How To Create a Winning Brand From Scratch

Creating Your Winning Brand from Scratch.

How do you go about creating a winning brand from scratch? Starting something new often involves letting go of something else. If you start an exercise regime, you incorporate new healthier habits into your daily regime and simultaneously eliminate some time-wasting habits. The same is true when starting or building your online business.  You want to start incorporating a winning framework to have a successful company. A vital asset of any company is a brand name. As an online business owner, your brand name will often be your company name. Creating a winning brand will help you stand out from the crowd.

The truth is brands are everywhere, and brands are us. Take a minute to think and mentally list the number of brands you have consumed or interacted with today. Brands have an impact on everything. They impact everything, not just products and services, but people, places and your businesses. Great brands like Coke, Apple, Google, Nike, Facebook, Telsa have become part of our identity. If you’re interested in creating an instantly resonant and relevant brand for your company. A brand that develops relationships with people secures a real competitive advantage and eventually materially improves your company’s financial value. Read on.

What Is a Brand Anyway?

Branding has been around for centuries to identify and distinguish the goods of one producer from another. According to the American Marketing Association, A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from others and differentiates them from the competition.

Technically speaking, you make a brand whenever you create a new name, logo, or symbol for a new product.

Why Do Brands Matter?

The obvious question is, why are brands important? What functions do they perform that makes them so valuable to business owners? We take a couple of perspectives to uncover the value of brands to both your tribe and to your Online Business?

Tribe: These are people who will buy your product and use it. They are the foundation of your business. In a previous blog, we discussed how to identify them.

Brands help your customers identify the source or the maker of a product.  Your brand, good or bad, allows consumers to connect it to a particular person or organization. Most importantly, brands take on a special meaning to consumers.  Experience with a product and its ability to deliver quality over the years positively impact your consumers. These tend to be the brands that consumers will buy repeatedly or come back to if they use another product that does not deliver on quality.

To create a brand that consistently meets the needs and desires of your ideal customer. The ability of your tribe to recognize your brand eliminates decision fatigue. The decision-making process is shortened, and they will pick your brand. You give your customers the permission to let their guard down and trust your brand. Now that’s worth the effort you will put into building a winning brand.

Small Business Owners.

Brands also provide value for you as a business owner. Essentially, they help in the recognition and identification of your business. So, when you have a brand, people can quickly locate your organization. Operationally brands help organize your inventory and accounting records. Brands can signal a certain level of quality so that satisfied buyers can easily choose a product again. A business that can garner brand loyalty can predict and secure future demand. As a business owner, you can now better plan ahead to ensure that you have the correct inventory—strong Brands in any industry act as entry barriers. Competitors are less kin to enter such a category. Good brands are a sure way to make it difficult for other firms to enter your market.

 

Hippos to Horses Marketing

Can Anything Be Branded?

We have established that brands are essential for the consumer and for your business.

An obvious question is then, how are brands created? Ultimately, a brand is something that resides in the mind of consumers. Your brand is an unending asset that is tangible. But brands also have an intangible component to them that reflects our desires, perceptions, and to a less extent, the peculiarities of your consumers.

Branding a product involves the process of giving it a name and using other brand elements to assist in identification. Branding creates mental pictures that help your consumers organize their knowledge about your products and services.

Brands aid your tribe perceive differences among brands in a product category. Suppose I mention Tesla, Mercedes, Toyota and Ferrari. You instantly create mental pictures of the brands and simultaneously sort them into different categories in your head. These differences can be related to the attributes or benefits of a car itself. They may also be related to more intangible image considerations. As a business owner of a strong and winning brand, you benefit whenever consumers are in a choice situation. Small wonder branding is now universal.

What are Brand Elements?

Brand elements are sometimes called branded identities. These are devices that identify and differentiate your brand. The main ones are brand names, URLs, logos, symbols, characters, spokespeople, slogans, packages and signatures. Always choose brand elements that will enhance brand awareness. Facilitate the formation of a favourable, solid, and unique brand association or at least a positive brand feeling with your ideal customer.

The Six Brand Elements

  • Memorability: How it is easily recognized and recalled
  • Meaningfulness: Descriptive, persuasive
  • Likability: Fun and engaging, rich visual, verbal imagery, pleasing
  • Transferability: Can your brand stretch across to different product categories and geographic locations,
  • Adaptability: flexible, adjustable
  • Protectability: legal and competitive

 

Hippos to Horses Marketing
 

Three Steps to Creating A Brand That Wins

Let’s look at the three steps to creating a winning brand from scratch  

Step One: Look for A Hook.

Find the diamond that glitters and glistens. The hook is how you grab your ideal customers attention and keep glued to your brand. When creating a new brand, it must be deeply entrenched in that glitter. What does your brand represent? How can you uncover that?

Product: Deeply deliberate on the product or service you’re looking to brand. What is unique about it? What’s distinctive? What’s a little weird? Is there anything you can think about that should be celebrated about the brand? Then shout about it.

Story: We are distinctively narrative creatures. Does your brand have an inspirational story construct? Can you create the back story for your brand? What transformation is your brand offering to your ideal customer? Why did you start your brand?  Create a story around your brand that is emotionally captivating.  Remember, the secret to an engaging narrative is its oversimplification. 

Purpose:  Share in your brand the core principles of your business. Who are you? What’re your goals? What are your core beliefs? Consumers want to join a movement, not just simply buy products they want to belong to something better. You should also consider the timelessness of your brand’s purpose. Nike is an example of a brand that is evergreen. What is happening right now in your industry? Are your consumers becoming green? Is everybody recycling? Are people worried about the environment? If you can get the answers to these questions, you are well on your way to a winning brand.

 Step Two: Is the Name of a Brand Important?

Juliet’s soliloquy at the balcony after she met her Romeo asks, ‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?… What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Romeos’ name mattered then, and Brand names matter now. As a brand owner, you should do the following when considering your Brand name.

Product Relevance: The name should tell a story that is directly or at least indirectly tied to the product itself. Its reason for being and the consumer need and want that the brand will fulfil.  Ensure your proposed brand name is related to the essence of your brand

Emotion: ‘Form follows function. But both report to emotion,’ says Willie Davidson, superstar designer and grandson of the founder of Harley Davidson. Emotion trumps all when it comes to marketing and innovation. And it certainly wins in naming games. A great name is essential for a winning brand. It is essentially a shout out for the product evoking feeling and inspiration.

Generally Speaking, Ease of Use:  Your winning brand should be as short as possible and roll off the tongue. Avoid tongue twisters or names that might be confusing to pronounce. Brevity is essential, not just because short names tend to be more memorable. But also make it easier for your design team to create your packaging, labels, and other elements.

Marketability: Try to identify a marketable brand name. A quick heads up It is impossible to define marketability, but you know it when you see it.

Marketability is a vital consideration in today’s world of hyper-connectedness. Your winning brand has to be malleable for multi-dimensional engagement from the beginning. What is the ‘campaignability’ factor of your proposed brand? What is a potential tagline? What about the launch of your social media platforms campaign? Will your brand blend? Take some time to think about all the other platforms you want your brand to appear? Does it feel natural? Does it flow? If not, it is probably a good idea to rethink your brand name.

Step Three: Say It with Pictures: Developing A Brand Design

The final step in creating your winning brand from scratch:

Once you have your name, you have to animate it to bring it to life. The world of design has nearly magical qualities. Design can work at a persuasive psychological level and provide incredible depth and breadth meaning to an otherwise lifeless world. Design can be as simple as a logo, your primary colour scheme, or it can be as complex as an entire packaging concept.

Finally

In conclusion, creating a winning brand from scratch is an incredibly challenging process. It can also be thrilling, should you go all the way from a blank piece of paper to a purposeful, attractive new brand  

It’s like surfing for sure you have to be ready to catch the waves. If you follow the above guidelines, you might just find yourself riding the big waves.

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