Nowadays, a lot of businesses fail at their branding attempts. The main reason is that such businesses firmly believe that slapping a logo on a business and calling it a brand is enough to pass as one. Unfortunately, nothing can be further from the truth. Brands simply cannot exist without a brand identity.
A brand identity is the core of your brand upon which you build the rest of it as it grows and develops further. A logo is just a small but important aspect of a much larger brand identity. With that in mind, here are a few things every business should know about brand identity and its vital importance for brand development.
The simple answer is that brand identity is how your present your brand to your target audience. However, there’s much more to it than that. Before you actually present your brand to the public, there are a lot of things you must go over.
The purpose of a brand identity is to portray your company the best way possible and communicate to your audience exactly what you have to offer and what they can expect from you. Here are some of the crucial elements of a brand identity.
• Your company’s core values, mission statement, and brand promise.
• Your company’s visual representation, which includes colors, fonts, logo and other visual elements.
• Your company’s personality, which helps humanizes your brand.
• Your tone of voice.
• The way you communicate with your audience.
• Your unique selling proposition.
A brand identity highlights your company’s messages, products and services and allows consumers to relate to your brand on a more personal level. With a strong brand identity, you can stand fast in a highly competitive market and differentiate your business from other brands and other businesses as well.
Moreover, a brand identity helps you establish trust and loyalty with your customers, which inevitably creates a powerful community. You might’ve noticed how some consumers remain loyal to their favorite brands despite the fact that some other brands may have better offers. This is all thanks to a strong brand identity such brands possess.
Creating the right brand identity is a demanding process. The most important thing is to build an identity with your customer’s best interest in mind. Only then can you actually grasp the concept of how effective this marketing strategy can really be.
If you build your brand identity around your customer personas and their needs, and how your products or services can help them in one way or another, your brand will be much more powerful than when you create a brand identity in accordance with your own preferences.
A brand identity is the foundation of your brand. Creating an ideal brand identity takes time, effort and a lot of dedication, not to mention market research. However, once a strong brand identity is created, you can build a memorable and relatable brand to which your audience will flock over time.