That same study also found that consumers who trust a brand are more than twice as likely to be the first to buy the brand’s new products, and are more than twice as likely to stay loyal to a brand they trust, even in the face of disruption, such as a trendy or innovative competitor.
Not only does a strong brand make a business stand out, it can build customer loyalty, drive sales, increase advocacy and can provide durability during difficult economic times. In some cases, a great brand can redefine a seemingly impenetrable industry or create a category all of its own.
Building a brand that people love is what many entrepreneurs dream of, but few succeed. It is not an easy task. However, it is surprisingly simple when you break it down. To succeed in building a great brand that people will feel connected with, you have to know and understand what they care about and why. You have to have empathy and appreciate that you’re building something for them, not for you. At its simplest, when you know who you are as a brand you know the principles that guide all of your decisions, big and small, from hiring to advertising.
When starting a new business it’s tempting to jump straight into logo and website design, but the brand strategy work is what separates great brands from average brands. The brand strategy is not defining what your products do or how they work; it’s defining the emotional concept that your company stands for.
For example, Nike doesn’t stand for shoes, it stands for performance. Adobe isn’t about software, it’s about creativity. Your brand strategy is then used to inform your brand identity.
What is a brand?
It’s important to note before reading any further that a brand is not a logo. It is not a beautiful Instagram account, a fancy typeface or a well-placed advertisement. A brand, as Marty Neumeier puts it, is “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”
Therefore, a brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customers say it is.
That said, that doesn’t mean you don’t have any control over your brand and how your customers feel about it. You do. But instead of starting with what you want your brand to be, it’s best to start with how you want your customers to feel. A strong brand is not the end result you’re aiming for; a group of loyal, advocative customers who will rally around you is.
Building a brand is about building a world that people want to be a part of. A brand-led company has a deep understanding of why it exists and why people should care.
What is brand building?
Brand building, most importantly, is a process. It’s not something you do when you launch your business and then forget about. It’s not something you buy from an agency and never have to think about again. It’s not something you give to the marketing team to ‘deal with’. It’s a journey, it’s something every single person in the business plays a part in, and the ongoing effort is what results in long-term relationships with your customers and a sustainable business that matters to its community.
Brand building, despite the wealth of information that’s out there on the subject, isn’t easy. It’s time consuming and requires discipline and long-term thinking. If you’re only in business to make money right now, it’s unlikely you’ll have the patience to build a brand that will stand the test of time and create real change in the world.
However, building a great brand is highly rewarding and these days, with competition so high in all industries, it should not be an afterthought. Brand can be baked into a business from the very beginning, and it should be. And in my opinion, under appreciating the value of a strong brand is what holds so many businesses back.
Before you begin building a brand, it’s important to understand the difference between brand and branding. Your brand is the sum of everything your business does and the way it does it. Your branding is the visual representation of your brand.
You can’t build a brand without consistency but before you can be consistent you need to know what you’re being consistent with. And as I mentioned previously, building a brand starts with the feeling you want to evoke.
What are the advantages of building a brand?
Building a brand isn’t about building something that matters to you; it’s about building something that matters to others. There is no doubt that building a business can make you money, but it’s brands that make a real difference in the world and to their communities. And strong brands are the ones that stick around. When your brand has purpose and a reason for being it’s much easier for others to support you in your efforts.
In the same way that as an individual you are known by friends and family for your unique characteristics and the values you hold, your brand is known for the way it does things too. If you continue to act unreliably, people around you will assume that you will always be unreliable. If you work hard to communicate and demonstrate that you are trustworthy then you quickly gain credibility and are trusted by your peers. Building a brand is really no different. People like to know what they can expect and who they can trust, understandably.
Focus
A strong brand gives your business focus. Without a brand, it’s easy for a business to get distracted and lose direction, creating product after product and simply competing on features and/or price. Building a brand around your business means that as you grow and more people join your team, you won’t lose consistency and your customers will still get the same feeling buying from you that they did at the beginning. This is why brand strategy and developing the core idea behind your brand is so important. Never jump straight into designing a logo or a website without establishing who you are at the core. The decisions you make at the beginning will feed into all of your marketing touchpoints and design decisions as you grow.
Differentiation
Think about why you buy from the brands you do. No doubt there are other brands out there with similar offerings that you could buy from but what is it about the brands you like that attracts you? Being able to clearly differentiate yourself from the competition is what all brand owners strive for. In some cases, it can mean redefining an industry by doing things differently to the way they’ve been done for decades. Glossier is a perfect example of a brand built around so much more than its products and a brand that’s disrupted a well-established industry. I would highly recommend this episode of How I Built It with founder Emily Weiss to learn about how she built her business around her brand.
Growth
Business growth typically comes in stages and each stage comes with its inevitable hurdles. Things will need to be tested. There will be teething problems, there’s no doubt about that, but a strong brand and therefore community will mean any mistakes are far more likely to be forgiven.
Moreover, if you build a business solely around one product or service you may become known for what you offer, but it will be hard to branch out into new products or services without a strong brand and reason for doing so other than profit. A brand gives you the ability to grow beyond your initial offering and create a wider range of products and/or services that continue to reflect your ethos and mission.
Community
Communities don’t grow around products, they grow around causes and movements. They grow around brands and their missions, even more so around brands that really matter. For people to want to stand with you they need to know what you stand for. That’s why knowing your brand purpose is so important. Establishing a strong brand around the way you want your community to feel will encourage those who agree with you to join you on your journey. Communities need clarity and a reason to come together.
Brian Clark explains how creating a “minimum viable audience” could be the key to business success.
Collaborations
When growing a business from scratch, a good way to grow your audience is through partnerships with other brands or individuals who already have a similar audience. Without an identifiable brand and clear values, it’s hard for other well-established brands or individuals to understand why they should partner with you. Building a strong brand that they can relate with will make it an easy decision for them. Always make working with you the easy and obvious choice.
Team
Finding the right team of people to build your brand with you is tough. Many business owners will tell you how difficult it can be to find people who share your values, ethos and vision (and who are available). That said, there are also brands out there who will tell you that the right people now come to them because of the brand they’ve built. Patagonia is a great example: 5 Ridiculous ways Patagonia has built a culture that does well and does good.
Glassdoor recently published their list of the 50 best companies to work for at the moment and this year marks a shift to a culture-first workplace.
“Winners are prioritising their culture and mission and putting employees at the heart of everything they do” said Christian Sutherland-Wong, Glassdoor’s President, Chief Operating Officer and incoming Chief Executive Officer.
Dr Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s Chief Economist added, “Workers are increasingly prioritising culture over cash and research consistently shows that culture is the leading driver of long-term employee satisfaction”.
“That said, business leaders have quantifiable proof that culture is one of the smartest investments they could make for the success and longevity of their companies.
However, being a culture-first organisation isn’t about expensive perks, but about articulating a clearly-stated mission that resonates with employees’ own aspirations and fuels their best performance.”
How to start building a brand
Firstly, have a good product or service that adds value to your customers’ lives. Building a brand around a mediocre product will be even harder than it is to build one around a great product. Competition is tough in all industries and there will be other people doing what you’re doing. Be different, or at least be better.
Secondly, understand the value of brand. Those who don’t appreciate the value of brand won’t be able to understand the level of work needed to make a brand a success. That puts limits on possibilities.
It’s easy to jump straight into drawing logos and getting excited about designing a website, but there’s work to do before that. Work that will make sure everything you spend money on in the future is a worthwhile investment.
The most important thing to remember is: there is no right way to build a brand.
For some, building a brand around their business comes naturally. It grows around their personal way of doing things and quickly resonates with an existing community. For others, it’s not so natural and help is required in the form of another team member, a freelancer or an agency. But, as I said, there is no right way. You can do it alone, you can do it with a team, you can use social media, you can not use social media, you can write yourself, you can hire a copywriter… you see where this is going.
Fundamentally, the more natural it is to you the easier it will be. If a particular element of your brand doesn’t come naturally, perhaps it’s not right for you and is worth rethinking before taking the next steps.
There is a lot to consider when building a brand and starting from scratch can feel overwhelming. So, below we’ve put together a process to follow to help you get started with building a brand that matters. There are courses you can do that we have often recommended to clients for specific parts of this process so if you’d like to know more about one particular element give us a shout.
How do you want your customers to feel?
As I mentioned before, this is where you want to start. Be clear on how you want your customers to feel when they come into contact with your brand. You can then reverse engineer making that happen and make sure that your mission aligns with your practical offering.
But remember, there needs to be an inherent truth in the product/service you offer that ties into how your brand makes people feel. You can’t just pick an emotion that you want to own and decide that’s who you are in the same way Coca Cola decided to own ‘happiness’. It’s much more complex these days; that emotion isn’t just part of your advertising.
Ask yourself:
What is the desire your brand fulfils?
What are the emotions your customers will associate with your brand?
How will they feel about the way they were treated?
What will they tell their friends?
Why will they come back?
It might be safety or security, freedom, health, confidence, pride… think it through, define it and stick to it. Once you’ve established how you want your customers to feel, you can start to think about how your particular offering can achieve that. Simply deciding that you want your customers to feel healthy when they buy from you is not a brand. It is just the first step.
Define your brand purpose
All great brands have a clear purpose, a reason for being.
Your brand purpose is the goal you set out to achieve that’s not related to profit. It’s the wrong you want to right, the good you want to do in the world. Most importantly, it’s what you build your community around.
Your brand purpose may be obvious but if it’s not, answer these questions:
Why are you starting your business?
What is the problem you want to solve?
What do you want your community to come together for?
Why should people care about what you’re building?
If you were starting a movement, what would it be?
The answers to these questions will start to carve out your brand purpose which will then inform your messages, your branding and your marketing strategy.
Once you’ve identified your purpose, define it as succinctly as you can. Ambiguity is not your friend when it comes to brand. Be clear and concise about what you want to achieve.
Your brand purpose is about why you do what you do, not what you do. A company whose brand purpose is to protect the oceans could make water bottles or clothing; the brand is not built on their products it’s built on why and how they do what they do.
If you want to dig deeper into the importance and development of brand purpose, we highly recommend reading Simon Sinek’s Start With Why.
Define your values
Once you have your brand purpose in place, you’ll be able to lay out your brand values. These are not your personal values (although they may be similar); these are the values of your brand and the values your audience will resonate with and appreciate.
Your values should reflect who you are as a brand and what you stand for. They will underpin the way you treat your customers, the way you make your products, how you advertise and the way you hire your team. They define why you do business the way you do.
Using a similar example as above, a brand whose purpose is to protect the oceans can’t then make products out of single use plastic or hire team members who will go out and litter beaches at the weekend.
Do your competitor research
One thing to be mindful of here is getting too carried away with what competitors are doing. It’s easy to start to feel overwhelmed by what’s already out there and confused at where your brand fits into the landscape. Remember, you’re building a brand, not just another company with the same features as everyone else.
You shouldn’t try to imitate what other brands are doing, especially the big players in your industry. It is worthwhile to be aware of what’s working for others in your space, but don’t miss out on an opportunity just because your competitors did.
The goal of building a brand is to differentiate yourself from the competition, not to be the same. Learn from what’s already out there and figure out where the gaps are.
When researching competitors, try not to stray too far.
Choose 3 – 5 key competitors and look at the following:
Messaging/style of copywriting
Visual style
Quality of products/services
Story/reason for starting the company
Reviews/mentions on social media
How the team presents themselves as individuals online
Marketing campaigns (successful and unsuccessful)
Marketing channels being used
You can put these into a table on Excel or something similar and then answer these questions:
What do you do differently to all of them?
What do you dislike about their way of doing things?
What do you like about what they do?
What do your audience seem to like about them?
Are they competitors when it comes to product?
Are their brand values similar to yours?
How do they communicate their brand values?
Why do their customers go back to them?
Here are 50 competitive analysis templates you can use for your research.
Determine your target audience
If you want to build a brand that matters to your audience, you need to know who they are and what currently matters to them in their everyday lives. What are the problems they face? Taking the time to understand who is buying your product and investing in your services is paramount. Why do they purchase? How do they make their purchasing decisions? What influences their purchasing decisions?
Defining a target market used to be about basic demographics such as gender, age or income range. These could then be developed further into more specific buyer personas. This is still a valuable exercise but these days, brands are a lot more sophisticated when it comes to figuring out their target audience and appreciate that sometimes, age, gender and income don’t come into it at all.
If you’re a brand selling high quality, organic food you are likely to have a wide range of demographics interested in your product, and for different reasons. The key is figuring out who those different groups of people are and how to speak to them in a way that they appreciate and understand.
If you can employ an agency to dig deep into consumer insights for you and host focus groups then great, you’ll probably get a lot of data and figure out exactly who you’re talking to. However, for a lot of new businesses that simply isn’t an option.
So how can you find your target audience on a budget?
Think about the problem you’re solving first. Who naturally aligns with the benefits of your solution?
‘You are not your target audience’ is many brand builders’ favourite phrase, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see yourself as part of your target market. You just need to make sure that you stay objective and realistic about what you’re building so that it’s for people who have the same problems you do, not just you personally.
Narrow down a few groups of people who have the problem you are solving and think about which one your product/service will resonate with the most.
As an example, if you’ve designed an iPhone case that protects devices when being used during outdoor activities your customers’ problem is their phone breaking if they drop it outdoors.
However, that’s still a VERY wide group of people. Take it one step further and look at how your case is designed and what your specific problem is. Are you a runner? A climber? A mountaineer? How did you come across the problem?
Once you’ve been through that process it’s easier to understand who you should talk to first. Nothing says you can’t branch out in the future but stick to what comes naturally first and aligns best with your product.
Brand mission statement
Your mission statement should not be about the financial goals you have as a business or what you want to achieve personally. It is also not your tagline.
A brand mission statement encompasses your company’s wider mission. What are you setting out to make happen? What are you setting out to change? Why are you in business? Why would someone want to join your team?
Some great examples:
AllBirds – we are on a mission to prove that comfort, good design and sustainability don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
AirBnb – For so long, people thought Airbnb was about renting houses. But really, we’re about home. You see, a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong. And what makes this global community so special is that for the very first time, you can belong anywhere. That is the idea at the core of our company: belonging.
Ikea — At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.
Patagonia – Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
Your brand mission statement is a clearly defined statement that encompasses your brand’s purpose and values. It’s the thing your community and team feel proud to stand behind.
Create a brand message that is clear, compelling and consistent
Your brand message is what will immediately tell your customers why they should care about what you do.
There will likely be multiple benefits that your product/service offers your customers but you need to be clear about your messaging hierarchy so that you’re not always bombarding customers with multiple messages.
A really simple and modern way to think about this is to consider your Instagram bio. You have 150 characters to tell potential customers what you do and why they should care. Your primary message needs to be spot on.
Within your content you can then delve deeper into other key messages.
To bring your messaging together, start with your top line message, your business pitch if you like. We’re big fans of the approach brand company Red Antler uses. They use a Mad Lib-like approach in order to get a succinct and compelling core idea. It reads like this:
For (insert target customer) who (insert statement of need), (insert product name) is a (insert what the product does) that (insert product’s emotional benefits) unlike (insert competing alternatives). (Insert product name) will (insert long-term vision for the company).
From here, you can begin developing a hierarchy of messaging that can be used in marketing, advertising and all of your brand’s communication.
Create your business branding
The fun bit that most new business owners jump straight into is your business branding, your visual identity. However, the work that comes before this is crucial and will give you deeper understanding into what your visual identity should look and feel like.
There’s more to business branding than a logo and pretty colours. Every time your customers come into contact with your brand visually it should be instantly recognisable. That’s what a strong brand identity does. It’s why you can spot a Levi ad without needing to see the logo, or recognise a Coke bottle without the words.
Whether you’re building a small, tight-knit community or you’re looking to attract serious investment and grow quickly, your branding could be the difference between success and failure.
If you’ve never worked with a creative agency or freelancer before, the whole process can feel a little intimidating. Where do you start? How much should it cost? Who is the best person to do it?
With that in mind, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to help you figure it all out: How much does professional business branding cost?
Another part of your brand identity is your brand tone of voice.
Form your brand voice and tone
Firstly, it’s important to understand the difference between the two. Think of it this way: your voice is consistent but your tone can change. You use the same voice when speaking in different scenarios or to different audiences but your tone will reflect your environment. You might use a different tone when chatting with friends than the one you use when speaking to your boss.
Your tone may also change depending on the emotional state of the person you’re addressing. Empathy in tone is crucial. You will want to speak differently to someone who is upset or angry than you would to someone who is elated.
Your brand voice will remain the same but your tone will change.
Knowing who your audience is and how they communicate with each other is a great way to figure out your brand voice. Looking at how they interact on social media with each other as well as other existing brands will tell you a lot about how to build a brand voice that will naturally align with their voices.
If you’re keen to dig deeper into your voice and tone I would highly recommend this piece by brand builder Felicia C. Sullivan: Brand personality, voice and tone.
Integrate your brand into everything you do and maintain consistency
A common mistake is to assume brand is just for the marketing team to worry about. This a dangerous assumption and won’t fuel business growth. Your brand should guide the decisions made in every single area of your business, from the sourcing of materials to your social media content.
Which is why it’s important that everyone involved in your brand understands it. If you’re a small business with a small team, basic brand guidelines that outline your mission, your messaging, your voice and your visual style are fine and will help to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
If you’re a larger brand, ready to grow quickly and you need to appear that way from the beginning, a full set of brand guidelines which an agency or in house creative director will put together is fundamental to avoid brand dilution.
The most important thing to remember about brand is that consistency is everything. You must be consistent with the quality of your offering, the delivery of your products/services and your communication. It’s not just about your marketing.
When we work with brand owners we start with discovery. We get to know you, your vision, the reason you started your business, the information you have already gathered and anything else you have to share with us. We then do our own research and look into your market and your competitors. Once we have all of the information we need, we can move into strategy which helps us define that core idea that your business stands for. That idea then informs all creative work. On a small scale that can be logo design and a simple brand identity and on a larger scale stretches across digital experience, packaging, photography/video, advertising and investment decks.
Building a brand that truly matters and will be able to scale is about starting a movement around a core idea in a way that touches people’s hearts. An emotional connection with a brand is what will bring people back again and again.
If you’re starting a new business, it’s never too early to start thinking about your brand. If you need guidance, you’re ready to get started or you just want to find out a bit more about how we work, get in touch.
