About
HOW TO BUILD A BRAND
Devising an effective and appealing brand for your business is one of the most important investments a business can make. This is especially true for a start-up venture.
Branding is one of the purest forms of communication.
A brand is a fine distillation of many ingredients, blended together perfectly to communicate a message that can be understood and appreciated in a split second. On a business card or the side of a lorry, on a social media page or a poster, on a website or a t-shirt, your name, your logo, your brand identity must work as hard as possible to convey what your business is all about in a memorable way.
Above all your brand must elicit emotional engagment and appeal to the viewer - instantly!
The principles of branding remain the same whether the budget is £500, £5,000, £500,000 or £5million.
A strong brand is a potent commercial asset whilst a weak brand presentation can compromise trading potential, put-off customers and reduce revenue.
The process of branding a business involves much more than coming up with a clever name, designing an attractive logo and choosing a colour scheme. These components are simply the most visible elements of a brand, they are the ‘tip of the iceberg’ they symbolise everything your brand is about below the surface.
Considering your brand in this way raises essential questions that it is vital you can answer:
1. What are the core values of your brand? These values can be anywhere on the spectrum from value to prestige, from the speed of service to customer care, from traditional values to cutting edge modernity.
2. Who is your target audience? It is never effective to try and appeal to everyone. It’s ok if some people do not like your brand so long as your potential customers absolutely love it!
3. What’s in a name? In short: everything! A weak name cannot be saved by clever typography and graphic design. A good name has intrinsic appeal, it rolls off the tongue, it sounds right, it contains a promise. Using initials is dull and clever misspelling just makes it hard for customers to remember and find you.
4. Is iconography important? Well yes, it can be. An illustration, symbol or icon can be very effective because it is an economic and efficient way to communicate deeper meaning. The trick in choosing the right pictogram is not to be too literal. The objective is to be appealing, memorable and distinctive. Imaginative and unexpected is good, bizarre and obtuse is not; there must be a logical connection between the graphics, the name and the brand proposition.
5. Where are your competitors? You need to map out the positioning of your competition to find your unique market niche. The more you study your competitors’ branding the better equipped you will be to develop your own. Analyse and learn what you can from your competitors. It’s one of the few things that is completely free to do and can produce improved profitability when you launch with a better brand identity.
6. Can you tell me a story? Branding is about emotional engagement. It is in part about bypassing the customer’s brain and appealing to their heart. Think about your brand identity like it was the cover of a book. A good book cover makes you want to look inside. Your new brand must work just as effectively.
Many people make the critical mistake of believing that branding is about being clever. It isn’t. Branding is all about being logical with just enough of an imaginative twist to be unique.
Your brand is the one aspect of your business in which you invest every working day. Equipment wears out and is replaced, premises change, tastes and fashion evolve. By contrast, your brand is a constant asset that has the potential to increase in value the longer it is in existence and the more people recognise it. Gaining mind-share is hard to do because it’s valuable. Establishing a recognisable and memorable brand identity turns into word-of-mouth recommendations, familiarity, confidence, trust and repeat business. All of these collateral benefits are critical to growing your business organically.
The three core purposes of branding are to:
a) Maximise appeal to attract new customers and retain existing customers
b) Maintain the highest potential pricing and profit margin for your business
c) Increase the effectiveness of marketing, advertising and promotions
Many people claim to be able to produce effective branding but they cannot. This is a travesty for many businesses. Bad quality branding and advertising is an unfortunate reality like pollution. Look around, how many genuinely appealing and effective brands do you see?
Ultimately, your brand must be a natural extension of you. Your brand should fit you like a perfectly tailored suit. If you do not connect with your own brand at the deepest level then who else will? To be successful you must become the personification of your brand and your brand must embody everything for which you stand.
Brandgarden knows how to create a brand.
Your adventure to an exciting and compelling brand is comprised of several creative phases:
1. Preparation Stage: Name development, domain name check, competitor differential check, style and approach, intended brand application, market sector research and then the construction of the brief;
2. Creative Stage: Logo concepts, typeface selections, design options, colour scheme options, strapline development, icon or pictogram selection, finished logo design;
3. Application Stage: Placing the logo on a business card, testing the logo for social media, putting the logo onto promotional items like a t-shirt, applying the logo and brand design scheme to create the livery of a lorry or van, producing a website design with the brand-scheme.
4. Production Stage: Master artwork of your logo and brand assets, scalable format brand assets, RGB and CMYK colour versions for both online and print applications. If necessary the composition of a Brand Manual.
5. Brand Development: This might involve the creation of advertising and marketing materials, a brand/product promotion video, social media content creation, website design and construction, software design and development - whatever your brand needs to be brought to life and generate business.
Brandgarden can provide all of the services listed above. I have devised, designed and deployed successful brand identities and campaigns for a huge range of business of all sizes.
For examples of the logos I've designed and brands I've built please see:
www.brandgarden.co/business-identities
My online portfolio: www.brandgarden.co - contains detailed case studies on a wide variety of campaigns.
TESTIMONIALS:
Peter Stobbs - Stobbs Scaffolding: I know how important a company’s banding is and that it is worth investing in. I contacted Bark after a few failed attempts at designing my own logo. A few companies contacted me but Glenn emailed me to ask if I was able to talk on the phone about what I wanted for my brand. It was refreshing to actually talk to someone about what I wanted, what my business was about and the target market.
I would highly recommend Brandgarden for any business looking to create a strong brand. I have got so much more than I was expecting from the whole experience. Glenn can help you with many aspects of your business and has lots of good marketing ideas.
Glenn is very efficient with time and within a week from when we first spoke I had a name for my business and a very strong finished logo with a powerful brand icon. A few days after that I had eye-catching designs for a t-shirt, site banners, lorry livery, business cards, invoice template and website home page.
I believe my new Stobbs Scaffolding brand and the Flying Owl logo has been key to my scaffolding business being very successful from the outset.
Neil Cheston - CEO, Flag Yachting Monaco: The 50m Feadship motor yacht HANIKON went into new ownership at the end of last year’s busy Mediterranean season.
The schedule was very tight for re-flagging and re-branding the yacht in time for her Transatlantic passage and a full upcoming Caribbean charter calendar.
Having worked with Glenn during my time as Sales Director at YCO, I knew I could count on him
for a fast response and a high-quality job.
The greatly-improved look of the yacht
and the evident delight of the owner are enough to validate that decision.
We will certainly use Brandgarden again.
Matthew Mcpherson - Tiny Media: I can't rate the professionalism, commitment and talent of Brandgarden (Glenn Greenhill) enough. Not only was the work that he produced for us of top quality, but it was his experience and understanding of how to guide us through our own ideas and thus create much higher-quality graphics and branding with class and thought. I look forward to working with him again and would recommend hiring him to anyone who is serious about quality.
Angela Savidan - Grey Direct: Glenn is the fastest thinker I’ve ever met – a totally integrated campaign is conceived in the time many people would need to simply assimilate the brief.
Guy Lane - Kabina: I’ve worked with Glenn for many years. He is very insightful and has a real instinct for brands and marketing.
Others can be struggling with coming up with great ideas but Glenn always comes through with something powerful.
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